War Hero Stories that Will Move You to Tears | Pentillie Castle Part 1

this time on american by countess i head west to pantilly castle in cornwall an exclusive wedding and private hire venue and home to the coraton family i help out with a high-powered clear-up operation on the croquet lawn i know i mean this is going to be a new look for me we need to try and start this if this starts win a winner if i will be shouting for somebody support and help hang on i feel like a transformer in this master the art of making the perfect bed and then what's dangling underneath okay okay and then bring the bit that was folding up here yeah down and then you've got a nice tight corner [Music] and venture into the victorian kitchen garden where nature is giving solace to war veterans [Music] when i married into the british aristocracy it was the start of a wonderfully exciting journey but it was also a little daunting i became a vi countess and for an american girl from a small town outside chicago that was quite a shock i live with my husband luke heir to the earl of sandwich and our family at mapperton house endorse it mapperton is a glorious sandstone house dating originally from the 1540s it is known as britain's finest manor house and it is full of wonderful treasures collected by luke's ancestors living in a place like this is a joy but also a challenge and every day we're aware that we're preserving a very special part of britain's heritage mapperton has opened up an extraordinary new world for me and i can't wait to share it with you all [Music] so if you love castles and manors and stately homes as much as i do please join me as i head off to visit some of britain's most spectacular historic homes on these trips i'll be meeting other owners who manage these large houses and estates as well as some of the fantastic people who work there too with them i'll be exploring the history the landscapes and the innovations of generations past and present and i'm particularly keen to meet the remarkable women who like me have married into these families bringing new ideas energy and more than a touch of style [Music] i'll be sure to roll up my sleeves and help out with a few jobs along the way is there a snake in here yeah what what so please join this american vi countess as i journey into the british countryside in search of some of britain's finest historic houses [Applause] [Music] pantily castle stands gloriously on the banks of the river tamar in the southwest of britain [Music] [Music] it's the first time i visited pantily and i can't wait to see sammy again [Music] all right something is going on here there are chairs okay wow oh my gosh [Music] that is not what i expected to see i was like where's sammy and then allison i see this machine huh meet my leaf blower sorry i'm not the expert but um all hands to the pump today well okay so tell me what is happening here because there's very tidy but it's not ready you're tidying up we are tidying up so there's been a wedding right this weekend so yeah there's chairs needing to go in and out turn the house around basically ready for guest tonight oh my god oh my goodness yeah well okay this is spectacular this is good the drive was fantastic and you brought beautiful weather so you can come again anytime you like yeah i will absolutely i will um but okay so you're tidying up for a wedding so you're obviously busy yeah come on help me i will come and help you yeah yeah that's what i'd like to do for you julie i'm going to leave like a leaf blower and you are very capable we need it for confetti in a minute so come on through wonderful i'm walking into a castle i'm a little hungry i don't know but absolutely i just want to drop your bag yeah that'd be amazing perfect she's totally taking liberties with guests arriving she's not normally allowed in the house so well i love her hoovering hasn't happened in this room wedding parties celebrate under the sparkle of the waterford crystal chandeliers and the watchful eye of the first happy couple of pantily we've got sir james tilley and elizabeth his wife right so sir james city built the house in 1698 so very important man for us very important man is that who i that's why i passed there at the front that's what i thought okay so he built the house 1698 yeah 322 something years ago okay so this is okay yeah yeah so he built the house in 1698 and yeah he chose i think a pretty good spot [Music] look at this view what do you think oh my god hello england that's england and the weather and the weather and that is gordon that's england this is cornwall but this is what you know every american thinks and everybody around the world when you come to england this is the view that the green and pleasant land yes and the the big lawn for croquis match or whatever and that's right the tidy up begins here confetti needs to be cleared up and hello this is chrissy our wedding coordinator julie so you are the wedding card well this is fantastic i mean i kind of wish i had gotten married here how many weddings do you do a year round about 25 to 30. right that's a lot different sizes yeah um from diddy tiny ones were just two which is so lovely you can feel the emotion in the rooms