Victoria's Lavish Stay At Castle Howard | Royal Upstairs Downstairs | Real Royalty

just what you have to do when a queen decides she's going to pop in to see you and 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 and today one of the largest and most easily recognizable houses in the north of england castle howard she came here in 1850 when she'd been queen for 13 years and as someone who spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques i'll be exploring upstairs looking for things that would have impressed victoria on her visit here and as a chef who's passionate about food i'll be getting a flavor of life below stairs creating another 19th century recipe that was served to victoria that is so strong and trying to tantalize tim's taste buds absolutely nervous [Music] in our journey following in the footsteps of victoria we've arrived in the summer of 1850 when she and prince albert were asked to stay here in the fabulous home of the howard family it was august and the royal family stopped here for two nights on their way to scotland for a summer break at balmoral the 31 year old queen was mother to seven children and she brought the eldest four with her castle howard is still owned by the howard family they've been here for 300 years the man in the driving seat for victoria was george william howard otherwise known as the seventh earl of carlisle the owl was a close friend and confidante of the royal couple and had suggested victoria stop off at castle howard during one of his regular visits to buckingham palace well it's time for me now to go downstairs to see how the staff coped and as usual i'm heading upstairs to see how the aristotes are getting on victoria and albert came to castle howard in yorkshire from london they arrived on a steam train that left from houston station and this was the furthest north that she had ever traveled by train [Music] this form of transport was still pretty new but thanks to their hosts interest in railways they were almost dropped at the door because he had just opened castle howard's own station this picture in the illustrated london news shows the royal party of lighting no longer operating as a station it's now a private house but looks just like it did in victoria's time they traveled the final two miles to castle howard by hallson carriage a real clash of the old and the new in her diary the 31 year old queen recalls the moment she arrived that evening we reached the house at half past six it is a magnificent building the earl recalls that as the carriage stopped he had to let down its steps himself there being no one else to do it who knows if the queen was amused by her host's sudden demotion to footman but she certainly would have been impressed on entering one of britain's most beautiful houses [Music] wow what a space [Music] so this is where queen victoria met the assembled dignitaries most notably the earl's mother the countess of carlisle the earl remained unmarried throughout his life and was devoted to his old mum in 1700 sir john van bruh was the man tasked with designing and building castle howard but the scream is he had never designed or built any other building [Music] he was helped by nicholas hawksmore a leading architect who'd worked with sir christopher wren he if saint paul's cathedral fame with its iconic dome and those connections explain why castle howard was the first private house in the country to feature a dome what a dome [Music] and you can imagine that titchy queen victoria coming into this entrance hall and literally standing gaping taking in this extraordinary space and the earth of course would want to show it off to best advantage and i'm going to go and have a closer look from the very top of the house to the bottom where our historical food expert and chef ivan day is starting to prepare our victorian dish of the day the kitchens at casa howard were destroyed in a fire in the 1940s but that's not going to stop us from creating another amazing dish so what are we making today we're going to make a dish which is called a salad of grouse alla [Music] a celebrated chef was invited by the earl to cook the ball supper for victoria's visit to carson howard in 1850 and this was his signature dish he won a competition in paris with this salad let's hope we can do it justice soyer instructs us to make a sauce first of all and i've got a couple of egg yolks in the bowl here right and what i'd like you to do is is to whisk those up for me while i pour in very slowly some olive oil just a little bit at a time just a steady very tiny stream like that [Music] first we're making the dressing for the salad it seems a bit like mayonnaise at this stage this is hard work i think ivan's got the easy job today you would use an electric whisk i think if you were at home we plug you in come on if you think that's hard work rosemary you should try these stirs oh welcome to castle hard's dome who's got the oxygen not very many people make it up here and i tell you for one i am not going to get too close to this edge with its vertiginous drop down to the great hall look at that on the evening of victoria's arrival they had a pre-dinner reception down there in the great hall and much to the amazement of the monarch and all the guests the earl had arranged up here in the dome a cuda theatre he had had no less