The Queen's Castle Ep.3 - The Ranger - British Royal Documentary

[Music] spread out over 13 acres windsor is the largest inhabited castle in the world it is a palace filled with great treasures and the odd mystery got me torched yes found in the back of the locker in my office i'm sure she sees this now she'll probably want it back windsor's cathedral-sized chapel is at the forefront of royal family life and is home to clergy with pressing modern demands just as remarkable as the castle is the great park itself miles of idyllic public countryside wedged between the river thames london suburbs three motorways and the world's busiest airport the famous story of course is that american tourists was heard to say well why did they build a castle so close to london airport both house and garden have to pay their way in an unforgiving world the castle depends on visitors to maintain its art the chapel must fund itself as well the cost estimate is four hundred and four thousand pounds the estate also has to make ends meet [Music] it's a vast stage two for favorite family events and a playground for everyone look at this this is england this is fantastic you couldn't buy this in a million years the person in charge of this by tradition is the ranger of the great park the present one has held this position for more than 50 years longer than anyone in history [Music] but the duke of edinburgh has never previously given an interview while on his rounds he's taken yet another picture of me getting out of the car like every ranger he knows it's his duty to hand it on in good shape to the next generation windsor stretches far beyond the castle walls [Music] friends had some of these parakeets or bought the budgerigars and we thought we'd got some of those and then i thought it'd be real fun to have some doves floating away so trouble is they get nicked by speller hawks and things but on the hill they seem that breeding seems to keep up within weeks of becoming monarch in 1952 the queen appointed the duke of edinburgh to the position of ranger of the great park he must make sure that this ancient estate is run efficiently the greenhouse production has recently been reduced the difficulty is that we're either here by ourselves or we've got 100 people living in the place you know if you've got a green a greenhouse you need to have a sort of constant production it's much more expensive uh growing our own stuff and getting it from tesco whatever it is he has not surrendered to the big guns of retail though he's recently opened windsor's very own farm shop shop do you want to do that yeah we'll try and get there but i didn't really care this is quite funny this is a this pub here is now called the british raj i think isn't it but it's still got lord nelson it's a british raj it used to be called the lord nelson it's now called the british road you know the idea one of the advantages of the of the shop is is that it's got this entrance and exit here you see there's quite a lot of people using the windsor farm shop sells stock from all the royal estates great park venison sandringham potatoes duchy of cornwall biscuits [Music] but most of this stuff comes either from the crown state or from local producers [Music] any good are they [Music] all the butchering is down in the back there or right here in front of everybody and the majority of this is comes from off the estate but a lot of it comes from other local producers i think we're going to sort of clog up the system if we stay in here much longer [Music] the public are about to arrive at the castle too castle superintendent major alan denman begins his daily patrol really fun of it it's just it's a it's a it's a obviously over a thousand years old um a thousand years and uh yeah uh you know something's gotta be taken care of even though i've been here the year there's still parts of the castle i've not been into and jimmy jimmy the foreman often takes me around and nothing gets me lost and i've found lit shafts i've never seen before towers i've never seen before so you you know you learn something about it every day tourism is crucial to windsor one million visitors bring in eight and a half million pounds each year the money supports the royal collection's national treasures and the rest helps repay the castle's four million pound maintenance bill very good morning welcome to uh windsor castle my name's peter my name is penny welcome to windsor castle it's an alluring mix a royal home and a thousand years of history william the conqueror built windsor castle defeated the english in 1066 in the battle of facing now the queen spends lots and lots of time here at windsor she's looking very royal isn't she in this picture yesterday have you met the queen yes i have met the queen actually a lot of people want to know have i met the queen several children have asked if i am the queen at the lower end of the castle sits in george's chapel a gothic masterpiece where the royal family have worshipped since medieval times monarchs are buried here the prince of wales had his marriage blessed here but it's also a local church which holds at least three public services a day [Music] it supports its own clergy as well as saint george's house a center for interfaith discussions behind closed doors saint george's always does its own thing george's chapel is what is known as a royal peculiar which means that we are not within a church of england diocese we have only one boss and that is the queen saint george's chapel is entirely self-funding the dean and his cannons are starting some very expensive maintenance