they are absolutely spectacular right the way through to weddings with 200 people down here on the on the lawn with a marquee incredible every single one is different they are they're all memorable for their own right reasons it's lovely and i love that you're in your heels they're fantastic but sammy how long have you been having weddings here because that's a big part of your sins here at pantelli right yeah it is actually so since before we opened so 2008 was the first one right so i'm so that's going for a good 13 years now absolutely i mean if you count you know the year that didn't exist but it's a big it's a big part of your business here it is weddings and and private hire so families come and they stay for the hot for the whole weekend at nicaragua they take over the castle for they do two or three days yeah or even a week what can i do to help well we need to get the get the confetti cleared so okay um this is quite tedious isn't it the natural pestle conceptually though that we make here from from the flower base do you know what yeah so much for this i'm going to get that leaf blower julia you can have a go with the leaf blower can i have a go yeah oh my gosh i was hoping you're going to ask me that i need to try out that leaf blower are you ready are you ready i don't think i am what would you like glasses i don't bother with the glasses okay yeah we can give them to you once you've got this one it's quite heavy okay it looks very happy okay come on okay my gosh oh my gosh sammy i did not expect this when i was coming for a visit this is heavy okay should we pop the glasses on put the glasses on it looks so funny i know i mean this is going to be a new look for me we need to try and start this if this starts win a winner if i will be shouting for some support and help hang on i feel like a transformer in this rule this might never stop [Laughter] it will then producer victoria gets all fired up okay now can this go in the behind the scenes please but when girl power falters sammy calls in reinforcements and with ted sammy's father triumphant its full throttle ahead [Music] [Music] [Music] this is amazing goodness i love it oh my gosh amazing that was way quicker it's definitely so fun i did i felt like you know a ghostbuster yeah oh my god it was so exhilarating but it's like the vibration i'm a bit sort of like right now amazing well thank you enormously ugh this is what i love to do yeah i mean i pop in for an overnight stay and put me hard to work but it's autumn isn't it so the leaves will be coming off the trees any time so yeah come back in about a month and dare i say that it's like warm here in england you see what's going on isn't it it's cornwall it's my sunshine so yeah thanks for bringing the southern channel everything but we're done so it's good we're done right it's done sorted i'm glad i could help out thank you yeah i'm gonna have to like just water yeah a glass of water right should i bring this back oh my goodness that monster yeah i've got it we're friends now we're friends now we're friends now i grab one side okay yeah maybe okay hold on i've got this all right [Music] so come on through the bookcases through there but we'll show you all of this later come on through if you don't mind shoes off of course ridiculous beige carpet whose idea was that [Music] these are the same rule we have the same rule yeah shoes off is always good can i take this for you no i i've got to show you i promise you i promise you all right so how many bedrooms are there here uh we have 11 bedrooms so one downstairs on the ground floor eight double ensuite bedrooms on this level and then two up in the turrets the castle turrets in the turkey they must be very popular i mean i want to sleep in a turret you're very welcome but instead i'm giving you the course in bedrooms okay this is one of my favorites oh and you've given me such great views it's a good idea look at this incredible you know you are running this now yes yes quite daunting right and sometimes brilliantly but i've only been here for like undreadfully but i've only been here for like a nanosecond and you're on the go all the time is this what it's like most days yes but i think it's probably the same for you guys isn't it there's always there's always there's always something there's always something so it's always you you have a plan for the day i try and have a plan for the week and quite often i still haven't done my laptop on and it's ten past three and it's time to collect the children from school so it's a bit of a juggle but i think that's the same in every house like this isn't it yes but it just means lots going on yeah every house but this is a castle of turrets but yeah i'm going to throw the sheet at you and let's get this done and then we can get you a comfortable ready for this evening can you go around the other side yeah yeah yeah i mean are you like an expert at making beds i pretend to be when i need to be down there okay what about the corners how are you are you only good at hospital corners let's just do this one first let's get it nice you know hospital corner right okay i'll show you so down underneath pull it underneath and tight yeah tight tight yeah