Queen Victoria's Invigorating Seaside Holiday | Royal Upstairs Downstairs | Real Royalty

[Music] just what you have to do when a queen decides she's going to pop in to see you not just any old queen victoria like a pair of obsessed victoria groupies we're pursuing her around the country to the posh pads she visited we'll be delving into her personal diaries to reveal what happened behind closed doors in our journey today we've come to wonderful walmart castle in kent and like albert and victoria we're taking the sea and as someone who spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques i'll be exploring upstairs looking for the things that would have impressed victoria on her visit here well it looks grand enough doesn't it as a chef who's passionate about all sorts of food i'll be getting a flavor of work below stairs and creating a super 19th century recipe that was served to victoria oh the smell and testing it out on tim's 21st century taste buds [Music] today's story is about a royal retreat that started like a holiday from hell victoria and hubby of two years albert stayed here for almost a month they hope to find some peace and quiet away from the spotlight of public duty victoria and albert came here in the november of 1842. they brought the two kids with them the prince of wales who was one and the princess royal victoria who was aged about two but do you know rosemary they'd first intended to have their winter break in brighton but a sudden outbreak of scarlet fever meant that they changed their minds and the royal party came here despite the fact that they said it was too small for their needs good lord it looks big enough to me so let's go and find out big enough for the two of us big enough for the two of us definitely according to the london illustrated news the tabloid paper of its day the royals were attended by a small entourage of ladies in waiting and equeries including lady littleton who wrote an account of the visit lady littleton was an avid letter writer and she records that the 103 mile journey down from london took some nine hours with hordes of well-wishers all delaying proceedings because they wanted to get a glimpse of the children so that meant that the royal party didn't arrive here until 5pm and as we both know how stressful travelling can be listen i'm going downstairs to find out how the servants coped bye warmer castle was built by henry viii as a fortress against invasion it became the official residence of a specially appointed guardian known as the warden of the sink ports who at the time was a military hero the duke of wellington [Music] but the arrival of victoria albert and their two children and their entourage meant even a man of hero's status was unceremoniously booted out as this cartoon of the time shows [Music] here he is with his housekeeper leaving for the nearby ship hotel but even wellington couldn't have foreseen the right royal mishap that began their visit because as the royal carriage drew into this gateway it got stuck nobody could get in and nobody could get out [Music] the duke writes her postillians drove her very badly into the gate of the tower she stuck in it and was obliged to get out of the carriage i believe that the children were carried over the bridge and the duke wrote later the place was a scene of most utter confusion with trunks baggage in every room and abigail's maids nurses of all ages and descriptions running about [Music] for such a big hoo-ha you'd have thought her madge would have commented on it but not a word all the queen records about her arrival is a description of the castle she writes it's a curious old castle but very comfortable by the time we got there it was quite dark and there could be a good reason for this omission after victoria's death her daughter princess beatrice copied out the diaries and then burnt the originals in accordance with her mother's wishes it's long been thought she edited out anything contentious after all they wouldn't want to embarrass the iron duke the national hero [Music] well warmer castle certainly has to be the smallest castle that victoria visits with us and frankly from here it doesn't look much like one does it this is the ground floor of the castle which originally housed military staff and servants when you get to come over here in this dark dank cranny of the room you can understand the scale of this fortification originally there would have been an arrow slit in here to take a cannon because out there is johnny foreigner trying to steal our country and it's not until about 1708 when the wardens of the sink ports start to live in warmer castle that it becomes smarter and better as a habitable space for victoria and albert their upstairs quarters were rather less functional the duke had the builders in before victoria's visit but she was not amused by her bedroom well it looks grand enough doesn't it but in her diary she reveals it wasn't exactly five star oh dear she writes the bedroom was very small and dreadfully cold and drafty littleton in her journal says it seems needless to go out for air doors and windows all chatter and sing at once and hardly keep out the dark storm of wind and rain which is howling round so she's awake in bed and all this lot is rattling protected from the cold winds by thick walls the kitchen gardens at walmart had their own micro climate so they could grow their fresh produce for 365 days of the year the kitchens at the castle no longer exist as they did when the royal family were here so i'm out in the fresh air today helping to prepare a classic victorian dish food historian ivan day is accompanying us on our journey with victoria together we're creating the dishes that would have been eaten by the monarch [Music] and today we're making one dish