1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:00,960 Beautiful, formal British dried lawn that this machine was designed to do. 2 00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:13,120 The First World War had seen conflict and destruction 3 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:16,360 on a scale never before imagined. 4 00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:19,480 Mainland Europe lay horrifically scarred, 5 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:22,440 both in terms of its dead and its landscape. 6 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:27,440 But as the last months of war dragged on, 7 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:31,440 there was a significant symbol of hope and renewal in Britain. 8 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:39,800 In September 1918, Britain's most famous monument, Stonehenge, 9 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:42,840 was given to the nation by a Mr Cecil Chubb, 10 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:45,200 a lunatic asylum proprietor 11 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:49,000 who'd bought the stones at auction a few years before. 12 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,320 After centuries of vandalism and neglect, 13 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:56,920 Stonehenge would at last be protected and restored. 14 00:00:56,920 --> 00:00:59,120 Fallen stones righted 15 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:01,480 and lintels repositioned. 16 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:03,880 In a land fit for heroes, 17 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:07,360 it heralded a new age of government responsibility 18 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:09,560 for the nation's heritage, 19 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:13,600 when the men from the Ministry would command a massive rescue operation. 20 00:01:17,320 --> 00:01:19,360 But, at the same time, 21 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:24,120 and not so very far away from the nation's ancient sites, 22 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:26,560 the cities of Britain were modernising 23 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,640 and expanding haphazardly into the countryside. 24 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:34,360 The motor car, newly affordable, was on the rise. 25 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,880 And a crisis faced the country houses of Britain. 26 00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:43,080 Most frightening of all, 27 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,720 Hitler would target our finest old buildings 28 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:50,000 in the infamous Baedeker raids of World War Two. 29 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,680 New heroes rallied to the cause 30 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:55,800 as the fight to save Britain's great buildings 31 00:01:55,800 --> 00:01:58,360 reached a new intensity. 32 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:18,800 There is one symbol of our national history 33 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:22,160 that is so familiar we have come to view it as timeless. 34 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:25,040 The ruin. 35 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:29,200 Many are the remains of the nation's greatest mediaeval buildings, 36 00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:32,040 set on a path of ruin 37 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:37,160 in two of the most dramatic periods of upheaval in Britain's history. 38 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:40,840 Religious buildings caught up in the violence of the Reformation 39 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:42,800 in the 1530s 40 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:45,760 and castles that fell victim to the English Civil War 41 00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:47,400 in the 1640s. 42 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:52,360 These ruins have a familiar look. 43 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:54,400 The bare stripped stone, 44 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:56,680 the glassless Gothic windows, 45 00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:58,960 the bowling-green lawns 46 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:02,120 and the metal plaques telling us what we need to know. 47 00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,200 But it's a look very different from how it used to be. 48 00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:13,120 For centuries, the ruins of Britain 49 00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:17,280 had to take their chances against relentless nature. 50 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:19,400 And nature often won. 51 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,560 In the 18th and 19th centuries, 52 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:26,600 ivy-clad and tree-infested, 53 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:29,120 they inspired Romantic poets and artists 54 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:33,000 to ponder the fleeting nature of human endeavour and existence. 55 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:40,720 But by the 1920s, the world had changed. 56 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:44,560 For a Britain emerging from the horrors of the First World War, 57 00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:48,400 the ruin had truly lost its romance. 58 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,680 The First World War was a time of mass destruction, 59 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:57,160 destruction of human beings, of British youth 60 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:04,440 and a time of mud, carnage, filth, despair and futility. 61 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,320 And I think, very importantly, 62 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:09,440 guiding some of the spirit 63 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:14,640 of the new official, public attitude towards conservation and heritage, 64 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:18,680 was the belief that we needed to cleanse away, clean 65 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,760 and set up this bright new world. 66 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:27,840 The bright new world dawned in Whitehall, 67 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:32,480 in a government minister called the Office Of Works. 68 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:36,840 Thanks to the new Ancient Monuments Act of 1913, 69 00:04:36,840 --> 00:04:39,800 government officials now had the power to declare 70 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:42,680 there were ancient buildings of such importance 71 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,920 their owners could no longer neglect them and allow them to fall down. 72 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:51,680 And in return for handing them over, 73 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:56,080 the government would foot the bill for repairs and maintenance 74 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:59,120 and open them to the public. 75 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:04,200 The law extended only to historic buildings that were uninhabited 76 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,280 and, in practice, that meant ruins. 77 00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:12,520 But it was a huge advance from the neglect of the previous century. 78 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:17,800 And, in 1918, many great ruins were on the verge of collapse. 79 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:21,080 The Office Of Works had to move fast, 80 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:24,920 the inspectors set out on their mission right across the country. 81 00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:29,840 What this whole Zeitgeist, if you like, 82 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:35,280 enabled to take place was a massive collecting spree, 83 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:37,280 which the Office Of Works went on 84 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:40,680 and they went round the county taking into their care 85 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:45,360 all the major ruined buildings, 86 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:49,280 the mediaeval abbeys, castles, they could possibly get their hands on. 87 00:05:49,280 --> 00:05:52,560 One or two they didn't take, one or two they wanted, they couldn't get. 88 00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:57,400 But hundreds and hundreds of buildings came into their care. 89 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:04,480 Success would come down to the vision and willpower of one man, 90 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:10,360 Charles Reed Peers, the new Inspector Of Ancient Monuments. 91 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:15,080 Peers was a very different man from the 19th-century heritage pioneers 92 00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:20,080 whose sensitivity towards a building had outlawed drastic intervention. 93 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:25,160 They had preached a gospel against scrape and clean 94 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,320 preserving what they called "the golden stain of time". 95 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:32,560 But Peers had a crisis on his hands. 96 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,040 And out of the ruinous confusion, 97 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:37,640 he wanted clarity and order to emerge. 98 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:44,080 His house, at Chiselhampton, in Oxfordshire, 99 00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:49,000 still boasts a calm symmetry of classical order and nature tamed. 100 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:52,600 Peers was a great gardener. 101 00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:54,840 He, like everyone in the Office Of Works, 102 00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:56,760 had been to either Oxford or Cambridge 103 00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:58,960 and had been used to seeing historic buildings 104 00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:03,440 set against beautifully-mown green grass in the college quads. 105 00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:06,080 And I think this aesthetic of ruin 106 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,280 against the calm of the grass 107 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:12,560 was seeing as something that was extremely attractive. 108 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,160 How those ruins could be set, 109 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:19,800 not in the sort of the fields of mud of the trenches, 110 00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,400 but in something that anchored them 111 00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:26,600 in this sort of conception of England. 112 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:33,360 Peers was an architect and an archaeologist. 113 00:07:33,360 --> 00:07:35,320 He was charming and energetic. 114 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:38,640 He inspired loyalty in his team, 115 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:41,200 but he did not suffer fools gladly. 116 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,480 His family called him "the squire". 117 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:49,000 Peers had a clear vision 118 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:52,440 of what the nation must do with its great ruins 119 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:57,320 and it was not just a matter of rescuing them from collapse. 120 00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:01,640 Above all, he wanted them to speak to the nation, 121 00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:04,800 to tell a clear and accessible story. 122 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:11,120 You needed to be able to read the nation's history in the stones. 