now get this bit that's all drapey down here yeah and go like that okay go like that yeah and then what's dangling underneath okay and then bring the bit that was folding up here yeah down and then you've got a nice tight corner since the 19th century nurses would use this method to make beds for their patients okay i think we're both in practice i haven't done one for a while so pentilla was a maternity hospital in the second world war so we quite like our hospital callers we take it all back to when there was ladies having their babies here during the war which is quite fantastic and why was that why did it become a maternity hospital well we're just 20 minutes from plymouth so down the river and then the blitz and the alexandria nursing home in plymouth was you know one of the places that might be might be natural or right suffer under a bomb threat so um the pentaly and another house the other side of the river and devon were both requisitioned as maternity hospitals so pen tilly was a mentality sort of all during the second world war actually we haven't gone very well at this time no i haven't i'm just going to kind of watch you again so under yeah yeah and then bring this bit that's all dangly so you've got some to dangle the side bit yeah i don't know what's going on in there tuck that bit under and then the side yeah and then this is okay how's giving you're gonna laugh at me they're gonna say oh something no they're gonna look at my side and they're gonna be like she is rubbish well between us you guys could do a bit more practice could i i mean i could i don't think you need a bit more practice okay i'm happy let's do that i'll have to bring this back to matt britton hospital corners oh yeah that's quite nice isn't it it's nice i'm happy very excited perfect so that's duvets which always are hilarious and get lost in a duvet but oh dear no no you're good that one okay here with my hand grab and then pull it through yeah okay yeah that's right genius there we are done look you have such an uncomfortable night's sleep it was like really comfy except one side of the bed i didn't have any cameras in my own bed what was amazing when we first came here right we invited some babies and some moms to to come and have tea and this one lady arrived and she had rode here from plymouth when she was in neighbourhood which is quite impressive she rode off the river in labor yeah to get to pantaleon yeah during the war yeah that's amazing and she's she and you she came back to visit she came back to visit yeah with her son which was wonderful and amazing so that was something that was born here yeah oh my goodness but then the castle was three quarters bigger i forgot to say that bit that was pretty important because there's not that many reason you know eight bedrooms probably isn't enough for a whole maternity hospital but the castle was three quarters bigger so the courtyard you arrived in was this a central courtyard and so that there was another wing out there and another wing out there but it was all knocked down in the 60s so we're left with i suppose a third of what was here but you can have that one thank you fantastic oh yeah i like your little scissors there we are perfect [Music] over the past 50 years pantily has undergone some dramatic changes but since the family inherited the castle in 2007 they have transformed it into the most magical and tranquil place to stay [Music] you've done a lot to this castle right i think we have done quite a lot to this castle it was a very sort of dead space perfectly livable in right but it was a very just a dead space very um just needed some life and some love but i kind of knew what i wanted if that makes any sense yes and i sort of knew what i didn't want wallpapers and all that sort of thing um i just wanted it as plain as possible because actually that stage we didn't even know what we were going to do with the whole house was it going to be a livable prospect quickly became obvious that it wasn't um and so then what we're going to do if you've got the general public in and lots of parties going on there's no one having wallpaper which has got to be redone yes after every every wedding and so it was paint and i knew the sort of colors i wanted yeah it's very exciting it's it's it's it's a clean welcoming color good yeah so i really like that so you've been taken in obviously not here but you've taken all of pretty much kind of the the shell of the castle if you like in the interior yeah a lot of we've done a lot of it and it's certainly from from this this this point on but this is actually one of my most favorite bits right here yeah um this is my military war what i call my military war because um all ted's relations said this is jeffrey carlson who his first cousin who he inherited pentile from he was actually the second son the first the eldest son was killed in el alamein and then jeffrey inherited but as the second son and then he came here to um to run the house and they ran you know had a very lovely life but not a great deal i mean they had that they had chefs and cooks and things and they had no children and they then just lived here but it was very sterile anyway i could describe it hugely