that was always on the menu soup and in particular consomme [Music] well we're going to start by making the basis of all soups and sauces and that's some stock we're actually doing in this wonderful victorian stock pot beautiful isn't it yes and first of all we've got some roughly chopped vegetables here they have to be large because if we have little particles of vegetables that block the tap up and the wonderful thing about this is when you make stock you always get a bit of fat floating on top because it's got a tap at the bottom we tap it off from the bottom no fat but we can block the tap up with little bits of carrot and onion so it's best to chop them very very roughly yes that's what they do sort of mirror roughly chops yeah it's what is called a mirepoix now well let's get this lid off which is very very hot being copper and if i hold the board rosemary could you actually get the vegetables into it no problems [Music] i mean this procedure hasn't really changed over the century this is exactly what i do already yeah but they were doing it 500 years ago and they're the people who taught us to do it they invented it all you know so we've got to give them some credit really these cooks from the past absolutely next into the pot goes a whole partridge and some cheap beef cuts known in victorian times as soup cuts [Music] finally we're going to put what you might call a bouquet garni all right let's get the lid on it's a lovely really tight fit yes the stock will need several hours to simmer and reduce back in the castle the queen would have been getting on with daily life in this quirky little retreat that her lady in waiting lady littleton describes in her diary as a big round tower immense thick walls and a heap of conical rooms of odd shape the queen makes the same comment in her diary most of the rooms are oddly shaped forming part of a circle such rooms didn't bother wellington perhaps they endeared him to the quirky castle and appealed to his humorous nature and here's the man himself the iron duke the duke of wellington the man that queen victoria described as the greatest person that we have ever produced he also had a great sense of humor here at walmart there was a gardener servant called jones who was very often mistaken for the duke when the duke was told this he said that's a strange thing because i'm never mistaken for jones [Music] this is the corridor that divides the castle and creates those odd shaped rooms rooms that frequently changed their function to fit the occasion but it wasn't the rooms that made the impression on the royal party it was the outside that mattered so whilst the drawing room might once have been used as a sitting room or for the odd reception even as a chapel the primary route is to get out onto this terrace to enjoy the divine view and the sea it was from this terrace that the queen and prince albert would have watched the 21 gun salute discharge from the battleship the thunderer in her honor the morning after she arrived although several such tributes were organized during her stay at warmer it was her express wish that her holiday was as retiring as possible how sweet and she spent a lot of time simply walking by the sea with her beloved albert [Music] this picture from the illustrated london news actually shows them strolling along the coast and if your eyesight is better than mine you could just about spot them holding hands victoria wrote in her diary at half past nine we sallied forth and walked at least a mile along the beach where there is not a house so different to brighton this is so private one morning the royal love birds slipped out of the castle with their favorite dogs and set off for kingstown a sudden squall forced them to seek shelter with a fisherman his hospitality was later recognized by the queen who rewarded him with a pension no less and according to the illustrated thunder news on her return she was the very picture of blooming health perhaps it wasn't just the sierra that gave her that glow i've done my maths and i can reveal that she was in fact about 12 weeks pregnant with her third child while she was here at walmart no wonder they needed the hearty meal that was according to the records awaiting them that evening and without a doubt it would have started with a consomme just like we're making and back in the garden our stock for this iconic dish is almost ready oh the smell oh that that actually the waffles you took that lid off is wonderful the beef beautiful beautiful really intensive stock we'll now need to clarify the stock to remove any residue i'm going to put into the stock um a handful of minced beef yep i'm going to drop that in and sprinkle it in if you can mix it in rosemary with the wooden spoon now that's not all i've got here some egg white as well which i've just sort of mixed up it's not really whipped up frequently they would put the eggshells in as well so i'm going to put the egg white in if you could just give that a good old whisk up it may look pretty ghastly but it really does the trick [Music] the next stage is to strain the clarified stock and in victorian times it was passed through what was known as a jelly bag this is a jelly stand it looks like an umbrella stand but this is the perfect thing for hanging your jelly bag in yes and it's not it's a fake one but it's made exactly as a victorian one so it was one of the most useful things in the victorian kitchen now if you very gently pour that promise you i will be very gentle if it doesn't come through clear we just put it through again we put it through again now this is the this is this is the moment of glory soup was a very important dish to all classes for the poor it was a whole meal but for the rich at posh banquets who had to stuff down seven or eight