123 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:13,600 And that meant getting rid of later accretions, 124 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:15,680 that meant taking down the ivy, 125 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:17,880 that meant taking down later buildings 126 00:08:17,880 --> 00:08:20,400 that were built up against the mediaeval walls, 127 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:22,920 meant simplifying them, printing plans of them, 128 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:25,320 clear guidebooks with clear phases, 129 00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:28,520 putting labels on each individual part of the building. 130 00:08:28,520 --> 00:08:30,880 So this was a great exercise 131 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:34,560 in explaining to the nation its own history. 132 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:41,160 His mission was high-minded and it was commercial. 133 00:08:41,160 --> 00:08:43,200 If the ruins spoke to everyone, 134 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,800 more visitors would come. 135 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:49,120 He would make ruins into popular textbooks, 136 00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:51,920 the flat pages would be the green lawn 137 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:54,920 and the stones would be the text. 138 00:08:54,920 --> 00:09:00,040 But first, he needed a vital bit of newfangled technology. 139 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:07,360 Before the motor mower, achieving the perfect lawn 140 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:10,560 had been an expensive, labour-intensive process. 141 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:15,040 You needed a small army 142 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:17,240 with scythes and rollers. 143 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,120 Then, came the horse-drawn mower, 144 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,160 followed by the steam-operated contraptions 145 00:09:23,160 --> 00:09:24,760 that never quite caught on. 146 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:27,080 But the mass-produced motor mower 147 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:30,080 would change the look of heritage for ever. 148 00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:33,520 It's a 1920s Atco standard. 149 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:35,840 This is a 14-inch model. 150 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,920 This machine gives a perfect bright finish, 151 00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:42,000 which was ideal for formal lawn. 152 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:48,960 This machine at its time would have been 153 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:51,400 the height of technology at an affordable price. 154 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,080 And it was sort of like an industrial revolution, 155 00:09:56,080 --> 00:10:00,440 instead of having to push the machine up and down, it went on its own. 156 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:04,640 It was so easy to use and extremely reliable. 157 00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:12,920 And to make the castles and stately homes more pleasing to the eye, 158 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:15,040 they would have used a machine like this. 159 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:22,920 Beautiful, formal British dried lawn that this machine was designed to do. 160 00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:28,400 And it would do sterling work for miles and miles of cutting grass. 161 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:31,640 And you'd finish with a finish as good as a carpet. 162 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:40,760 So Peers issued a bible to his busy workforce. 163 00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:45,040 And his commandments were to be followed to the letter. 164 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:48,880 Ivy, that most active and insidious enemy of old buildings, 165 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:50,760 had to be uprooted. 166 00:10:53,560 --> 00:10:58,440 Buildings not part of the original medieval structure must be removed. 167 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:02,280 The accumulation of soil and rubble must be cleared 168 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:04,720 to reveal the building's foundations. 169 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:11,000 And up went the signs telling you precisely what was what. 170 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:19,560 Today, the successor to the Office Of Works is English Heritage. 171 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:23,440 Keith Emerick is an Ancient Monuments Inspector in Yorkshire. 172 00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:27,680 We're still the government adviser 173 00:11:27,680 --> 00:11:31,800 on all matters of cultural heritage and historic environment. 174 00:11:34,600 --> 00:11:38,480 He's on his way to Rievaulx Abbey, in North Yorkshire, 175 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:41,720 the first major site to get the Office Of Works' treatment. 176 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,200 Rievaulx was founded in 1132 177 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:51,480 and became one of the richest religious institutions in England. 178 00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:55,320 So when Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church in the 1530s, 179 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:57,320 it was high on his hate list. 180 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:01,040 Henry took its treasures 181 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:05,280 and stripped the building of anything valuable. 182 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,520 The king ordered Rievaulx to be rendered uninhabitable. 183 00:12:09,680 --> 00:12:11,600 Which it has been ever since. 184 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:18,080 Rievaulx was handed over to the Office Of Works 185 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:21,200 by the Feversham family after the death of the Earl 186 00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:23,320 at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. 187 00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:35,520 Hiya! Hi! I just came to have a quick look around the site, if that's OK. Indeed. If there's anything... 188 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:37,960 Have you noticed anything at all, any bits falling off? 189 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:41,560 We did have a tree fall, a branch fell the other day, yeah. Right, OK. 190 00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:43,720 It didn't hit anything? No, thankfully not. 191 00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:45,680 OK, thanks. Thanks a lot. 192 00:12:45,680 --> 00:12:48,120 When the Office Of Works took over Rievaulx, 193 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,040 it was on the brink of collapse, 194 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:52,200 and after the recent bad weather, 195 00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:54,840 Keith is here to check all is well. 196 00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:01,320 What I'm looking for is just evidence of what's called spalling, 197 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:06,200 where kind of frost action and the water getting behind the stone 198 00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:09,240 or the detail of the stone has then expanded as it's frozen 199 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:12,480 and forced pieces of the decorative details off. 200 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:15,960 Or whether there's something actually more catastrophic that might be going on, 201 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,400 but I doubt the latter is the case, 202 00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:22,240 but there's usually...once you get into the start of the winter season 203 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:26,120 we might expect to see some spalling, 204 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,520 and it's always good to keep an idea of, keep a sense 205 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:30,800 of how much there is or how little there is. 206 00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:36,200 In accordance with the Peers bible, 207 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:38,920 Rievaulx was shorn of its ivy, 208 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:42,920 post-mediaeval accretions, even picturesque cottages, 209 00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:44,600 were pulled down 210 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:46,640 and the ground made even 211 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:48,680 to reveal foundations. 212 00:13:48,680 --> 00:13:52,520 But there was an immense structural challenge here - 213 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:54,960 the monument was top heavy, 214 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:57,840 with the upper stories leading out alarmingly. 215 00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:02,480 Peers and his architect, Frank Baines, authorised major surgery 216 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:06,680 on the very innards of the abbey walls. 217 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:09,760 When the Ministry Of Works came to the site, 218 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:13,040 the whole of the east end was moving quite considerably. 219 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:18,360 The upper part of the building was actually hanging out 220 00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:21,200 about two feet or more beyond its base. 221 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,720 So they scooped out all of the core work 222 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:27,400 and they drove railway rails through the fabric 223 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,520 to actually knit the three walls together. 224 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:33,560 And then, they filled the interior with concrete 225 00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:37,000 and then, they put the stonework back on the face 226 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,040 in exactly the same position 227 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:42,520 so all the repairs are completely hidden, 228 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,960 so you think that you're looking at an authentic building, 229 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:48,680 whereas, really, it's what perhaps might be called 230 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:50,200 a staged authenticity. 231 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:58,560 The scale of the work was quite amazing. 232 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:00,920 The clearance of the site was kind of, if you like, 233 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:02,200 on an industrial scale. 234 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:06,440 They employed a lot of returning and disabled World War One veterans 235 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:07,720 to do the work. 236 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,560 There were small railway systems that were built to take the material, 237 00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:14,080 as they were excavating it, off the site. 238 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:16,720 It was just a huge, huge undertaking. 239 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:23,720 Peers intervention was fantastically bold. 240 00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:29,800 This is mediaeval fabric with a modern steel and concrete core, 241 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:31,040 but it worked. 242 00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:35,920 It's not how we do it now. 243 00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,720 But I don't think we can criticise them, 244 00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:41,640 because what is absolutely clear 245 00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:46,520 is that if the Office Of Works had not taken on all those ruins 246 00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:49,440 in the interwar period, they wouldn't be here today. 