work this stage the cost estimate is 404 thousand pounds which is 13 down on the original projection there are no floorboards to look under where we might discover terrible things so there's a hope that we might be keep fairly on target to survive the chapel must rely on a slice of ticket money donations and the chapel shop but the shop hasn't been performing it's too small it's in the wrong place and it has the wrong products so canon john white and chapter clark charlotte manly have been appointed to supervise the launch of a new shop they start by hiring a shop manager with some modern ideas for a long time there's been a wish that we do something to redevelop the shop and really move that on into the 21st century and this is just a beautiful location as people exit the chapel where we can have new fixturing state-of-the-art merchandise and till systems but also a much more accessible area for our visitors even in a medieval cloister the latest marketing techniques are required the chapel shop committee have asked branding expert david clare to design a new identity saint george's needs a logo the title really of this presentation is creating a retail identity for st george's chapel an identity is being formed in the way that the shop is coming together physically but we also need to develop a brand identity that works effectively supporting the chapel and also representing the product david thinks he has just the answer an image of saint george which is seen on the front of the altar but will it meet the demanding standards of cannon white the saint george from the tapestry is actually a very very beautiful tapestry it's very nicely rendered and it's a very very attractive image of saint george so the principle here quite so much life's gem right it's quite a feminine it is a very feminine perception and it does and i think the more it becomes simplified the more feminine it comes yeah well the face i think becomes more and more feminine on the sim uh simplified sign i think also it picks out on the features more and more as it becomes more can i start with a few straight questions yes dude um what are the pros and cons of the um jones and george issue try to confuse him with an image that is um yes i'm going to be blunt and say i don't like the image right it's a george image at all okay um i think he gives quite the wrong kind of feel i think it's androgynous and uncertain and a bitter feat and it has a as far as i'm concerned all the kind of soppy romanticism that i don't think we ought to be showing so the answer is no ons and george i think we would be we would certainly be happy with some george white leads the search party around the chapel to find a more virile saint george i think there isn't george on this window except yes there is uh in the center oh in the center no no he's not that's not like the archangel he has wings michael yeah okay it's fun but it wouldn't work [Music] wrong color they widen the search around the castle at last tucked away in the chapel archives they all find what they've been looking for a tougher stronger more masculine george [Music] the duke is always full of ideas for the park even if some schemes have proved a little too ambitious that great tank there's a remains of an attempt to have a biogas plant we thought we'd try and put all the manure in from from this these two farms and then it went through a digester and it comes out as sort of fertilizer and produces some gas as well unfortunately while they were doing something to it the digester blew up so we had to get so we had to get rid of it it's it's quite difficult to to get it right he shares his love of innovation with a previous ranger also married to a queen albert victorious prince consort this is a prince consults farm and was designed by him and there's a dairy farm we got about 200 um jersey cattle in here and the shaw farms one further up which is airship cattle at shore farm adrian tomlinson looks after the queen's airshire herd something i'm very proud of doing it is breeding uh pedigree cattle for her majesty the queen and hopefully i'm doing a good job of it i'd been here probably about six months before i first met the queen i was taking the cows back to the field after i'd milked them and the queen pulled up in a car and sort of said hello and etc i was very aware that i should have perhaps changed my overalls that morning and hadn't done and what estate i was in adrian's arch rival is andrew buckland he runs the other royal herd the prize-winning jerseys at prince consorts farm her name is good news she was a supreme champion at the royal forest show last year and we're taking her again this year it's a fairly fitting name we think i hope we hope might be bad news after tomorrow i think she's as good as she was last year i mean adrian's got some very good care as i've seen up there but um uh yeah i would hope that um that you know she does she does well hopefully as well as last year andrew is the reigning champion in these parts but as windsor's big agricultural show approaches adrian and his ashes are determined to steal the crown off the jerseys he wants his cows to be the queen's top herd the windsor castle labyrinth extends far below the surface [Music] castle superintendent major alan denman is still finding his way around [Music] we're going to defender smiths i do like to get around the castle and have a look at various parts of the castle and there's a tunnel underneath the fender smith's room so we're gonna have a quick look down there i've had a look around the border room and even though