courses consomme would wet the appetite rather than satisfy it it's coming through beautifully look at that it says that is the most brilliant color well that that's essence of beef rice you think there's probably about seven pounds of beef and one partridge i know that has gone into what is actually a kind of alchemical distillation well i'm going to leave that straining for about another half an hour because i do not want to waste a drop well i'll see you later okay during this almost month-long stay not much could be said for the appalling british weather but victoria and albert endured it was november after all although nothing seemed to deter the royals from taking the sierra in victoria's diary she writes in spite of the pelting rain and high wind albert went out returning quite drenched and this along with the drafty and poorly heated castle meant that by the second week of the visit illness dissented not only victoria but both the children got colds and of course in the victorian period you only had to get a cold in the afternoon and he could be dead the next day victoria complains in her diary of her suffering and she was clearly worried about the children saying that they looked wretchedly ill wellington's own physician one dr hulk was called to attend the family although his prescriptions for victoria are indecipherable typical doctor walmar still has his amazing journal that reveals a day by day account of treatment for the royal tots and dr paul graspy a pharmacist with knowledge of the victorian era is here to explain just what the good doctor ordered on the 14th of monday it says the princess royal seemed slightly oppressed gave her good googly googly googly googly guck in a powder can you decipher what those are those drugs i can actually only make out one drug which is magnesium carbonate now i think on this occasion the doctor actually was using some fairly simple powders and i think this equates to something like liver salts or something like that most of the drugs they had weren't curative they were palliative so they they addressed the symptoms and of course the big worry victorians had was infectious disease because you see by the time you get to the wednesday he's saying the princess royal passed a good night she had her breakfast that's all very nice but the prince had his diet slightly altered arrowroot the bowels being a little relaxed so this is the one-year-old all right something's happened in the old tummy department overnight would you prescribe arrowroot for that jiffy tummy i'd prescribe my root for anything oh good arrowroot it's not going to hurt anyone uh it's mainly composed of starch um you powder it up you can make it into a paste and it's useful for all sorts of things because it coats the throat which can be quite good for coughs sort of mimic some of the cough mixtures we have today at the same time the child actually gets quite a lot of carbohydrates so if they're off their food they're taking in some carbohydrate yeah um taking in a lot of starch if you are a bit loose down the bottle yeah area it can it can sort that out as well so that that's a classic example of something that's quite benign yeah but you package it up wouldn't you and you do lovely folded paper around it and you put the powder on it and you dig it up i guess you'd say in today's terms dr hulk must have been honored to be treating the royals but you're just not going to believe this hulk's wife went into labor when he was expected at the castle this letter to lady littleton asks permission to be late permission was granted by victoria but with the proviso that he named the baby after her a son was duly born and just to prove i'm not making all this lot up look what we have here we've tracked down a copy of the original birth certificate which shows that dr hulk did indeed name the baby boy victor [Music] having made the stock and clarified it it's time for us to actually make the consomme typical of victorian dishes the process is everything this ingredient here is sherry so we really need to get this pan really really hot okay that's it it'll start boiling away just get all that alcohol off there right well here's the wonderful consummate stock which is very concentrated because it's a reduction i i reduced it very slowly so it's very concentrated yes and now that the sherry has got rid of all of its alcohol i'll put this in here look at it it's like honey isn't it beautifully clear would you like to taste it just to tell me what you think obviously the sherry's going to reduce it a little bit but come on you don't have to ask twice you know that with me doesn't tell me what that's like look at that you know it's absolutely perfect it's golden gold essence of beef now it's incredibly strong so we could dilute it a little tiny bit maybe i suggest probably from my experience put about a third in yeah this this is a dilute stock this one hasn't been reduced can you see it yes i can so let's try that and tell me what you think now this is how they got it absolutely perfect absolutely spot on yeah don't do anything else seasoned beautifully it looks perfectly clear now you taste it and tell me what you think you're absolutely right that's that's absolutely perfect and that's the kosome almost complete there is one other stage but before we do that i've heard tim's been talking to dr paul graspie about health above stairs and before he dashes off i'm going to ask him about the servants so would the servants in the victorian times have access to medicines victorian servants were actually very healthy and their life expectancy tended to be much longer than the general population there are examples of people living and working into their 60s and 70s and in addition some of them were reasonably well paid