247 00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:52,760 They'd all reached a sort of stage of final collapse 248 00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:56,000 and for every one ruin that was taken in by the Office Of Works, 249 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,760 there were two or three that fell down and have now disappeared. 250 00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:06,040 The heritage laws had worked brilliantly well 251 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:09,240 for roofless and uninhabited ruins. 252 00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:12,880 The great abbeys and castles of the nation were saved. 253 00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:14,960 And in just a few years, 254 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,480 they had established themselves 255 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,600 on even the most casual day trip as a itinerary. 256 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,240 'One of the most pleasant of places to go to, 257 00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,080 'a spot that's almost bursting with memories of the glorious past, 258 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:28,240 'it's ancient Tintagel, in Cornwall. 259 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:30,560 'There, if you're bent towards an old castle, 260 00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,040 'overlooking sea and ready for immediate occupation, 261 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:35,640 'little remains, but for you to see the remains. 262 00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:38,280 'So this way, please, ladies.' 263 00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:41,320 But if the only means of protecting a building 264 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:43,760 was for the government to acquire it, 265 00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:47,200 and it had to be roofless and uninhabited to qualify, 266 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,280 it was still a painfully small answer to the crisis. 267 00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:57,960 In the 1920s, the cities of Britain were modernising 268 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,600 and nowhere more so than London. 269 00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,480 The mood was for progress and modern urban living. 270 00:17:09,360 --> 00:17:12,200 The demolition gang reigned supreme 271 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,960 and in a world that had little time for Georgian splendours 272 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:18,480 and hated Victorian architecture, 273 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,720 the casualty list was high. 274 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:25,720 When you look at the buildings that disappeared, 275 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:27,360 we now think so wonderful, 276 00:17:27,360 --> 00:17:30,280 all the great, almost all the great private palaces, 277 00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:32,080 the aristocratic townhouses, 278 00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:35,160 Norfolk House, Dorchester House, Devonshire House, Lansdowne House, 279 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:36,560 they all went. 280 00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:39,640 The Foundling Hospital, Waterloo Bridge, Regent Street, 281 00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:42,240 all these things disappeared. 282 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:46,120 There are always people who think that you mustn't stand 283 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:48,120 in the way of what they imagine to be progress. 284 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:49,800 You know, the world, in some ways, 285 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:52,320 after the catastrophe of the wars, was getting better 286 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:56,160 with cars and the wireless and aeroplanes, all this sort of thing. 287 00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:59,320 Why care about old buildings? 288 00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:02,840 It's probably the most destructive period in London's history. 289 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:07,640 CAR HORN BLARES 290 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:11,760 But the cities of Britain were also expanding fast. 291 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:18,400 The new suburbs seemed to promise a life of convenience and comfort, 292 00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,440 leaving behind the dirty city. 293 00:18:25,120 --> 00:18:27,080 Between the two world wars, 294 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:29,960 English cities sprawled intensely and immensely. 295 00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:31,840 And there are various reasons for it, 296 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:35,880 there was a desire to create lots of new clean, green housing for people, 297 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:38,840 new suburbia, that would be healthy for people, 298 00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:40,560 a great concern about public health. 299 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:43,400 The new suburbs will be clean, there'll be tennis playing, 300 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:47,040 they will have gardens and people would be...they'd brush their teeth 301 00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:50,720 and wash their faces and they would be a lot healthier with clean air. 302 00:18:52,920 --> 00:18:57,120 Inevitably, it was the open countryside 303 00:18:57,120 --> 00:19:00,000 that bore the brunt of the spreading suburbs. 304 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,560 Thousands of new homes spread out 305 00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,320 from the edges of towns and cities. 306 00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:13,040 New roads ripped through the countryside in an unplanned free-for-all. 307 00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:16,280 A new disease was even diagnosed - 308 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:17,760 Bungaloiditis. 309 00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:22,400 The countryside was definitely under seize, 310 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,240 it was undergoing a fundamental transformation 311 00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:29,200 and the amount of land that changed hands after the First World War 312 00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:33,360 was as much as the amount of land that changed hands after the dissolution of the monasteries. 313 00:19:33,360 --> 00:19:37,200 There's a whole change in the nature of the way the countryside was run, 314 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:40,880 who owned it, who lived in it, who enjoyed it, who went to it. 315 00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:43,720 This was profoundly unsettling 316 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:48,200 for those people who liked the countryside as it was. 317 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:53,880 Villages that had felt safely distant from urban sprawl 318 00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:56,600 were suddenly too close for comfort. 319 00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:03,040 New pressure groups formed to stop the invasion, 320 00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:07,080 led, in 1926, by the Campaign For The Protection Of Rural England. 321 00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:10,960 The battle was on. 322 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:18,120 'Here, less than 30 miles from London, 323 00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:20,120 'you're in the heart of rural England. 324 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,360 'The old thatched cottage, which might be somewhere in Devonshire 325 00:20:24,360 --> 00:20:26,560 'instead of less than 30 miles from London, 326 00:20:26,560 --> 00:20:28,200 'would have disappeared 327 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:30,640 'and in its place, there may perhaps be petrol stations 328 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:32,240 'and roadside cafes, 329 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:34,680 'garages and camping sites. 330 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:37,120 'Just the other side of the hedge is the old road. 331 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:39,480 'Little traffic passes along it during the day. 332 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:41,840 'At night, there is practically none. 333 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:44,680 'Yet, the old your road is to be made five times its present width, 334 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:47,240 'and soon, there'll be no room for butterflies.' 335 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:51,280 The moment called for a champion. 336 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:54,480 And it got one in the unexpected form 337 00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:57,320 of a Welsh architect and aesthete - 338 00:20:57,320 --> 00:20:59,240 Clough Williams-Ellis. 339 00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:06,400 Clough Williams-Ellis was an extraordinary creature, 340 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:07,840 if you had met him. 341 00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,040 He was this tall, Anglo-Welsh aristocrat, 342 00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:13,880 who wore very flamboyant outfits, 343 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:16,720 big wide brim hats, yellow cravates 344 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:20,400 knickerbockers, white socks, 345 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:22,480 wonderful broke shoes. 346 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:26,080 But beyond the flamboyance, he was a very serious-minded man, 347 00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:31,760 who was very important in the idea of trying to stop the sprawl. 348 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,040 Cities and towns should be compact. 349 00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:39,080 The countryside should be beautiful and green. 350 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:44,160 In 1928, Clough wrote a book - England And The Octopus. 351 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,520 A polemic against the sprawl of suburbia. 352 00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:51,760 It was Britain's first environmental bestseller. 353 00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:54,840 And it was a call to action. 354 00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,360 He wrote, "In the late war, 355 00:21:57,360 --> 00:22:00,520 "we were invited to fight to preserve England. 356 00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:02,760 "We believed, we fought. 357 00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,320 "It may be well to preserve England, 358 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,280 "but better to have an England worth preserving. 359 00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:13,680 "We saved our country that we might ourselves destroy it." 360 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,200 The image of the octopus would become a defining symbol 361 00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:19,640 of the interwar years. 362 00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:23,320 Its tentacles a rallying call against the urban sprawl 363 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,640 known as "ribbon development". 364 00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:31,600 But Clough did not confined himself to words alone. 365 00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,200 He set about proving his case 366 00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,760 and so, he built a new town, 367 00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:40,840 Portmeirion, in North West Wales, on the edge of Snowdonia. 