Why We Are GIVING UP (the end of an era)

[Music] when I first moved to this country one of the things I learned quite quickly was a cup of tea can be a huge support so you know when you meet a friend and you have to share something personal or something sad that friend will always say should we get a cup of tea and I've really become accustomed to having a cup of tea when I don't know I'm not feeling sort of that great or I have to share something that's quite sad so today my cup of tea is called love and it's a heartwarming Touch of Rose chamomile and lavender because today I sharing with you all something that's been really close to my heart when we first took over running mapperton uh five years ago it was something that I wanted to implement here I was really excited it's my passion and Luke and I have had huge discussions recently we just have so much going on here at this at the estate it's a 1900 acre estate there's lots of cottages on the estate there's the rewilding project I mean it's not just a historic house that we run we run an entire estate and it it's exhausting and there's so many projects plus we're filming a lot for our YouTube channel and we film at least two days a week and so we've made this really hard decision that in order for us to focus on other projects I needed to say goodbye to something that's been really really close to my heart since we renovated the house five years ago and I thought well I'm gonna go outside with me and my cup of tea and share it all with you it's been really difficult especially well yeah it's been really hard to make this decision but I feel like we're making the right decision but it is something that uh something that I have to say goodbye to you I thought I'd head down to the 18th century pool because it's kind of my happy place so as many of you know that we cleaned and really restored our huge 18th century pool over last year and this is a place where I swim almost every single day call me crazy even in the cold of winter I'm here but again this is sort of my happy place it's one of the big projects that we did last year that has again just given me great great pleasure in particular making these floating plant islands with Raymond and I've just recently put some new moss on four of them but I'm going to head on them now I thought it'd be easier for me to tell you really the sad news as I'm down here now these can definitely hold my weight because there's a few of these I just sort of need to prune or at least just pick away at believe it or not everybody I'm not going to fall in and these have unfortunately with the wind we've recently have have had these have tethered away but so I'm going to hold on to the side but there you go um I just want to clean out a couple here so when Luke and I took over the running of mapperton estate one of the things that we wanted to do was have people stay in the house and so we renovated the house we made many of the bedrooms ensuite and so they all have their own many of them have their own bathrooms and we decided to combine my passion of yoga with having a guests stay in the house for yoga retreats and I've been doing that I've been doing that since 2008 2008 was the first time that I had a yoga retreat and it sold out immediately it was incredible so then I did another one and in 2018 and 2019 and even in 2020 I was able to get One Yoga Retreat in and then of course 2021 uh we were still sort of in that pandemic but I was able to get One Yoga Retreat in and then this year as well I was able to get one and so all in all I've actually had eight yoga retreats here which is crazy and in fact I'm going to remove that that's good um we'll be replanting some new ones the YouTube channel has taken off so much that it's also taken a lot of my time so I have made the decision to say goodbye to I can't believe I'm saying this so to say goodbye to yoga retreats here at mapperton it doesn't mean that there won't be yoga here we do have plans to hold some yoga classes here but I won't be doing yoga retreats anymore at mapperton and that's been a big decision that Luke and I had to make and we had to really look at my energy I mean mapperton just takes up so much work like I said it's not just a historic house that we run here it's an entire estate there are many cottages on the estate it's a there's a rewilding project there's Farmland on the estate uh that where we have visitors you know we have thousands of visitors a year we have a restaurant uh we have holiday um let's or vacation rentals but we want people to be able to stay in the house I mean that's why we renovated it it five years ago and we want people to be able to stay in the house so Luke and I have come up with something instead and in my view more exciting once we said goodbye decided to say goodbye to the yoga treats and hello to this next new project we're really really excited to share it with you so it's bittersweet but all good things must come to an end and when one door closes another one opens and this is our next chapter and this is what we're about to do Luke and I is massive massive massive so I think I've been able to um but it's the aren't these aren't these amazing they're like little boats so but uh I'm gonna head back inside with Luke let him know that I've shared the news with all of you and I'm able I'm glad I was able to prune a little bit of these floating plant Islands we'll have to plant this water lily again I I had seen that it needed to be rescued and there you go all right so I'll see you guys back inside because Luke and I want to share something really really exciting with you all foreign [Music] we are in the drawing room about to light a fire now this chimney was swept this year so when I light a flame and get it going it should ignite well and have a good draft and the paper is quite dry the wood is quite dry fingers crossed because one of the nicest things to do at mapton is to sit in the drawing room by an open fire I do remember this fireplace though for