even by today's standards earning 40 000 pounds a year in today's money so undoubtedly yes they would have had access depending on their status obviously and where they were living so it wasn't necessarily the wealthier you were and the healthier you were yeah i mean the the difference in in health between the rich and the poor in victorian times was undoubtedly not due to the medicines they were taking it was due to their environment and their diet and their education and the fact that they could get away from the industrial pollution it was all the kind of things which even today make you healthy if i was a the lord of the manor or a stately home owner i'd want to make damn sure i didn't come into contact with people that might give me an infection i'd want my staff to be as healthy as possible in fact my own in my own family my own great great grandfather lost five children in in one week due to scarlet fever so i think that was the thing that terrified people with these infections that they couldn't control and of course the servants living in a in an area like like the castle we're in today um obviously the chance of getting an infection were a lot less than living in in the cities and cheeked by jail with everyone else so what i'm getting here is being in service is a good thing even so rosemary dear being royal was infinitely better as queen victoria's young daughter princess victoria discovered on her second birthday despite their sniffles the royal kids were in for a treat the people of nearby deal were determined to arrange an unforgettable day of celebration for the little princess on the occasion of the princess royals birthday on the 21st of november 1842 there were considerable celebrations on dry land and also out on the brining [Applause] more just offshore was her majesty's ship hms thunderer one of the navy's most famous vessels of that period and she was bedecked with flags at the same time there was a regatta from the deal and warmer boatmen who apparently broke into a spontaneous celebration not only for the princess royal but also for their monarch and to ran things off at the end of the evening they had fireworks and thunderer fired a 36 pound cannon boom boom lady littleton victoria's lady in waiting in her diary code princessy was most funny all day joining in the cheers and desiring to be lifted up to look at the people to whom she bowed very actively back in the garden ivan has vegetables on his mind but no ordinary veg no royal consomme was complete without decoration and we're ornamenting the dish with some floating vegetables start off this this is a wonderful old variety of beetroot it was extensively grown in england until the first world war particularly in kitchen gardens of great houses and its name was harlequin and the reason for that is evident when you actually cut it open because you've got this wonderful variegated red white red white sunset victorians love this sort of thing because you know it makes a wonderful beautiful little decorative garnish which you can put into the soup what they did was they'd get a couple of servant mates to spend a whole afternoon cutting very thin slices razor thin and then a variety of cutting tools were used all with the same end in mind and the best thing is to rotate it to make the dish extremely pretty [Music] that's great i think we might as well just pop this into the console okay well i finished that and uh [Music] don't they look pretty really beautiful isn't it just pop these in they just need blanching basically and then that's it wonderful it's like a salad in a soup i really can't wait for tim to see it and to taste it oh i'm serving the soup in the garden below the ramparts which despite the winter winds was protected enough to provide additional kitchen gardens and orchards in the 19th century today it is more ornamental like our royal dish of the day well this is a rare sighting in the garden if ever i saw one and also a very rare treat now i've got here [Music] it's a lovely beef consummate with a beautiful garnish of vegetables absolutely delicious now would this take a long time this is quite a complicated dish there's lots of different stages to it and they would have this at the beginning with a sort of thick soup and then a thin soup and it's incredibly healthy for you so if i got a bag cold i could have this this would be very healthy and very good for you yeah so let's have a taste see what you think it's got a lot of color to it it's beautiful it's a picture the flavor there the freshness it is a really great consummate i mean this is something that i would do oh it's today good isn't it i'll never be able to taste that tin consomme ever again you know that you're thoroughly spoiling me rosemary despite having a dreadful cold while she was here and being pregnant to boot victoria clearly loved being away from queenly duties but like the rest of us at the end of our halls reality beckoned and it was with a sigh that she writes on december the third felt quite sorry this was our last night here the bedroom was very small and dreadfully cold and drafty but still i formed an affection for it all and for the whole house in spite of being unwell and cold i regret leaving the seaside we're also sad to be leaving the seaside but join us tomorrow at wimpo hall in cambridgeshire where victoria encounters some wayward servants boy what are you doing down there [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 176,847

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, royal upstairs downstairs, royal kitchens, beef consume, royal documentary, queen victoria, royal cooking, royal meals, royal recipes, victorian recipes

Id: OE4QqXiXVTI

Length: 28min 54sec (1734 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020