368 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:46,920 People treat it as a joke 369 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:49,760 because it looks like a pastiche Italian hill town. 370 00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:56,480 But it is an important statement in architecture planning, 371 00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:59,520 cos it tries to show how you can get lots of people into a small area, 372 00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:01,920 enhance a landscape with architecture 373 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,600 and cause no damage to the natural environment. 374 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:09,560 What Clough wanted to say was - you can take that example, Portmeirion, 375 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,760 and you can make it much bigger, of course, 376 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,360 you could create a whole new town like that. 377 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,400 Began in the 1920s, 378 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:23,520 Portmeirion would take 50 years to complete. 379 00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,080 And Clough was there to see it finished. 380 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,640 The town is full of wit, 381 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,920 and tricks of the eye. 382 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,560 A grand frontage often hides a more humble dwelling. 383 00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,880 And humble dwellings embrace the picturesque. 384 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,640 Clough also reused architectural salvage on a grand scale, 385 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:50,240 rescued from demolition sites around the country. 386 00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,160 He called it "a home for fallen buildings." 387 00:23:55,480 --> 00:24:01,320 I suppose I wanted to paint a propagandist picture, one might say. 388 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,760 I wanted to show that you could develop a place, 389 00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,880 even a very rural place, without defiling it. 390 00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:10,200 In fact, if you did this 391 00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,680 with sufficient love and care and expertise, 392 00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,960 you might even add to what God had given you as your background. 393 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:22,800 And beyond the flamboyance, 394 00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,880 it's still a serious exercise in high-density building. 395 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:30,640 Cramming a lot in without compromising the landscape, 396 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,200 a retort in bricks and mortar 397 00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,400 to the ribbon development of the 1920s and '30s. 398 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:40,400 The growing curse of the octopus. 399 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,440 But even as the landscape was changing, 400 00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,720 more people than ever were setting out to explore it. 401 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,640 It was the golden age of the charabanc, 402 00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,680 bringing urban dwellers out to the countryside. 403 00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:02,400 and the newly affordable mass-produced motor car. 404 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,880 It was truly the romantic age of motoring. 405 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,520 The pioneer driver was king of the road. 406 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,440 The motor car allowed people to explore the nation's heritage 407 00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,680 in a new and liberated way. 408 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:22,440 Visitor numbers boomed. 409 00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,840 It was the birth of an extraordinary relationship 410 00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:32,240 between the nation's ancient monuments and the motor car. 411 00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:33,880 CAR HORN BLARES 412 00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:40,600 Today, motoring magazines are almost entirely about cars, 413 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,480 they're full of alluring pictures of fast cars. 414 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:48,600 In the 1920s and '30s, things were a bit different. 415 00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:55,240 Almost every issue had quite a lengthy article on touring by car. 416 00:25:55,240 --> 00:26:00,920 They'd have lots of photographs of villages and churches and so on, 417 00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,560 usually with the car sitting somewhere 418 00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:06,200 in the corner of the photograph. 419 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:11,720 And car manufactures would actually use historic buildings 420 00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:13,920 as part of their advertisements. 421 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,200 For example, Austin, for their Austin Seven model, 422 00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:23,080 had pictures of the Austin actually standing outside a ruined abbey. 423 00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:27,880 And you have an extraordinary boom in books, for example, 424 00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:31,640 that catered for people who wanted to go out into the country. 425 00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,640 Batsford started to bring out a series of books called 426 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,080 the English Heritage series 427 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:39,520 and The Face Of Britain. 428 00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:44,400 And these sold in numbers that were completely unprecedented 429 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,680 for books on the English landscape. 430 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,280 Similarly, we have the Shell Guides coming out, 431 00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:56,360 so there was a whole range of books designed to encourage you 432 00:26:56,360 --> 00:26:58,800 to go and see your England. 433 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:06,520 But it was a two-edged sword, really, because, on the one hand, 434 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,160 the car magazines were encouraging people to go out into the country, 435 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,240 but, at the same time, in doing that, the owners of the cars 436 00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:17,280 were actually often damaging the very thing 437 00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:19,600 that they were going out to look at. 438 00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,920 There were already some worrying signs, 439 00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,320 even the landscape around Stonehenge 440 00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,320 was suffering from the clutter of the motor car. 441 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,360 And soon, petrol advertising would be out of control. 442 00:27:39,360 --> 00:27:43,280 But the campaign for the beautification of roads 443 00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:48,560 fought successfully for unsightly petrol advertising to be removed. 444 00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,600 And by the 1930s, 445 00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:55,960 filling stations were even trying to get the heritage look themselves. 446 00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,520 Tudor-bethan cottage style. 447 00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:00,760 And the inflammable thatch look. 448 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:04,800 Now, of course, 449 00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,280 the filling stations from the golden age of motoring are heritage too. 450 00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,040 In Dane End, in Hertfordshire, the old village forge 451 00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,400 was converted to a filling station in the 1930s. 452 00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,680 And John Minnis has his modern listing hat on. 453 00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,200 In almost every respect, this is really typical of its period. 454 00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,240 And it's still got some of the old enamel signs on it 455 00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:33,720 that you can see there. 456 00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,960 One for spark plugs and there's another sign for India Tyres. 457 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:45,640 What we're looking at here are a couple of probably late-1930s pumps. 458 00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,800 And if we just take a closer look at them, 459 00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:51,320 we can see they're Avery Hardoll, 460 00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,080 who were one of the leading manufacturers of petrol pumps. 461 00:28:54,080 --> 00:29:00,080 These were electric pumps of the type that came in in the mid 1930s. 462 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,120 They've lost the globes that they would have once had, 463 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,680 they would have once had illuminated globes on the top. 464 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:09,000 But otherwise, they're still pretty intact 465 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,080 and there are very few petrol pumps today 466 00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:15,520 that really date from this era still in situ. 467 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,360 Collectors have got quite a few 468 00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,400 that have been taken from their original locations, 469 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,240 but here we are with these still in front of the garage 470 00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,160 that they once served. 471 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:28,280 So it's a real period piece. 472 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:32,160 TRAIN WHISTLES 473 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,400 In the 1930s, the campaign to make the countryside 474 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,920 accessible to everyone was growing. 475 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,000 It was the great age of rambling. 476 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,680 Mass trespass was almost a weekend pastime. 477 00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:58,520 More and more people publicly declared themselves 478 00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,600 the enemy of the octopus, 479 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,600 the enemy of urban sprawl wrecking the countryside. 480 00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,960 One such group was a mysterious band of bright young things 481 00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:12,840 called Ferguson's Gang. 482 00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:17,880 In 1932, reports began to appear in the newspapers 483 00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:22,560 when a masked member of the gang, styling herself Red Biddy, 484 00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,680 turned up at the National Trust office in London 485 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,840 and handed over a swag bag of cash. 486 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,840 The gang members bought their masks from Harrods 487 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:37,400 and liked to feast on figs with cream and champagne. 