sterile but anyway so we then had to make it a sort of livable home even if you're coming here to as a as a paying guest yes but one of my most favorite things is the the guests who are not the paying guests who are the military veterans who um we have here twice a year and they come and stay for a week they either have um they could do exactly what they want they can have yoga and meditation they can do clay pigeon shooting they can canoe they can paddle board they can paint because they suddenly find that since they become veterans they they're now able to develop these amazing talents which maybe they didn't know they had listening to sarah i'm realizing what a special place pantily is and how much these walls have to tell this is the most amazing bit i think of radio pantily because um it was done by our the plasterer who was working on the house and he was in the house only it was it was poppy day 2008 my son was in afghanistan as well so it was a pretty poignant day and um when we've had our two minute silence and i came back in here and i finally got slashing this into the wall yeah because this was all just newly plastered and then tears stroking down his face and he was broken he was absolutely blessed but coming all his horrors coming back from his service in bosnia and croatia it's completely marvelous and i said i want that to remain and he said no no no i said yes yes yes he said i didn't even spell afghan right and i said i just because he was in a moment of whatever yeah absolutely it doesn't matter and i love it and that's really what it's that's what penn hill is about to me it's part of the thing that it gives out her for sort of healing sarah takes me across the estate to a very special place which the veterans have uncovered for the first time in 70 years on a sunny hillside the victorian walled kitchen garden is being brought back to life in the 1950s it took five gardeners to tend the two and a half acre garden to produce fruit and vegetables for the castle but today it's a place where nature is giving so much more here you have the beginnings of the great sanctuary of the kitchen garden and all the sort of things that we've been doing with the boys is that some of them didn't want to grow veggies but they were wanted to expose all the old cobbles which haven't been exposed for for years and years and years because all along here was junk and filth and muck and i can't even call it compost but rubbish that have just been stuck there for well the last 70 years i suppose so they they come here and this is just one element within sort of the castle that they and the grounds that they can come to units this is where they are this is safe yeah they're totally safe um and um when i say they're certainly they just feel secure and there's always somebody with them in case there's a bit of a meltdown that goes on you never know what that sudden peace brings on of course and we've just they just do whatever they would like to do whether it's grow the seeds or whether it's grow the weeds or learn how to take little cuttings or to make it look better as in the sort of potting shed there which you they've uncovered wonderful little tools and the swallows in and out in and out in your night so wonderful so this is really a place that they feel the war heroes really feel that they can come and just be they can do if they need to do something and they feel they want to but they also can just feel safe they can feel i think the main thing is that they feel safe they haven't got to worry if somebody's coming behind them or um anything like that and they can have their cup of tea they can weed they can plant they can just sit and um quite what we well just the other day we had a lovely barbecue we're hoping to be able to expand it to be able to do either more days or definitely more veterans because as you can see it's leading a lot of hands to hold this under control but they have done an amazing job it was like fighting through a jungle i mean when we started no i mean it's a vast kitchen garden i mean this is fast and i've also you know i've spotted um a couple peacock oh yeah is that right we've got we've got seven peacocks everything's sort of barricaded against them peacock damage because they'll eat absolutely everything and we even found them getting in the greenhouse eating the um the grapes of the vine but i said i suspect that the veterans must like that coming here having a cup of tea and being surrounded by peacocks [Music] oh my goodness next time an american by countess at penn tilly castle i step into another world with ted [Music] we found that there's a vault underneath here which is completely sealed about here there's the remains of a chair with a a body no yeah no he's just sitting there waiting what you saw him [Music] so he did really do that bigger than you okay and when sammy and i go foraging for slows i face up to my greatest fear do you think they're thirsty they just want some slow gin don't they really or they want me

Channel: American Viscountess

Views: 42,714

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Id: zbQeRuOwyq4

Length: 25min 17sec (1517 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 24 2021