than 2 000 tiny gas lamps applied to the inside of this banister all the way around that when lit spelt out the words god save the queen as this picture from the illustrated london news shows there was even a valve that adjusted the brightness so as the guests left the reception below and headed to dinner the lights went down and when they came out from their dinner as if by magic by turning the valve up came the lights positively environmental what [Music] and i'm still being environmental with my hand whisk [Music] now look that's absolutely perfect it's a wonderful anxious ointment lovely emulsion isn't it beautiful color too it looks great to our salad dressing we add salt pepper and sugar [Music] and once that's mixed in we add the herbs and shallots two tablespoonfuls yes of the chervil the tarragon and the shallots how delicious and we're just going to put those into the bowl look at this what a delicious herbal mixture what a lovely color i mean that's wonderful monsieur soya instructs us to put the mixture on ice and there is one rather surprising ingredient to add two tablespoons of chili vinegar this this recipe sounds rather contemporary doesn't it it sounds very modern indeed soy actually said that he didn't think this dish was suitable for the ladies because of the strength of the shallot and i think the fieriness of the chili vinegar well this lady likes it that's lovely it really is special that is delicious the sauce will stand on ice until we're ready to add the final ingredient [Music] castle howard was finished in 1811 just 39 years before victoria's visit it had taken over a hundred years to complete and work in the garden was still ongoing the current owner simon howard has agreed to tell me more well simon on the face of it this looks to be an immensely grand room is it thought that victoria slept in this suite of rooms well we're certain she did after all we do have the record of the queen's visit and here indeed it says the queen and prince in the green room the blue room and of course in the high saloon and they used this room which was a wonderful painted salon by it was painted by pellegrini in the original 18th century decoration and either side you have the bedrooms and of course prince albert and the queen would have used this room as a sitting room and also for their dinners lunches breakfast and rather than when they were with the whole family there were at least 14 members in the royal party's entourage including the earl sister the duchess of sutherland who was mistress of the wardrobe and 15 other attendant servants such as governesses and maids for the children and although castle howard looks enormous accommodation was surprisingly tight would accommodating them have been a problem well i mean it is extraordinary how they managed to sleep more i don't know but at the moment we could sleep 32 in the house if we tried it would be a bit of a squash and i didn't think we got the dining room big enough for them but but even so i mean there was 16 bedrooms here i mean notably actually the other carl stayed in his own apartment he wasn't being kicked out of his room but quite a lot of rearranging anyway to get them all in and get them all comfy i would agree with that and i think that the organization is tremendous would have been tremendous and it would be today as well i mean if one was to have the queen or the prince of wales to stay you have quite a large entourage following on simon the view is absolutely marvellous but was the fountain here when victoria was staying no it wasn't it we think that it was about to be constructed or they may have even had some of the work going on it may have been pegged out we're not sure but ultimately what happened was nessfield having designed this fund and put it in it was completed about uh 1853 and indeed we have a letter here from him to the hell of color talking about uh doing some testing you must have looked at it yeah look at that so it's dated october 53 my lord i love it don't you the fountains are reported as being all ready this is having spent how much well rather a lot in fact he went way budget but then that's normal these days too isn't it but i think that's so sweet though to do your own little ink drawing of the atlas fountain and there it is i mean it is what we see now isn't it and it still works the earl not only made the royals comfortable in his home but as a discreet friend he made them feel comfortable talking about their eldest son edward the prince of wales known as bertie victoria and albert frequently consulted the earl about bertie who was in their minds not very bright and proving almost impossible to teach the children's governess wrote of his constant interruptions getting under the table upsetting the books and other anti-studious practices a year before the visit the royal parents had taken the earl's advice to employ henry birch a tutor from eaton but things were not going well and albert had resorted to submitting bertie's bumps to the professional inspection of a phrenologist dr george coombe the l supported albert's decision like albert he was a big fan of this popular pseudoscience which claimed to be able to reveal a person's characteristics by examining the skull [Music] bertie's bumps were duly examined and comb gloomily concluded that the organs of ostentatiousness