488 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:42,040 Other members of the gang left similar deposits calling themselves 489 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:43,480 Bill Stickers, 490 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:44,920 Erb The Smasher 491 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:46,920 and Kate The Nark. 492 00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,320 At the time, no-one knew who they were 493 00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,400 or how the money had been come by. 494 00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,200 Their greatest coup came 495 00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:03,400 when the BBC allowed a masked member of the gang to address the nation. 496 00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,080 'I appeal to you tonight for the National Trust. 497 00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,360 'That means for the beauty of England that belongs to you and me 498 00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,320 'and it's vanishing from under our eyes. 499 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:17,800 'No government grant supports the work of the Trust 500 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,640 'and it urgently needs more subscribing members 501 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,680 'to help in its battle against the octopus. 502 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,120 'The octopus whose tentacles in the shape 503 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,360 'of jerry-built states and ribbon development 504 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,440 'are stretching like a pestilence over the face of England.' 505 00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,720 The appeal led to a flood of donations 506 00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:40,680 and new members for the Trust. 507 00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,400 A stretch of the Cornish coastline was donated 508 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,680 and a town hall on the Isle of Wight. 509 00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:49,680 Priory Cottages in Oxfordshire 510 00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,160 and 18th-century Shalford Mill, in Surrey, were saved. 511 00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,200 The mill would become the Gang's headquarters, 512 00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,480 where they swore oaths on the grindstone 513 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:06,320 to preserve England and frustrate the octopus. 514 00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,560 Everyone in the Gang is long since dead 515 00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,760 and only recently have their true identities being revealed. 516 00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,440 The leader of the gang, Bill Stickers, 517 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,920 was in fact Peggy Pollard, 518 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,640 a Sanskrit scholar, naturist 519 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,720 and six-foot great-niece 520 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,960 of Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone 521 00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,520 It was her brother, Erb The Smasher, 522 00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:32,440 in reality old Etonian Bobby Gladstone, 523 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,680 who had made the masked broadcast at the BBC. 524 00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:42,000 Joanna Bagnall and Penelope Adamson had come back to the mill. 525 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,720 They are the daughters 526 00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,160 of gang members the Artichoke and Black Mary. 527 00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:52,040 They remember life at the mill in the early 30s could be surprising. 528 00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,520 I remember picking up Red Biddy with a donkey and cart. Oh, yes! 529 00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:01,200 That was at the station when she had baby and I was shocked, 530 00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,200 cos she fed the baby on the platform. 531 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,440 Breastfeeding the baby on the platform? 532 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,080 Struck by horror, obviously. Very embarrassed, but anyway. 533 00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,400 I was brought up in awe of them. 534 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,720 Well, they were actually very well educated, better than we were. 535 00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,840 Well, we were very young, anyway, darling. 536 00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:24,160 They were very thoughtful people. Yes, right. 537 00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,360 And very intellectual. 538 00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,240 That's why they used to sit around the millstones, 539 00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:34,480 just...you could have eight members cos they could get their legs in. 540 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,760 That's right. And they struck the grain shafts saying, 541 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:43,240 "I commit myself to the preservation of old England 542 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,680 "by defying the octopus." 543 00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,360 The were like the Bloomsbury set in a way. Oh, they were! 544 00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,200 I found that they came from very wealthy families. 545 00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:56,920 Not all of them, by any means. 546 00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:58,680 They... 547 00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,560 She was! She was a colonel's daughter or something. 548 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,560 A general's daughter. Yes, a general's daughter. 549 00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:06,600 Socialists too. Yeah. 550 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,000 They were Socialists, 551 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,440 but their families necessarily weren't Socialists. 552 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,520 Well, they must have been to a certain... They were country gentlemen. 553 00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,520 To a certain extent, darling, don't want to tread on them completely. 554 00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,360 There were probably masked then and they were... 555 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,840 Yes, they were great fun, cos they liked to dress up. 556 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,440 They loved dressing up. 557 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:28,480 And I do remember it was just peppered with gaiety, 558 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,760 of other people's gaieties and our gaieties. 559 00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,000 And all the, the crowds of people coming, 560 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,480 I don't remember them having vast parties. 561 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:41,080 But...a lot of children, always children rushing around. 562 00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,640 80 years on, the National Trust is celebrating the Gang. 563 00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,120 And octopus is on the menu. 564 00:34:54,320 --> 00:35:01,000 This is the octopus that anyone can come and tame the tentacles of, 565 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:02,200 if they want. 566 00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,280 I might just try that. 567 00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:05,880 Delicious. 568 00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,720 And you remember meeting the Gang, don't you? Uh-huh. 569 00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,240 Billy Stickers, yeah. Billy Stickers, then, and that's your... 570 00:35:13,240 --> 00:35:15,040 That's my aunt. Your aunt. 571 00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,520 COWBELL 572 00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,520 I feel very honoured 573 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:22,120 to be amongst you all. 574 00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:24,840 I only wish the Gang were here, 575 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,640 so hold on to the memory, 576 00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:29,240 cherish it and carry it on. 577 00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:32,400 My God! 578 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:35,760 CHEERING 579 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,840 Shalford Mill is typical of the type of building 580 00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,680 the National Trust liked in the 1920s and '30s. 581 00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,640 From its earlier days, saving open landscape and woodland 582 00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:54,560 had been its priority. 583 00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,080 And when the Trust saved buildings, 584 00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:01,360 they tended to be modest and vernacular, wedded to the landscape. 585 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,800 But a crisis was looming that would make both the Trust 586 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:10,280 and the Office Of Works, with its great portfolio of ruins, 587 00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,120 re-examine their priorities. 588 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:18,600 It was the magazine Country Life that spotted the problem 589 00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,680 in its Property-For-Sale pages. 590 00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:26,320 The crisis made a hot story for the newsreel cameras from America. 591 00:36:28,720 --> 00:36:31,600 'And as one fine old mansion after another is sold 592 00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,600 'for taxes and delivered to the wreckers, 593 00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,960 'bankrupt peers face necessities even more precedent-breaking. 594 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,280 'The Marquis of Huntly, 595 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,320 'listed in Burke's Peerage as the premier peer of Scotland, 596 00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,640 'goes out to earn his own bread and butter.' 597 00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,880 And I want a job, as a matter of fact. 598 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,560 I have an appointment to see the manager. 599 00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,240 I wonder if you could show me about where he is, can you? 600 00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:58,240 Certainly, what's the name? Lord Huntly. 601 00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,360 For the toffs up against it, 602 00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,240 the easy option was to seek their fortune elsewhere. 603 00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,280 Many of the biggest country houses were Georgian or Victorian, 604 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:14,280 not even old enough to be considered interesting in the 1930s. 605 00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:15,760 They faced demolition, 606 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,400 the parklands sold and their collections broken up. 607 00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:23,080 'Unless something is done 608 00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:26,800 'to preserve these beautiful old country houses and gardens, 609 00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,280 'in a generation, half of them will be in ruins 610 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,320 'through taxation and death duties.' 