i've been here just over a year it's probably about 25 percent of the rooms and places i've been into so i do like to have a little wander now and again got me torch yes i found in the back of the locker in my office and um you can see it's got her manage the queen on but i'm sure she sees this now she'll probably want it back right here we are in the hub the operations room the fender smiths tell us about this sign on your door here i think it was one of the policemen having a bit of a laugh on his computer it's a it's a laugh isn't it yeah i don't wear such a big nappy as the boy there but um yeah it's all right right let's have this tunnel [Music] right neal we're not quite sure what this tunnel was used for but we believe it might have been used for uh an air raid shelter in the second world war but you can imagine wouldn't have been like digging it out yeah can't you yeah there are many tunnels here no one is entirely sure when or why this one was originally built but it's probably medieval back then the castle's occupants always needed a way out during a siege yeah quite nice we could have winds of spring water we'd make a fortune this is where this is where the fenders must keep their wages yeah that's why there's two strong rooms rather than one did you enjoy that helen yeah it's another part of the castle um i haven't seen and it's very interesting [Music] for now it's business as usual for gary and neal the castle fendersmiths the fender is a piece basically in front of the fireplace and it protects any sort of rugs carpets from coal or spitting embers that sometimes fly out of the fire there are probably three or four hundred fireplaces in winter castle but on a regular basis we're only looking for the ones that the royal family themselves use this weighs probably about eight stone you know money there aren't too many of us left doing exactly this so it's a job that we uh we're quite proud of down here my cousin used to be a cabinet maker his son was in one of the pantries for a while my dad did my job before me his mum was in the turkey farm down on the park so yeah we're sort of third generation here so it's yeah it's a long old tradition for me once the royal family are in residence it's always time for the fender smiths to smarten up nine times out of ten we try to get in and out without seeing anybody but there are times when you know you do bump into guests and members of the royal family so hence delivery goes on gary was in charge of lighting fires at the time of the 1992 fire but he has a clear conscience we know the big one was anything to do with us our fires are fairly regulated that was one of the days when we would have lit a fire for a majesty so uh needless to say i said to her paige at the time i don't think we'll be lighting the fires today as unfortunately the castle was burning it's not a bad one is it how does father christmas get in winter castle this time of year then father christmas will come down one of our chimneys if he's got a pass father christmas isn't i don't think on the computer at the moment [Music] the ranger arrives at an old airfield in a far corner of windsor great park this was a base during the second world war and later on the duke had flying lessons here after the planes left he came up with another of his plans i thought it might be an idea to start a polo club here somewhere and we hit on this place and then we got the um head groundsman at eaton college to advise us on how to convert this sort of heath into a into a playing field it's certainly quite popular but now the standards are so phenomenal they're even suggesting that this isn't flat enough i'm not quite sure what they mean by it in his day the duke was a leading polo player and smith's lawn is now one of the most famous polo arenas in the world and when there's a polo tournament going on here and there's a windsor park equestrian club going on here on one we here there's probably a thousand horses on smith's lawn ladies and gentlemen good morning today the ranger's grandson is keeping up the family tradition [Music] they're already pouring on to smith's lawn for the greatest event in the british polo calendar cartier international day and prince harry is the star attraction in the opening game in the absence of his father he's leading the prince of wales's team against the hurlingham club with the prince of wales team on the near side playing in red prince harry number one in the redshirt players line up in goes the ball straight away as prince harry gets into the thick of it the crowd of more than 20 000 are almost as excited as the commentators they're going out in front it's gone wide george's chapel everything is being done to get the new cloister shop ready for the grand opening the suitably masculine saint george has finally been turned into a logo chapter clark charlotte manly views the result it's the first image and it looks good and strong and i think that's a lot better thumbs up go for it a new shop needs new products charlotte has invited a firm of retail specialists to pitch their wares well we're here to talk about product so we've gone through the very exciting bit talking about the plans of the shop and really now here is where we can bring it to life for you gosh where do we start there is some fabulous fabulous product out there we know people like buses they like soldiers we also have oh a fabulous pewter range now oh bags yes we'll be using this sort of little style of bag but again with the little beads and the tassels also mugs let me show you a couple of markers as well oh ties as well