another reason which is that a jack tour Once Upon a Time made its way all the way down the chimney flew out the bottom and it was swooping around this room until we managed to open a window and get it out but and I don't think any damage was done that time we had another Jack door that went through the canopy of the four poster bed in the great chamber above now oh dear we've got smoke coming forward wait a minute is it working is it not working I think it's I think it's just about to take off if I don't touch it but oh God Julie's about to come and the last thing she's going to want is a smoky room so I'm gonna have to run and get some bellows now when the smoke starts coming out like this the key thing to do is to get the flame going and the best way to get the flame going is with these wonderful Bellows because they then produce the Heat that sends the smoke up the chimney instead of into the room so that is suddenly doing much better when it's windy like it is today it also causes pressure and pushes the air down which is another reason that we get smoke but I think with a bit of bellowing we're all there and look at these These are wonderful old bellows I have no idea how old or from where but look at the hide on that the leather and um these have bellowed many a Montague fire Through the Ages and almost caught fire themselves by the looks of it well I broke the news to everybody so I thought I'd bring another cup of tea in my case water yes yes British Dorset Spring Water heated up next to the fire there's nothing like it and you can cope with anything that's right but I did explain to everybody outside that yes it's the end of one chapter but we were going to be revealing the start of another chapter right so you haven't I haven't said nope I but I just said when one door closes another door opens and we have an exciting door that has opened and we're really excited about this reveal it is sad that we are saying goodbye for the time being two yoga retreats but there is a big happy reveal and it is and we've been working on this for a long time so here it is here it is you are invited to come and stay at mapperton with us we are launching something called Grand historic tours you can find out more at Grand historictools.com and details down below and the itinerary is incredible it's extraordinary it's not soft with us yep dinner at mapperton drinks we'll have we'll be having of course drinks in the room that we're at in the drawing room yep you will then spend the next day having a tour of the house with my father Lord sandwich including looking at the journals of the first sort of sandwich and he'll tell you lots of stories of our family history my mother will be taking you on a tour of the gardens award-winning Gardens yeah yeah and she knows everything it's incredible and then we have some amazing excursions planned you'll be going amazing to our local Vineyard Furley which is over the hill and makes fantastic local British sparkling wine they also make our Montague Cuvee and you will be tasting that while you're here as well probably in the drawing room you will be going on a tour of mapton wildlands with me where you can see the white pop cattle the rewilding project hopefully the Beavers um and then most importantly you will also be seeing two of uh dorset's finest country houses so starting off with apple Hampton which is one of England's finest tutor houses incredible um where you'll be going for a private tour or you'll be having lunch you'll be having an amazing Grand afternoon tea and then you'll be going to Minton which is the home of Lord Digby Lord Digby will be inviting you for what a Sumptuous three course lunch and again you'll be getting a private tour of the house which is not usually open to the public and and also getting a tour of the famous gardens at Minton with the extraordinary Rhododendron and um and then you will also be going to visit Lyme Regis yeah wonderful the most astonishing Seaside Town off the coast west coast of Dorset and you'll be doing some fossil hunting it's where paleontology began that's right and then back here for another dinner with us yep there and there is bring um you know your best outfit because there is one black tie dinner with us as well where we all can get dressed up we will all be dressing up we'll be having drinks in here that's right right and um and then there are also a couple of things with you yeah so I will of course this is optional but there will be an offer gentle yoga so I'm not hanging up my yoga hat uh just yet here at mapperton I will be offering gentle yoga and for those of you who are brave enough if you want to dip with me every morning in our 18th century pool you are more than welcome to do a two-minute dip every morning so bring your swimming costume or swimming suit I'm gonna do that every day yes mind you it is it is October the pool's still reasonably warm no he doesn't go in so we're going in February okay oh it's still cold it's good for you so all of the details are on Grand historic tools.com um the tour is going to be led by Sam Hane who is absolutely magnificent and has organized the whole thing with us and um you will be looked after by Andrew the butler while you're here oh yes mapperton and Joe Killen who's astonishing local Chef will be cooking up a storm for our meals and our breakfast and it's actually making me hungry thinking about it I know I know so we're really excited and so I think it's when one door closes another one opens and we feel that this is really the right decision and something that we're very very excited about venturing into in 2023 so it may feel a bit sad for me that I've had a good run of the yoga retreats but there's you always have to grow and evolve and I'm really really excited that we're doing this together and that we're going to be welcoming um hopefully many of you here at Matt Britain not just this year but the following year and so on and so on brilliant so if you're interested do go to granhistorictools.com you