611 00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,880 It's very easy, sitting here in the 21st century, 612 00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:43,320 to imagine that it was always going to be the National Trust 613 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,000 that was going to save the nation's country houses. 614 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:52,240 But that was far from clear in the 1930s. 615 00:37:52,240 --> 00:37:54,920 And before the Second World War, 616 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,960 there was a pretty mixed attitude towards country houses. 617 00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,200 They weren't really regarded as proper heritage, 618 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,280 they weren't regarded as proper history. 619 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,560 I mean, Georgian architecture was only really just beginning to be 620 00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,120 properly appreciated like that. 621 00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,400 Barrington Court, a great Tudor house in Somerset, 622 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,440 was much more the people's taste at the time. 623 00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,520 Barrington was the National Trust's 624 00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:25,280 only big country house purchase in 40 years. 625 00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,640 But it had annoyed the Trust's formidable founder, Octavia Hill. 626 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,680 The story of the Trust's stately homes 627 00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:36,040 starts actually with Barrington Court, 628 00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:37,440 an empty house, 629 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:39,360 which they felt they had to save 630 00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,400 and it nearly bankrupted the Trust. 631 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,640 And there were lots of sort of maybe apocryphal stories 632 00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,720 of every time the National Trust wanted to take on another building, 633 00:38:47,720 --> 00:38:50,960 people going darkly, "Remember Barrington," you know. 634 00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,400 Because it was a complete disaster financially. 635 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,080 And I think actually that turned the Trust rather against country houses. 636 00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:58,840 In fact, for a long time 637 00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,120 and certainly, Octavia Hill was very critical 638 00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,560 of all this money being, you know, in her view, wasted on country houses 639 00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:07,040 instead of open spaces, which she wanted. 640 00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,880 I think that in the early days 641 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,240 of the discussions within the National Trust 642 00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:16,560 about how it might get involved in country houses, 643 00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,000 there was huge reluctance to get involved in it. 644 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,560 I mean, they couldn't see why they should. 645 00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,880 Many of the sort of senior people at the National Trust had been 646 00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:26,840 and were Socialists or Communists even. 647 00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,760 And, you know, suddenly getting involved with all these toffs 648 00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:30,960 who were in dire straits 649 00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,000 was, you know, an extraordinary step forward. 650 00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,280 But the National Trust was changing. 651 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,920 From the early years of middle-class philanthropists 652 00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,600 campaigning for the countryside, 653 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,600 it would become more literary artistic. 654 00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:50,800 Soon, the aesthetes would arrive. 655 00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,840 And it was beginning to attract a viscount or two, 656 00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:56,920 even the occasional marquis. 657 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,360 The Trust in the interwar period became really very aristocratic. 658 00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:06,040 I mean, the inheritance of Octavia Hill, Rawnsley and Hunter 659 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:07,840 had changed quite radically. 660 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,480 And by the 1930s, 661 00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:14,400 with the development of the country house concept, 662 00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,920 it was...the language with which it was expressed was quite remarkable. 663 00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,960 And there, she said, "We must save country houses 664 00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,400 "in which the people can have weekends." 665 00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,320 And it was taking the concept of the country house weekend 666 00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,120 and trying to nationalise it. 667 00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:31,520 The tussle was on. 668 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,360 On the one hand, the Office Of Works. 669 00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,920 On the other, the National Trust. 670 00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:41,680 The future of the country house hung in the balance. 671 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:43,920 What we have to remember is that in the 1930s, 672 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,360 the Office Of Works had been incredibly successful 673 00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:48,960 in gathering together a collection of hundreds and hundreds 674 00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:50,840 and hundreds of historic buildings. 675 00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:52,120 To get hold of them, 676 00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:54,160 they had negotiated with aristocratic owners 677 00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,320 and the aristocratic owners had handed over these wonderful ruins, 678 00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,560 abbeys and their old castles and things, 679 00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:02,320 quite happily to the government that was going to look after them. 680 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,760 And so, it was seen absolutely naturally within the Office Of Works 681 00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:10,400 that when the issue of the country house was faced, 682 00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,960 it was going to be the Office Of Works who dealt with them. 683 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,840 Then, the Trust had a brainwave. 684 00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,680 It proposed taking on country houses in lieu of death duties. 685 00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,120 The houses would open to the public 686 00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:29,400 while the former owners could continue to live in the houses as tenants. 687 00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:31,240 The government agreed. 688 00:41:31,240 --> 00:41:35,080 It would be called "the country house scheme". 689 00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,240 And it looked like a breakthrough. 690 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:40,760 But the title home owners were having none of it. 691 00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,320 Many of them were very conservative, they hated the state, 692 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,080 they didn't want, you know, the state to take over their house. 693 00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,800 The National Trust, with its various tax advantages, 694 00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:53,360 appeared to be an agency of the state. 695 00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,240 By the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1939, 696 00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:03,720 the scheme had gone nowhere. 697 00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:06,680 And there were more important things to think about 698 00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:10,200 as both the British people and its precious old buildings 699 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:12,440 faced a new type of conflict. 700 00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,520 For the first time, the cities and towns of Britain 701 00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:20,200 prepared for a massive onslaught from the skies. 702 00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,520 Air raids had been few and far between in World War One. 703 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,920 Now, the home front, the heritage front, 704 00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,600 would be directly in the firing line. 705 00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:34,200 SIRENS WAILING 706 00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,840 The London Blitz and the bombing of Coventry 707 00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,760 showed what aerial bombardment could do. 708 00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,600 Britain would retaliate with a raid on the coastal town of Luebeck. 709 00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,680 British bomber command had chosen Luebeck 710 00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,240 because it was an achievable target. 711 00:43:09,240 --> 00:43:12,200 But it had resulted in the destruction 712 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,680 of hundreds of fine German medieval buildings. 713 00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:22,560 Hitler's Minister Of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary, 714 00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:27,560 "We will respond by razing English cultural shrines to the ground. 715 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,080 "That is now to be done on the biggest scale possible." 716 00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,120 And on 27th April 1942, 717 00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,200 Baron Gustav Braun von Stumm, of the German Foreign Office, revealed, 718 00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,640 "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain 719 00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,080 "marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide." 720 00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,160 Astonishingly, the Luftwaffe was going to picket British targets 721 00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,640 from a heritage guidebook. 722 00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,920 "Of course, Exeter was a sitting target. 723 00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,600 "Just a quiet cathedral city. 724 00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,320 "And the Hun was able to do its worse." 725 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:05,400 'By the time it'd finished, the place was well ablaze. 726 00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:08,280 'Exeter's always been known for the beauty of its squares 727 00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,480 'and crescents and circuses. 728 00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:14,720 'Many of them today were just groups of bare, blackened masonry.' 