destructiveness self-esteem combativeness and love of approval are all at large gosh this came as no surprise to albert who clearly didn't hold up much hope for his son and moaned that such a brain could not have come from his side of the family back downstairs castle howard's curator christopher ridgeway is here to tell me about the lengths the family went to to host the royals [Music] what are your favorite documents from the downstairs part of the house well the documents that are really revealing from downstairs and i like most this memorandum between john henderson the resident agent and the seventh girl the agent henderson would have been the elves right hand man involved in all aspects of running the estate henderson sends down a series of suggestions and prompts to the seventh earl and we get his comments alongside them so it's it's a dialogue on paper will the crimson cloth which we can get here have to be laid from the north door to the south and from the dining to the drawing room doors and down to the bottom of the great steps i love the fact that the earl has answered yes yes yes to these questions they talk about whether the billiard room here should be dismantled and turned into a drawing room and the earl says no i'm quite against this four sitting rooms together would be monotonous and the billiard table is of much use in the evening they did keep a bit of an eye on the cost they did and in the final bill that's prepared there's a lot of things that were simply hired for the occasion perfectly normal really how very sensible i think so they didn't have to indulge in a massive outlay for all sorts of new things as you would for an event today you hired in so what sort of things would have been hard in well we have uh an expenses account for the visit prepared afterwards and here we see things that were hired in and purchased and this talks about well the hire of staff waiters cooks then you'd have the higher of silver of carpets too they talk here now whether it's hiring carpets or cleaning them i'm not quite sure then there's a higher of candelabras all sorts of things that you want and then you've got all this food supplies then you've got the carriage and delivery of everything that comes here and then you have a kind of rough figure of thumb for for wine spirits and so on so the whole lot comes to 1594 pounds which was a lot of money at that time but it was uh pretty kind of light i mean i think when she went to chatsworth it was probably nearly ten times that [Music] the earl might have hide in the carpets but he certainly didn't need to hire in works of art or antiques the place is stuffed to the gizzards well this is castle howard's antique passage lined with exquisite examples of roman sculpture dating from the first and second centuries garnered by the fourth girl from various parts of italy during his grand tour early in the 18th century it would appear that victoria's host the seventh earl was no great expert when it came to these antiquities but needless to say albert was incredibly interested albert had been collecting art all his life indeed he was part of a committee that oversaw the purchasing of paintings and decorations for the new houses of parliament and was described by committee members as showing not only taste but considerable knowledge which was not good news for his less knowledgeable host here at castle howard who writes in his diary albert asks many questions about busts and statues i'm quite unable to answer poor old seventh earl he'd have been embarrassed despite their hosts artistic shortcomings there is no doubt that the royal couple enjoyed the wonderful art on show queen victoria notes in her diary there are fine prints curious drawings and rare and beautiful antiques which enchanted albert [Music] well while the royal party wandered the corridors admiring the views upstairs those of us below stairs would have been keeping the place running as if by magic building and maintaining fires night and day is just one of the many tasks for the servants and talking of magic this fireplace is a real optical illusion directly above the fireplace there is no chimney it's just thin air this is a very clever piece of engineering because what happens is the flu goes into the column on the right leaving a clear space above where the statue seemed to float i wonder if her majesty noticed victoria certainly noticed the heat they gave out it was recorded that she asked that they'd be reduced and that the windows be opened on the second day of their visit victoria took a tour of the grounds and headed for the last resting place of the howard family it's a mile from the house and victoria and the children walked there after breakfast the castle howard mausoleum like the main building was the creation of the seventh earl of carlisle's great great grandfather now the queen was clearly fascinated at having the opportunity of examining this building as part of her tour of the estate the earl records that she examined every single foot and expressed great interest as far as victoria was concerned the earl was absolutely spot on because she records in her journal the mausoleum as being most beautiful the hole is a secular chapel with three little curious ones it's just the sort of thing i might one day build for ourselves morbid just over ten years later