can fill out an inquiry form there and we will get back to you and talk about what's available it's limited to 12 people that's right so and I think we've got a couple of bookings already we do if you're interested you would be wise to act quickly there is also an early bird discount through to the end of January 2023 so we really hope that some of you are able to come and all the proceeds from this tour go towards the maintenance it's an upkeep of mapperton that's right it's for an incredibly important cause it is and one of the things that we will be doing as I said is is going to look at the Beavers interestingly somebody else has been down to the Beavers recently you don't get to see the Beavers much in the daytime because they're nocturnal but the other day I went down with Nestor and Ben and it was broad daylight and guess what we spotted a couple of them yeah you've got some great footage of that well it's coming up [Music] so today Ben and I are here in the beaver enclosure because I've heard recently um that the beavers have been out during the daytime now that it's winter I'm guessing the sort of coming out a bit earlier to get the Sun but I haven't been here in five six weeks and I've still not seen the Beavers so hopefully I'm hoping that they'll come out for us today yeah hopefully this is sort of the time I'm seeing them sort of two o'clock now and I thought I saw the female just on the other side of the pond just having a bit of a feed on stripping all the bar today uh two days ago so so yeah they're a bit more active now yeah yeah yeah but yeah hopefully we'll we'll see something and then you'll see quite a lot they're starting to take some of this Hazel out here and they've actually made their first Dam on their on their own as well we're going to have a look at that as well yeah yeah yeah but yeah foreign a lighter brown and she's a bit chunky um but yeah he's just just slowly come down the hill and then back into the sort of back back end of the lodge yeah so if we move up a little bit more yeah I can't see a silhouette but there's a bit of vegetation moving so if you know it's really creep up a little bit more so it just reached we've just seen the mail the mail's just come down the bank he's just coming to the back side of the pond it's a little bit of water just here shooting yeah she's just feeding on a better park at the moment I think a great sign when they're chewing so if when when you walk along here just have a have a look down but this is sort of where they've been using the toilets so if you find like a little neat Clump under the water give me a shout I'll go and have a look at it thank you [Music] [Music] watching the beaver um from a distance of probably 15 meters only um she does get extremely close to her and we saw her fell a Hazel tree it's climbing her just there off on a legs uh trying to get this tree down and eventually it did come down um see I know it was yeah it was crazy I don't I didn't think we were actually gonna how quickly we saw them hasn't come in here we've only been here about half an hour yeah um yeah it was up there yeah yeah and just just watching that just balance on the tail and push yourself up yeah to get higher up into the into that as well yeah yeah yeah it was incredible but yeah just standing here gives you a good view of just what they have done and three three months three four months now they've been here and they say so yeah so yeah you know they've almost just started penciling this this here so it won't be too long until that's that falls over yeah um they've quite different when that one comes around it yeah yeah they've done the odd one or two here as well um but yeah that's um they're still fairly active now um no signs of slowing up um but and Ben why why are they out in the daytime now I think it's just because we're getting you know it was minus seven this morning so it's it's so it's so cold for them so I think they just want to come out get a bit of get a bit of his sort of heat and a bit of sun on their backs um before you know before they go back in and you know go back to work I'm still seeing them on the trail cameras at sort of midnight around that time as well working and out in the water so it's um you know it gives them a bit of time to feed and you know you can sort of conserve their energy a bit as well so yeah and why was she taking down that Hazel what do you think she was going to do I don't I I would have said they probably just would have been storing it for feed so they're probably she'll probably come back um tonight and then she'll probably take off a couple more bits and then she'll drag it back to back towards the lodge and then um what have been seeing them doing is feeding just outside the lodge um so they'll sort of cut it into small little lengths and then it is literally like a little process so they're eating away and then they'll just sort of twist it around then go again it's um it's quite cool to watch um but yeah that's that's what that's what I've seen and you can see it in the pond here you can see all these white sticks where they just stripped off all the bar and they've just left them so yeah so and you do you do find just parts of sticks as well where they've been feeding so yeah yeah amazing well I think they put on an extraordinary show yeah yeah yeah definitely should probably I think so yeah [Music] foreign

Channel: Mapperton Live: This (un)Aristocratic Manor Life

Views: 390,983

Keywords: mapperton, mapperton live, mapperton julie montagu, mapperton estate, mapperton estate youtube, mapperton house and gardens, Julie Montagu, Luke Montagu, american viscountess, mapperton house tour, mapperton wedding, mapperton rewilding, mapperton tour, mapperton pool, Mapperton Live pool, mapperton christmas, mapperton gardens, historic house UK, rewilding, earl of sandwich, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, Viscountess Hinchingbrooke

Id: V-Pm9dUPSSU

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 07 2023