729 00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:18,880 With aerial bombardments, 730 00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,320 you're seeing the deliberate selection 731 00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,480 of historic cities as targets. 732 00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,520 The Baedeker raids - 733 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:31,240 Exeter, York, Norwich, Canterbury and Bath. 734 00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:35,360 So that picking on heritage as a deliberate target 735 00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,520 shows the potency of heritage as a national identifier 736 00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,960 and people's determination to slight it as an act of vengeance, 737 00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,920 an act of blatant aggression. 738 00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,320 'The King and Queen have come to see 739 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,560 'how Bath now takes its place in Hitler's plan of war. 740 00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,400 'The Germans turned the pages of a travellers' reference book 741 00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,960 'and picked out our beauty spots and historic landmarks for destruction. 742 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,520 'Bath is famous for both. 743 00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,000 'While they may concentrate their bombers 744 00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,400 'on targets suggested by Mr Baedeker, 745 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,240 'the RAF will continue to open up the second front 746 00:45:13,240 --> 00:45:14,840 'in the skies over Germany.' 747 00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,400 The emotional impact of the Baedeker raids 748 00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,120 was to have a profound and long-term effect. 749 00:45:27,720 --> 00:45:30,920 The bombing of Britain in the Second World War did make people conscious 750 00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,760 of how precious buildings could be. 751 00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,240 Before the war when buildings were destroyed, it was progress. 752 00:45:38,240 --> 00:45:42,280 But when they were bombed, of course, it was a product of Nazi barbarism. 753 00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,200 Often buildings after a bombing raid would be vulnerable, 754 00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:48,400 if their neighbouring buildings had fallen down, for instance. 755 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,160 How could you make sure that that building remains standing? 756 00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,440 How could you carry out emergency repairs? 757 00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,320 So the Ministry of Works has a really important part to play 758 00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:00,560 in upholding, literally, the special interest of those buildings. 759 00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:05,040 300 architects were appointed by the Government to go round 760 00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,000 the country very quickly and to look at the bombed cities 761 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:12,560 and to work out which buildings ought to be kept and repaired 762 00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:17,120 and which buildings were not so important and could be demolished. 763 00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:21,400 It was a massive task, covering bombed buildings 764 00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,480 and intact buildings in the firing line. 765 00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,600 In effect, an inventory of the nation's greatest 766 00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:29,640 architectural assets. 767 00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,040 In peacetime, it would have been resisted 768 00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,720 because these were privately-owned buildings. 769 00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:37,080 In wartime, it happened 770 00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:41,200 and it would change the future of heritage protection. 771 00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,640 These salvage surveys became the foundation 772 00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:46,920 of what we now know as listing 773 00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:51,400 because the lists that were compiled by the architects 774 00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:53,760 right in the middle of the war as the bombs were falling 775 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:58,800 became the basis of the listing system that we have today. 776 00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:02,920 Listing wasn't going to save your building from being attacked 777 00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:04,960 from the air by German bombs. 778 00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:06,960 What listing could do, however, 779 00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,520 was make sure that proper care was taken of it after the bombing raid, 780 00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,440 that every effort was taken to make sure it remained standing 781 00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:17,560 and thoughtless clearance of a site didn't take place. 782 00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:24,320 At last, the Office of Works had a system of safeguarding buildings, 783 00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,920 inhabited and with roofs on, not just ruins, 784 00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:31,560 that did not depend on acquiring them. 785 00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:36,440 Before long, the listing process would become enshrined in the Town and Country Planning Act. 786 00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:41,400 To list or not to list would define the post-war heritage world. 787 00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:45,800 But the Government wasn't the only body making lists. 788 00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:52,200 Before the war, a youthful James Lees-Milne had been working for the National Trust. 789 00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,040 Now, newly-demobbed due to ill-health and back at the trust, 790 00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,400 he set out on a fresh mission to convince the owners 791 00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,240 of the finest country houses to hand them over to the trust. 792 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:11,640 Maybe in wartime they would be more open to persuasion. 793 00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,480 Many of the owners had abandoned their big houses as they were 794 00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:19,280 requisitioned by the Government for the war effort. 795 00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:23,960 Some of Britain's finest houses were now schools for evacuated children, 796 00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,600 hospitals for injured servicemen 797 00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:31,520 and, worst of all, training camps for the services. 798 00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:33,440 Many were damaged. 799 00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,760 Several had caught fire. 800 00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:38,400 Most needed urgent repair. 801 00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,320 The waspish Lees-Milne in his diary paints an extraordinary picture 802 00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,360 of a titled class losing its marbles. 803 00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:50,400 Suicidal earls, 804 00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:53,720 ladies of the manor living in treehouses 805 00:48:53,720 --> 00:48:56,880 and baronets down to their last butler. 806 00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:03,480 He passed judgement on both houses and owners as he travelled 807 00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,720 and was not always complimentary. 808 00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:10,240 "The house is a hideous, pretentious, genteel, 809 00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:12,320 "over-restored fake. 810 00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:16,160 "Just like its inhabitants. A horrible property. 811 00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:18,480 "I hope it gets bombed." 812 00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:22,480 But to their faces, he was as nice as pie. 813 00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:27,440 And the lords and ladies down on their luck seemed to like him. 814 00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:29,760 Lees-Milne went to Eton. 815 00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:33,440 He knew many of these families, he spoke to them in their language. 816 00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:36,680 Being quite ruthless about this, he could do it. 817 00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,960 He pulled off, effectively, a giant confidence trick 818 00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,400 on the aristocracy of Britain. He took away their wealth. 819 00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,880 But he said to them, "People like me will look after you. 820 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:52,920 "You can stay in the house. You can continue to pretend it's yours. 821 00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:54,760 "You can continue to enjoy it. 822 00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:58,040 "You will have the same sense, and your children, most importantly, 823 00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,600 "will have the same sense that it's still your house." 824 00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:09,200 Lees-Milne needed a prize. 825 00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,440 And at the very top of his shopping list was one of the greatest houses 826 00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:16,160 in the country, Knole in Kent. 827 00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,920 If he could get Knole for the trust, 828 00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,720 if he could convince its owner the 4th Baron Sackville, 829 00:50:22,720 --> 00:50:26,640 formerly known as Major-General Sir Charles Sackville-West, 830 00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:28,240 he would bag for the trust 831 00:50:28,240 --> 00:50:31,320 a house of unsurpassed architectural splendours 832 00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:35,920 with furniture and paintings to match. 833 00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:40,480 Most importantly, he knew other owners of great houses 834 00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,040 would sign their houses over to the trust 835 00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,600 if someone like Lord Sackville led the way. 836 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:51,160 Built by an Archbishop of Canterbury and dating back to the 15th century, 837 00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,400 Knole is so grand no-one's ever been quite sure 838 00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:56,200 how many rooms there are. 839 00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,800 These days, it's home to Robert, 7th Baron Sackville. 840 00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:04,600 This room here. 841 00:51:06,240 --> 00:51:12,320 It's A terrific portrait there by Sir Joshua Reynolds 842 00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,000 of an Italian dancer 843 00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,120 who was the mistress of John Sackville, 844 00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:18,800 3rd Duke of Dorset. 845 00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:23,040 We have her there. We've got the third duke there. 846 00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,960 We've got the wife of the third duke, 847 00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:30,640 with whom he eventually settled down, over the fireplace. 