the death of her dear albert meant she did indeed need to build a mausoleum and she hastily constructed the frogmore mausoleum near windsor and as you can see in this picture from the illustrated london news it's a monument strikingly similar to the mausoleum at castle howard [Music] back at the house it's rather less gloomy with our colorful salad to cheer us up the first thing we need to do is to start putting in the salad stuff okay now in the victorian period they grew more salad varieties than we have now and in fact i'm going to show you this one now that looks a little bit like a rocket it's related but it isn't try that oh my giddy aunt that is so strong that it's hot peppery cressy it is it's a crest it's called landcrest right there's one other one i want to introduce you to right which has been used in england probably since the tudor period but which is completely out of favor now um do i eat that yes it's the pod oh my pee delicious absolutely delicious what is it they're reddish pods no yeah if you look you're ready if you let your radishes grow and go to seed that's what you get which i think is better than the things underground the roots and there they are i love these salad leaves ivan's introduced me to and for sawyer's grouse salad we line our dish with them we follow this with a layer of cooked shredded grouse onto our bed of salad before we go any further we have to go back to the fabulous egg oil and herb dressing that we put together earlier it has one final ingredient whipped cream you make our dressing almost like cumulonimbus clouds victoria's chef tells us to mask the salad with dressing masking was a common victorian term meaning to completely cover [Music] i think that's probably enough and now we build up the layers [Music] right that's the very last spoonful of that wonderful dressing delicious ornamentation was everything in the victorian period so to finish the dish off we're going to decorate it with what was called a garniture which is a little surrounding of garnishes and this one is based on these quarter eggs but we're told by soya to put a little point of radish on the top as well as the egg sawyer tells us to ornament with radishes and little diamonds cut from anchovies and gherkins [Music] reminds me of a kaleidoscope it's wonderful now this man won the gold medal with this amazing i just hope it is going to be appreciated by tim well so do you've got i take your time over you do this is something you can't rush this can you not at all no no when would this have been served in the meal well from all accounts very early on in the meal um possibly after the soup okay possibly even before that is early he may not be in his salad days but i rather hope tim enjoys this offering we're eating in the long gallery where victoria and albert themselves would have been served now there we go nice doesn't that look wonderful you have been naughty girl look at that is that the most beautiful looking dish i think i've ever seen isn't this stunning absolutely sunny it is called salad de grusse a la soyez which is alexis soyer who invented it and he won awards with it we are sure that victoria would have actually eaten this because it was the grouse season that she came in he was famous for this dish and this would be the dish well it's absolutely beautiful isn't it but i just love the whole idea that you're eating a game bird the thing is wholesome and healthy you've got all this greenery and delicious veg with it absolutely with these exquisite shapes well you can't help but take too much well i want plenty actually a policeman i have an egg too i love the decorations you can you can have one of these gorgeous eggs just take it off you're a very good egg yourself oh thank you how lovely now i'm going to go for a bit of grass myself yes find a little piece just see how succulent this is going to be now nah oh my gosh my golly gosh i tell you girl that's the business isn't it i mean soy or not absolutely marvelous now there's one final story that i want to share with you that relates to victoria's departure from castle howard four days after the queen departed more than two thousand people travelled by rail from west yorkshire to castle howard station they were keen to see the house where her madge had stayed today's visitors are well catered for but back then this was a completely new idea they only had two servants on duty and in the scrum that followed windows were broken and ladies swooned [Music] vayel was so infuriated he created a guidebook outlining how one should behave if one wished to visit castle howard well i think we've behaved appropriately so here's to you and your delicious food rosemary to the cooks and to ive well i think so definitely to all the cooks good [Music] join us next time on royal upstairs downstairs when we will be heading for the midlands to stoney abbey so here it is stoney abby to discover some special legacies of a royal visit this is the dessert that was served to queen victoria this is the shopping list for it really special that is very very special [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 143,007

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, queen victoria, royal cooking, royal upstairs downstairs, rosemary shrager

Id: dV573SCo45E

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020