really nice ties we did talk about having some unusual product can i get excited about unusual products and george here oh yes exactly charlotte has been doing her homework in the right direction i agree that those are lovely but i've also sort of the globes and things i seem to see in quite a lot of other places or was that just just just sheer chance i've seen one shop in um dartmouth and devon one in stockbridge in hampshire you are the experts in this area rather than me and you're just floating ideas i realize that but it is beginning to appear other places that's my only that's my only quarter's remark about it not the product itself it's just that it's okay well we'll bear that in mind and i think i'm not quite sure what to say to that actually time to switch tech oh the chocolate very exciting this chocolate is really going to be super that's when we were testing out which we might just have to break some open again i think it's opening day cannon white is presented with the first carrier bag bearing the new logo i think that's much better than what we saw before i think so i think i think it works as an illustration it's worked quite well really developing it up from the statue that's great in the center of the cloister i don't think we're having any trouble with animal rights people about killing dragons hopefully not yeah and there aren't very many dragons left to complain the local media have arrived along with many friends of saint george's the dean of windsor gets business underway it's my great pleasure to welcome you all to this little uh reception i declare that the shop is well and truly open [Music] [Laughter] it's always a problem having a shop in a church people have got quite strong ideas and because of christ driving the money changers and the sellers of doves out of the temple precincts people always got that at their back of their mind but economic realities can't be ignored all the money that we get from the shop is key this place doesn't run on no money at all it takes a lot of cash to fund the quad to fund the buildings themselves to pay salaries and the funds that we get from the shop are very very important to that whole game plan delighted delighted really first class absolute top of the top standard shop i think if lord sainsbury says that we've got a decent shot it must be a decent shot in the first month alone takings at the new shop were up by nearly 70 percent on the old another victory for saint george it's judgment day in the great park the royal forest agricultural show rival royal dairy farmers adrian tomlinson and andrew buckland are about to go head-to-head with their cows [Music] competitors adrian prepares his ashes for what will be a tense beauty parade uh the judge is a hugely respected man a man that i've got a lot of time for like a [Music] well well-known figure nationally um but he is uh he's a jersey man you know he's had a jersey head all his life he likes the jerseys but he's um you know first class chat and the first last judge so hopefully the best cow will be coming first you know there's not a lot that dairy legend donald dawes doesn't know about cows will he select one of the queens and if so which one he's not a man to be rushed [Music] all the preparations have come down to this one moment andrew and adrian can only stand and hope that their cow will be the dairy queen [Music] very champion well done agent with the dairy champion trophy to stick in his cabinet adrian is off to celebrate at the heart of windsor great park is the york club it's the social hub of the estate community tonight there's an added attraction a charity ferret race i've been around here for 15 years but i'm the new boy compared with a lot of them up here you know because they've been around for two or three generations [Applause] adrian can't win them all [Applause] ferrets ponies cows deer today it's the turn of the swans on the thames all the young ones must be counted in an ancient ceremony known as swan upping [Music] it's a great old english tradition and the sort of thing we should really try to maintain there's always something going on in this kingdom within a kingdom [Music] a charity match for the lord's taverners and their royal twelfth man to play the great english game in this setting is just brilliant zara phillips represents britain at the windsor horse trials in front of the family bendy right look like that schools open day at the crown estate headquarters [Applause] like the castle the grounds have a pageantry of their own the queen's castle is a spectacular treasure chest much of the royal collection is on display here room after room of great paintings antiques drawings furniture and much more [Music] they made a gold it's a silver guilt so it's silver covered in gold silver how much would all that cost i think it's priceless no one can put a value on it all there would be much much more if oliver cromwell and his republicans have not sold off most of the earlier royal treasures after the english civil war even so this is still one of the greatest collections in the world it doesn't just need cleaning it needs constant expert attention to preserve it for the future and it must also be shared with other exhibitions so something is always on the move the collection is regarded as a national asset the the painters which have been handed down from generation to generation are in effect in in a sort of position of trust and the sovereign is the the person who ultimately has responsibility for their well-being in a sense although we obviously would do all the work so that they're preserved for in effect the nation every painting in the royal collection comes back to windsor when it requires work we've got a rather large reuben it's a very very important painting from buckingham palace it's horribly covered with old varnish old repaint it's brown it does need a lot of work we would never put that painting in on public show in the condition it is now people probably don't realize how much work is is behind the scenes i mean the ideal is that you shouldn't realize you shouldn't look at the painting and think gosh they all look as if they've been cleaned recently they should just look good windsor is a merry-go-round of great art the painting which has just left the state apartments is a windsor favorite the chinese convert by nella rupert must give it a full inspection before releasing it on loan to the victoria and albert museum in london the royal collection does get a lot of requests for paintings to be loaned to exhibitions and if we can we do oblige them with that because it seems important that they they are seen by the public in a if not in the castle in an exhibition elsewhere as one masterpiece departs another returns rupert and his team are reuniting queen anne with her husband king james the first of england she was the daughter of the king of denmark her brother became the king of denmark and she married the king of england in scotland and then her sons were future kings so she was a very proud you know proud of her lineage and so the merry-go-round of great works continues it seems shame not to have his queen next to him he's been here for a long time hasn't he the james the first and even though it's not an exact pair even though they weren't meant to be necessarily seen together they're by the same artist they're the king and queen the dating's appropriate you've got the next generation here with charles so it's it's it's a very appropriate picture the castle is not the only place to see the royal collection at windsor in the home park the castle's back garden sits an elegant 17th century mansion once home to queen victoria's mother on display are tables and chairs which have been around the world many times it's a kind of [Music] memorial to britannia when the royal yacht was decommissioned in 1997 prince philip wondered what to do with all the furniture well we just had it and it was i just thought it'd be a good idea if we kept it together and the the ballroom here didn't have any furniture and i thought that if we took the dining room furniture from the yacht it fitted almost exactly into there and so we've got all the we got the table the main table and the sideboards and chairs and things of that sort and then we thought we might as well put up all the china and silver in there too the royal family often retreat to frogmore for privacy and yes it's used quite a lot because when queen comes down here brings it takes the dogs out yeah sorry because it's it's enclosed anyway so to keep track well hopefully to keep the rabbits out was not very successful it's easy enough to drive a team of horses or ponies right it's not so easy to drive the car run there's some great dog groove yes looks like it yeah that dotted about all over the place um that's queen victoria's mausoleum this is the sort of family burial plot maybe we can stop much easier to take a picture of it [Music] [Applause] [Music] is so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] great place for crows is of all the duke's projects as ranger he's particularly proud of creating a new deer park at windsor this was originally to keep the deer from the great park from getting into from you know coming down this way now you have to keep the deer in the blood is silly that's the outcome where they can't see any other deer everybody's out of the park and then when people come in they move off a bit this used to be arable all through here during the war it was all plowed out but it's lousy i mean most of it's clay it's almost impossible to then we had cattle on it and it was all fenced in it wasn't profitable and so we decided to put it back to a deer park we brought them down from belmore they've always been here here so at least we brought back their descendants so that all this is now open park which i think is a very much better arrangement than it was before i mean looking at this like surely it was the right thing to bring back the deer park because i mean it is the most i'm glad you agree he's got to take me getting into the car yet again perhaps the greatest challenge for the park during the dukes era has been the increasing numbers who use it i think many more people use the park now because what's happened in the last 50 years many more people have got motor cars they can travel further so that a huge number of people just can drive here it wasn't always like this george iv believe it or not would not allow anybody into the great park at all not even his household and we're delighted to share it with i mean the community shares me they can take their dogs for walking or something people come from all over to walk around good habits i mean compared to most people we're extremely fortunate to have any open space at all the duke believes that the main duty of every ranger is to be a custodian for the future i mean life's going to go on after me if i can make life marginally more tolerable for people who come afterwards or even at the time i'd be delighted the next generation are equally attached to windsor tonight just weeks before his wedding the prince of wales has gathered celebrities and business leaders here to support his prince's trust [Music] it's hard to refuse an invitation to dinner here this is the first time i've ever been to windsor castle i'm trying to be polite to talk to people but at the same time i'm looking all around me trying to take it all in it's breathtaking or inspiring slightly over the top looking at the goals here these guests though have not just come to admire the decor they're ambassadors for a trust which has been helping disadvantaged young people for 30 years kenny ross was jobless and homeless until the trust helped him build a new life he's also a keen guitarist and tonight he's not only having dinner at the castle but he's made a new friend eric clapton it's things like it's not happening every day does it no that's a bizarre it's unreal kenny is not the only one who's a little dumb struck by the occasion it's overwhelming isn't it it's a bit overwhelming um i'd like to be here on my own to be honest so i could just walk around and have a look nikki chapman has just seen the seating plan well i'm actually sitting at his table yes i think i'm actually sitting rather close to him so i'm gonna have to be on my best behavior but before anyone can tuck into their lemon cured salmon the host reminds them why they're here ladies i couldn't be more delighted than to welcome you all here this evening to windsor castle now all i ever wanted to do when i started the trust three decades ago was a bubble to make an investment in the future pure and simple this cause has been close to the prince's heart for many years the future duchess of cornwall will be attending many evenings like this in the years ahead and believe me there are literally thousands of young people out there who do need us all i can say is you are quite literally saving lives so thank you all very much indeed the guests don't leave without offering the prince and his bride-to-be their best wishes i mean i think it's a great thing i think it's a great thing and he only seems very happy wonderful i think marvelous juicy proclamation of love can't go wrong [Music] the day has come that love is about to be recognized formally and in front of millions around the world even for windsor seen of so many great state occasions this will be an historic landmark it's 142 years since the prince of wales was last married two pounds of whistles castle flagman tony martin has a somewhat larger model it's so big that he's drafted in the buckingham palace flagman to help him raise it here we go how big is this one 38 feet by 19 feet wide fantastic there's something like this good see this in ether the flowers are monumental 35 000 daffodils to honor the prince of wales it would have been nice to put a few leaks in but i think people might have said it smelt a bit [Music] the guests won't need much dinner after this reception well i think all together there's about 19 and a half thousand canopies for the actual reception which is quite a lot to do and some two thousand well-wishers in the lower ward need looking after too the one thing is not going to go wrong there's loads of lose ladies gentlemen and disabled we got them scattered all over the castle at 12 25 the bride and groom make the short journey into the town for the civic ceremony there will only be 28 guests at this event but it's in george's chapel 800 are arriving for the afternoon service of dedication and prayer it is both exciting and momentous in porcelain blue the new duchess of cornwall arrives with her prince by thy blessing let these rings be to charles and camilla a symbol of unending love and faithfulness a new royal era begins the queen the duke of edinburgh and the house of windsor rally round now officially her royal highness the duchess begins her first walkabout oh having sorted out the car decorations the young princes send their father and his bride on their way absolutely fantastic nailed it end of a good week the honeymoon will be in scotland [Music] [Applause] we have celebrated the start of something very very remarkable those who were here today will never forget [Applause] [Music] windsor castle has stood here through more than 40 reigns and it is still very much at the heart of royal life the prime challenge for every generation is to hand it on to the next the ranger hopes he's done his bit i think to try and create a memorial to yourself my lord alive is slightly indecent i'd rather other people decide what what legacy i'd left and i'm not trying to create one any organism needs to be kept going the fact that it is going still after 50 years that's not bad going because if you hadn't done it something worse might have occurred [Music] william the concrete built his castle up here and it's been occupied virtually ever since [Applause] [Music] no one will ever build another windsor for all its history its real strength will always lie in its people you know some of my staff have been here sort of 30 odd years and you know a year there's nothing the rest of the world come in on those tin cans to see what we've got here you know tradition in history very well we have a very good um what we're actually a boss so a message here and you subscribe take it in quick and get back here it's the nervy time now marvellous one of the lovely things about windsor castle is it's alive and it's working i can't imagine windsor castle any other way

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 77,478

Rating: 4.8894644 out of 5

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Id: LqXkWRN8Kzo

Length: 47min 8sec (2828 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021