848 00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:36,400 So they're all meeting in some ghastly family reunion. 849 00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,960 Sackville ancestors include a Lord Treasurer to Elizabeth I, 850 00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:45,520 an ambassador to the court of Louis XIV 851 00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:48,720 and a flamenco dancer nicknamed Pepita. 852 00:51:48,720 --> 00:51:51,880 The family survived the Civil War, 853 00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,000 endless disputes over inheritance, 854 00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,840 bouts of transgenerational depression 855 00:51:56,840 --> 00:52:01,080 and even riots against them by the angry people of nearby Sevenoaks. 856 00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:07,400 But by the 1940s, for the then incumbent Charles 4th Baron Sackville, 857 00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,440 it looked as though the game was up. 858 00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:14,720 In the dark days of war, Knole had reached its lowest ebb. 859 00:52:14,720 --> 00:52:18,960 Pretty much ever since a Sackville family member lived here 860 00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:20,800 in the early 17th century 861 00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,480 the house has been simply too big 862 00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,600 for the means of the Sackville family. 863 00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:31,320 So they have struggled or tended to struggle over centuries with debt. 864 00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:34,400 Certainly my great uncle Charlie often thought that he 865 00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,920 or at least his son would be the last Sackvilles to live at Knole. 866 00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:42,040 It was seen to be a massive burden rather than a pleasure 867 00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:47,000 and he, I think, realised that something had to be done. 868 00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:53,240 And Charlie and James Lees-Milne started to talk 869 00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:55,560 about what might happen to Knole. 870 00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,840 I mean, James Lees-Milne describes some of these conversations 871 00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:05,440 and what he says about Charlie is that Charlie was very charming, 872 00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,080 but entered into these discussions with a great, 873 00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:11,600 if not suspicion, with a certain wariness. 874 00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:17,680 There were no precedents for what happened to houses such as this 875 00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:19,520 when taken over by the National Trust 876 00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:23,800 and more specifically what happened to their owners. 877 00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,000 But James Lees-Milne wanted a deal. He wanted Knole. 878 00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:31,960 Negotiations took the best part of two years 879 00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,320 and were frequently exasperating. 880 00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,760 But in October, 1943, 881 00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:41,440 the London Times announced that a deal had been struck. 882 00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:45,400 The terms were generous to the Sackville family. 883 00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:47,560 But Lees-Milne had his prize. 884 00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:54,880 In 1946, the Sackville family handed over the house. 885 00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:58,920 So began the first modern marriage of a titled family 886 00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:00,840 and the National Trust. 887 00:54:04,240 --> 00:54:07,920 From a family perspective, 888 00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:14,760 we, I guess, are very grateful to James Lees-Milne 889 00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:17,320 for acquiring Knole 890 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:23,480 and acquiring it on terms that are relatively beneficial to the family. 891 00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:29,600 Knole was a very good deal for the Sackville family. 892 00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:33,880 But, no, each of the deals were fit for purpose at the time 893 00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,320 and there was a serious risk of Knole, in effect, 894 00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:39,360 disappearing from the public realm 895 00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:43,320 and the negotiators at the time did the best deal they could 896 00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,320 and that happened in almost all the cases. 897 00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,720 The outcome is quite remarkable. 898 00:54:49,720 --> 00:54:51,760 Knole's open to the public. 899 00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,600 Knole is safe. The estate is safe. 900 00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,360 The objects in the house are safe. 901 00:54:57,360 --> 00:54:59,640 Knole is a success story. 902 00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:02,400 If you'd asked me, would we do such a deal now? No, we wouldn't. 903 00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:04,960 The circumstances are very different now. 904 00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:11,160 Today the trust is carrying out a �17 million restoration 905 00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:13,480 to make Knole weatherproof, 906 00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:18,720 replace rotten timbers and window frames and repair stonework. 907 00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:22,200 It's a massive operation over five years. 908 00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:27,480 After the acquisition of Knole by the trust, 909 00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,960 many house owners followed Lord Sackville into the trust stable. 910 00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,800 No other deal would be quite as generous again. 911 00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:40,280 But it had convinced the British aristocracy that the trust 912 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,520 was the only way forward. 913 00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:46,120 But it wasn't quite the end of the story. 914 00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:49,000 In 1946, the Office of Works, 915 00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,800 still determined to get into the country house game, 916 00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,120 went after the finest Jacobean house in the country, 917 00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,040 Audley End in Essex. 918 00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,600 It would be a final skirmish. 919 00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:05,600 They scrapped about it. James Lees-Milne was incredibly rude 920 00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:08,760 about the Office of Works, calling them tasteless. 921 00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:12,440 And I suspect, probably behind closed doors, the Office of Works was 922 00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:14,520 very rude about the National Trust, 923 00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:18,760 thinking they were a load of aesthetes who didn't know anything about buildings. 924 00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,320 The National Trust was very, very keen to have the house. 925 00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,760 The Office of Works was very, very keen to have the house. 926 00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,000 It would have been their first country house 927 00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:31,120 and they very much saw that as potentially the founding house 928 00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:35,000 of a big collection of what they thought were probably going to be 929 00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:37,960 the top dozen houses. That's what they would like to have. 930 00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,240 They had the top dozen castles. They had the top dozen abbeys. 931 00:56:41,240 --> 00:56:43,880 They had the top dozen prehistoric monuments. 932 00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:47,320 So, quite naturally, they wanted the top dozen houses. 933 00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:50,960 In the end, the Office of Works got its prize 934 00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:53,200 in the form of Audley End. 935 00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:55,840 But it was a short-lived victory. 936 00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,040 As post-war austerity loomed, 937 00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:01,880 the Treasury stamped firmly on the Office of Works' ambitions. 938 00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:04,440 As a matter of fact, our report's on its way to you today... 939 00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:08,040 A Government report decided the National Trust was the place 940 00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:12,560 for houses and the rest, as they say, is history. 941 00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:16,760 Back at Knole, it's business as usual for the National Trust 942 00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:21,160 and history has moved on from an obsession with the gilded past 943 00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:23,200 of dukes and earls. 944 00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:26,720 We've got a group of people who are slightly lower down 945 00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:30,480 and we've got a group of people who are a bit higher up. 946 00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,840 Some of you are clearly rich people. 947 00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,440 Some of you are very clearly not rich people. 948 00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:40,920 And what we're going to do now is we're going to look... 949 00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,640 The interwar years had seen the men from the Ministry 950 00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:51,440 open hundreds of the nation's ruins to the public, 951 00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:54,160 the National Trust had evolved to take on the mantle 952 00:57:54,160 --> 00:57:56,800 of the country house 953 00:57:56,800 --> 00:57:59,600 and amidst the ruins of the second world war, 954 00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,360 the listing system was born. 955 00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:06,520 Now the nation's framework to safeguard its most precious 956 00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,440 old buildings was in place. 957 00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,360 But how would it cope with the modern world? 958 00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:16,760 In next week's programme, 959 00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,440 fighting for the most famous monument to the railway age... 960 00:58:21,960 --> 00:58:24,600 ..Betjeman and Pevsner go head to head, 961 00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:28,200 sexing up the stately home for mass consumption... 962 00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:31,680 ..and just how modern can heritage get? 963 00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:36,160 For more information about English Heritage's 964 00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:38,400 complementary exhibition to the series visit... 965 00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,240 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd