Magical Christmas Makeover of 18th Century Holkham Hall _ Our History

Right, come on then. Tom Cook is the eighth Earl of Leicester. This is Scampy, who's my English Springer. He's eight. His father is Shrimp. And then Bilbo, of course, who I was forced to bring out. Tom's family have owned Holcombe Bay since 1609. Today, more than a million people visit these four miles of dunes and nature reserve every year. Oh, it's just a very, very special place. I mean, when I was young, digging sandcastles, picnics with, you know, sandy sandwiches, having dogs with us. Yeah, no, it's lovely. Very peaceful, isn't it? This is where it gets dangerous, because Bilbo doesn't necessarily do what he's told. Scampy a bit more biddable. Come on. Get on. Bilbo. In the bleak midwinter, you know, here we are, Christmas approaching, and yet there's a lovely winter sun. And, well, I think we've seen one person, but they've gone, so there's no one on the beach now. Time for a bit of thinking and reflection. Isle in land from the bay at the Hall. OK, so just put it here. Lovely. Thank you. It's the first day of Christmas. Oh, what's in here? Oh! 20 volunteers, marshaled by designer and Christmas project manager, Catherine... A bow! ..and their creative director, Tom's wife, Polly... Hi, are you OK? I want to get to the interesting stuff at the back. ..have just three weeks until Christmas opening day. We've got boxes of snow. We've got about 1,000 miles worth of artificial greenery. So, yeah, everything you could possibly need to decorate a stately home at Christmas is in that container. It's down to this small team to transform 13 of Holcombe's state rooms for 30,000 visitors over the festive season. For us, we never have a theme. Theme is a really dirty word for us, because it means we can't have any last-minute ideas and we feel very constricted. Ooh! So, this is the old kitchen. Day one, and it all feels a bit chaotic. You're not quite sure which direction you're going in. There's a lot of looking and, like, scratching heads and... Yeah, I'm a bit nervous. It just feels like there's an awful lot to do at the moment, and that's the sort of the overwhelming feeling. At least Polly and Catherine have Bilbo the Basset Hound to ably assist them through the installation. He's got a treat. Otherwise, he'll eat the baubles. Gosh, quite a lot to do. Quite a lot of spaces to fill. Yeah. Their biggest challenge this year will be the transformation of over 100 feet of statue gallery. This is like a kind of model village, so we've got a lot of houses a bit like these. They're going to be all filled with lights. We're going to have little areas of villages and mountains, so it'll be like a lovely snowy forest with little kind of twinkly villages in it. But Polly, like Venetian, faces a housing crisis. Half the houses, like 60 houses, are delayed. Yeah, there aren't many available anymore, so we're all kind of fingers crossed it'll arrive. In addition to Polly and Catherine's plans for 130 new homes, in his basement workshop... Her ladyship wanted me to make a few models for them, and so this is what I've come up with so far. ..Houseman and handyman Hooker is crafting his own bespoke central square for the Alpine village. This one, when I've finished with it, will be a manor house. I've still got a bit of the windows to do on it and that. And everything is just off the top of my head. I ain't gone from any plans. I just seem to throw them together. If I think that'll look OK, that's how that'll stay. The cardboard tube I pulled out of the skip. I try to chuck nothing away. I get told off because I save too much. But then, you know, you can turn it into bits and pieces. You know? Above Hooker's workshop... ..Holcombe's Christmas Entertainment is gathering for rehearsals in the marble hall. The elves are already here. Yeah, squeaking and popping and doing what they do up there, you know. Pippin said, put this on first. But rather than journeying from the North Pole, these elves have made the short trip up the road from Faeconham. We're at the very early stages of devising our opening scene and working with props that we've just started building. Yeah, first time we've seen it. It's pretty exciting. OK. Hang on. Cheeky elves. Not quite ready. I'm so terrified they're going to fall down the stairs. Ex-ammers. It seems the elves have a little more work to do before ex-ams can be transformed into Christmas. Holcombe boasts nearly 10,000 acres of coastal nature reserve. We're helping to move the cattle this morning from one area of the marsh to another. On the bank at Burnham Overy Stave, warden Andy and farmers Billy and John gather for an annual Christmas tradition. We're just hoping that the presence of several of us is going to stop the cows going in the direction we don't want them to go in. So obviously we don't want the cows to go across onto the salt marsh because these are all tidal creeks interlinked to the harbour and then the sea. So the last place we want to herd a belt of galloways is trawling across there. Every winter, the cattle have to be moved inland from their grazing on the reclaimed marshes. So this is just an empty bag. Hopefully they'll see me. They think they're going to get some food, but they're really not. But normally if you shake an empty bag at them, they will follow you. They're very much a pack when they get going and they move very quickly and suddenly. Can be unpredictable beasts, the old galloway. In their stampede to get to pastures new, the cattle have little patience for early morning twitches. We weren't too worried, but as long as we're still on the edge, they run by, no worries. They say there's always one bugger that hang behind and that's this one. Seamless. In the hall, perhaps Polly's trickiest festive challenge is the old kitchen. A visitor magnet on the Christmas route for the last 11 years. Let me just try this new idea. I just had a thought that we could stack up the lanterns in a sort of three flat, one-dimensional Christmas tree shape. Ah, I see. Very clever. Might not work. I don't think it looks enough like a Christmas tree. Do you? It doesn't look like a Christmas tree, no. No. But that doesn't mean it's not good. Polly decides to clear the top shelf of Georgian pewter. I think that extra shelf might just help. They're really heavy, those plates. To make her triangle of candles more tree-like. Can I just pass you that? With all the commotion... Hello, we've had another idea. It's not long before Hooker appears from the basement. It doesn't involve any extra work for you? She did it, not me. Sorry, darling. Don't trip on the dog. We're making a Christmas tree shape. Sorry? We're making a Christmas tree shape. All right. When it comes to her leadership's creative moments, Polly can always rely upon Hooker's undivided support. Think that'll work. Do you think? Do you think people will get it? Yeah. Alcom Hall in North Norfolk. There's just two weeks to go until doors open for Christmas. On the north front... You just want to lay them out here, and then I can go round and label them where they're going to go. Designer and project manager, Catherine, is expecting her most important Christmas delivery. The first 32 of 76 real trees destined for the hall and gardens. Yeah, the biggest tree of them all is coming in in a minute. We've got to thin the end down a bit on her before that'll fit in the base. Hooker is a veteran of 12 big tree installations. Three, two, one. And that is? It needs to go east a little bit, that way. One, two, three, four. So pretty. How's it looking now? Like a Christmas tree, John. I think it's the tallest, isn't it, Hooker? I think this might be, yeah. We can conquer it, though. Yeah. Oh, wow, we're getting a proper treatment. It's a quick clean down by the cleaners. Time for a cup of tea, eh, lads? Every winter, North Sea gales ravage Holcombe's wild, dynamic coastline of vast dune systems. To stabilise them, 140 years ago, the second Earl of Leicester planted four miles of pine woods and drained the salt marsh behind for grazing. What we're trying to do is fill the old salt marsh features up with fresh water. Nature Reserve Warden Andy is preparing 1,000 acres of the reclaimed land for Christmas visitors. So the pink-footed geese come here from Iceland and Greenland, and they'll be feeding inland on the remains of the sugar beet harvest, and then they come back to the coast to spend the night. They roost on these freshwater features that we're creating now. The contours of the old salt marsh remain, but are now intercut with man-made freshwater dikes. So what we're gonna do is put the water from the ditch into the dry wetland feature. There we go. You'll be surprised, by the end of the day, we should have a fair amount of water in this feature, and hopefully the ducks and the geese from the north will come. They migrate here for the warmer weather that we offer, and then hopefully within a week, the ducks and the geese will have found it, and it'll be full of life. Also visiting the wetland nature reserve this morning is Andy's boss, Tom Cook. Thank you. Are you coming back? No, no, no, we're not. It's a beautiful morning out there. Fantastic. I mean, we're quite early this morning, aren't we, Kevin? So not many cars yet, but so who's, is it dog walkers? Dog walkers and bird watchers. Okay. Kevin, thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Tom likes to keep a low profile at Christmas. Well, I think what makes Holcombe different is the principal, i.e. my wife, is the one that runs the show, and she's got a very distinctive eye, and she puts her heart and soul into it. She really does. It's certainly put us on the map, and no, I count my blessings every day. In the south dining room, Tom's wife, Polly. Have you found the red balls? No, there was a bag of, a box of pink. Is creating a red, white, and blue jubilee-themed room dedicated to the late queen, with Catherine and stylist, Alice. I'm not sure if they're quite right as well, but you tell me what you think. Maybe some of these, look. Yes. I spy a corgi. Yes. He's up there because Bilbo doesn't like him. Oh, really? Competition. Yeah, maybe. But Bilbo quickly hunts down a second royal interloper. You take it away. That's so, so, so... Yeah, the corgi's become Bilbo's best friend, so we hope that he will let it go so it can be put where it's supposed to on top of the tree. Wardens Andy and Paul are up early to see if the freshwater flooding has attracted visitors all the way from Greenland and Iceland. So what we do is we get in position early before dawn, and then the geese start to lift, sometimes in dribs and drabs, but sometimes in one big lump. And the noise and the volume of the birds and their wings, that's an amazing spectacle. If it reached tens of thousands, that can be quite spectacular. We shall see. Here we go. Here we go, here's the big lot getting up. Wow, look at that. There we go. The pink-footed geese are home for Christmas. It's always a fantastic moment. Makes it worth getting up in the morning for. The Holcombe wetlands will feast 50,000 pinks and over 50 different wintering species of birds over the festive season. Sure sign that winter is here when we see them like that. And we look forward to it as much as we do the swallows in the spring. There's something about this, the North Norfolk skyscape. Big skies with avian graffiti. Straight from a poetry book. In the stable's courtyard. These are what Her Ladyship and Catherine asked for for the village. Hooker's hamlet, with complimentary Rapunzel Tower, is nearing completion. To make the whole lot, from start to finish, I think was about five weeks. That's just a matter of the guys doing a bit of snow effect on them now. Look at that. Henry and Jim from the gardening team are providing the final artistic flourishes. Should we put a bit on? Go on. There. You've got any glitter, Hooker? Do I look like the sort of guy who carried glitter around, you know? No, I ain't got none at all, mate. What do you think, Hooker? Is that all right? Yeah, that's fine with me, mate. You're the artists. Soon, Hooker's housing project will take pride of place in the statue gallery. An empire. Building our own empire. Where Polly and volunteer Julian are using cardboard boxes to create a pop-up alpine resort. I need some more big houses, please, Julian. That's a bit bigger, mum. Polly's vision for a snowy village is in danger of suffering from urban sprawl. So, we've got only about 60 houses at the moment, haven't we? The other 70 houses, I think, are coming in the next few days. Thanks to a well-known online delivery service, the alpine village is now enjoying a late building boom. Developers come in and built a little estate. What about a little tree in the middle? Bilbo. He doesn't like foreign objects that he's never seen before. In the marble hall, Polly has charged hall manager, John, with creating a solar system. We'll go for a large moon. To be suspended from the 50-foot columns of pink Derbyshire alabaster. The marble hall is quite a special room to be in. Obviously, it's so grand, it's unbelievable. All plasterwork, same as the roof. You can actually get inside this roof. It actually looks a bit like a beehive when you're in the other side. That's really cool. The hall's palatial domed roof, designed by William Kent, is inspired by ancient Roman architecture. We come up from time to time and we look for vermin, pests. We keep an eye on any water leaks and stuff. Just the other side of this curve is all the very decorative plaster that you look up at. I mean, look at this, amazing. So, pitch pine, original timbers from mid 1700s. You can still see some of the horse hair in it here, which is mixed in with the lime plaster. And it gives it that sort of binding effect. And actually, it's quite cool. There's a remains of an old treasure hunt that we think on here. And we're desperate to find the rest. Go to the secret library between the southwest and the northwest towers and run, run, run. We still don't know what that means. And we still don't know where the secret library is. That's the funny thing about it. With a week to go before opening, contractors Mike and Sean arrive with a snow machine to provide the winter weather for the statue gallery. I don't want to be bringing barrels of water upstairs into a stately home. So, we've got a water line coming from the van connecting up here by the dressing room. Hence why we've got the window open and the hose banging out the window. They've also got to be wary of the 18 priceless sculptures protected by a few plastic sheets. They say they've covered everything up so we can only hope and pray. Christmas in a bag. Okay, Sean. It takes just 20 minutes for Polly's alpine metropolis and Booker's Citadel to get the full whiteout treatment. Et voila. I'm just making sure that the people that live in the house can look out the window because they've been snowed in. So, we don't want them looking like the houses aren't lived in. Look, the church looks a bit crooked. Cool, I love it. Yeah, my empire has arrived. At Holcombe Hall, there's a week to go until Norfolk's most creative stately Christmas opens to visitors. It's just a lot happening today, I think. Lots of people arriving, lots of things that are not finished. Designer and project manager Catherine and 20 volunteers still have two tonnes of decorations to install across 13 state rooms. I think I might need that gin, or maybe the tequila. I'm not sure you're coming through. In the East Wing, Tom Cook, the Earl of Leicester, is about to start his working day. Yeah, the South Park, the terraces, the fountain, and the obelisk in the distance. As well as managing the 25,000-acre estate and multiple businesses associated with Holcombe... My computer's here, so I stand on this very desk, so I can actually look out the window. ..Tom has another job. Last year, he was elected as a Conservative peer to the House of Lords. You know, I like to think, even though it's quite hard to justify the make-up of the Lords appointed and then a few hereditaries like me, but it does a really good job. He is one of 91 remaining Dukes, Earls, Barons and Viscounts who are entitled by birth to sit in the Lords, 75 of whom are now elected by their fellow hereditary peers. I've always been interested in politics, and I suppose I had the opportunity to do it in my 50s, and, you know, they say you've got one more job left in you in your 50s. Tom brings his experience of rural affairs to cross-bench committees, examining changes in the law proposed by the House of Commons. If the Chief Whip said, you know, you must vote for this bill, and I didn't want to vote for it, in the Commons they say, you know, if you don't vote with the Whip, then you won't get a peerage. Well, I've already got one of those, so I can do what I want. But, you know, equally, you've got a collective responsibility and you've got to be a team player. Also on early morning duty... Parsley, where are you? Come on. ..is Holcombe's head gamekeeper, Come on. Yeah. Oh, this is Parsley. She's in charge. My duties are managing the shooting on the estate and managing the deer. This morning, Mark is carrying out a headcount of the deer herd roaming Holcombe's 677-acre park. Here I can see a group of fallow under these trees there. They're probably feeding on the fallen chestnuts and fallen fruits. We maintain the herd to around 400 to 450 through the year, so we have to run a culling programme to keep those numbers to that level. Fallow deer were originally bought to Holcombe in 1844 by the second Earl, and ever since, they have provided a source of venison for the estate and local area. We provide some wonderful sustainable meat that goes back into the food chain to local butchers and into the Victoria Hotel. So, you know, working on the estate, you know, early through the morning, driving through the park, there's not a soul about. It's, you know, it's back to nature. Alongside managing the deer herd, Mark is the guardian for what is probably England's oldest pheasant and partridge shoot. The Earls of Leicester have entertained their winter guests, often including royalty and aristocracy, with weekend shooting parties for the best part of 200 years. And today, that tradition continues. At the end of every shoot, Mark's team of five full-time keepers gather the day's bag in the game larder. You know, this is my shoot day attire. This is Holkham tweed, the bowler hat. To be a keeper at Holkham, after two years of service, you wear the bowler hat. Legend has it that the bowler hat was invented specifically for Holkham's keepers in 1849 by the younger brother of the second Earl of Leicester. They came up with the design because they wanted protective headgear for the gamekeepers, basically. I think all the keepers are very proud to wear the bowler. What a lovely day for it. Michael, head chef at Holkham's restaurant in the Victoria Hotel, is a regular visitor to Mark's game larder and on the hunt for venison. Afternoon, Mark. How you up, Michael? How you doing, mate? Not bad yourself? Yeah, not so bad. Thought I could bring a bit nicer weather than me. I'll go and get your bits and pieces. Ah, lovely job. There we go, mate. Lovely. There's your hornshoes. Fantastic. Nice. Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it. And I'll see you on the second for a fantastic dinner, hopefully. We should be there with a critical eye. See you later, guys. See you later, mate. Michael has been asked by the hall to prepare a special Christmas feast sourced entirely from the estate and local area. Yeah, so it's a big thank you to all the volunteers who put all the hard work in through the year, obviously decorating the hall ready for Christmas. Venison's in hand. That's the main event for the dinner. Now off to the Walled Garden to find Kirsty. The Walled Garden, a six-acre haven constructed in the late 1700s, provides all the estate's fruit and veg. So, you've got some, yeah, got some super pumpkins. Perfect. Good squashes. Oh, absolutely stunning. That's a monster. But, yeah, it's definitely... They weigh a fair bit, don't they? Yeah, they do. You know, when you think about it, this is the domestic size, isn't it? Yeah. This is what you get in the supermarket. Yeah, this is catering size. Much better. Michael may have his impressively proportioned squash safely in the bag, but on the north front, Bilbo is keen to show his master what his mistress has been up to. Right, so, I'm not normally allowed to see what's happened at Christmas. Um, so, we're going to go and have a sneak preview. After two weeks of non-stop decorating, the Christmas team have a welcome morning off. It provides the perfect opportunity for Tom to have a nosy. Mmm. I absolutely have nothing to do with Christmas. You know, I just keep out of my wife's way. It's her baby. I've got plenty of other fish to fry, so... And, of course, I keep getting, as you can probably tell, I keep getting told by my wife that I don't have any fashion sense or dress sense, so, you know, I stay away from this area. It doesn't take long for Tom to find an installation perfectly suited to his taste. Gosh, another tree made out of wine boxes. Vintage port. Taylor's 1980. Actually, I've got Taylor's 70 and 77, so maybe, maybe these haven't been. These aren't mine. What's that? A crocodile rather enjoying a tasty morsel. It was probably shot by an ancestor. Well, I suppose if somebody asked me what my forebears might think of this, they'd be very surprised, but I think they'd also be rather intrigued and rather proud that we're, you know, we're keeping a house like this going. We're keeping it alive. And I think, you know, under my wife's watchful eye, it's very well done. Head chef Michael doesn't have far to travel to source one last local delicacy for his Holcombe Christmas dinner. Now off to Wells to go and see Billy, who's our lobster man. Wells, next to the sea, is a fishing town two and a half miles east of Holcombe Hall. In a decent year, around 20,000, or 18 tonnes, of lobsters are landed on the quay. Hello, Billy. Can we pick the lobsters up? Yes, please, if possible. Billy has been fishing the North Norfolk coast for 20 years. Oh, lovely job. Wells Port now runs a lobster hatchery, rearing vulnerable juveniles on land, before releasing them back at sea to grow safely into harvestable adults like these. We've got these big ones here today. That's a beauty there, aren't there? Nice-looking one. We'll have that one. And we'll go for that one. This sort of size is perfect for us. Nice and small, nice and juicy. We're going to use every part of the lobster, so the shells will go in to make a bisque. We don't waste anything off them. Can't afford to. No! Billy's haul is almost the last catch of the year. Yeah, the lobsters will start up again about next springtime, hopefully up to wash. Yeah, fingers crossed. We'll have a good season next year. Hopefully. We always hope for a better season. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. Cheers. At the haul, the volunteers... Right, next one. Right, that's standing on a priceless table. ..are getting stuck into final fettling. Right, yeah, not too bad. Do we need to go more to the back? As high as you can, and then take it back across. It's the lights, I think, the thing we all dread the most. But the volunteers' lighting struggles are nothing. Where's that bugger gone? That's flashing. Can't even find the controls. Compared to the battle being fought on the chapel landing by haul manager John, Catherine and Polly. OK, we're struggling with getting these lights. They're all flashing, they're all going mad. We're just trying to make them all stable. But trying to find the right control for the right tree is proving a bit tricky at the minute. Is that going to stay? No. Are they fading? For Christ's sake. What was it on before? Besides the temperamental electrics... So, I'm just going to scroll through the colours. ..John also has to manage Polly and Catherine's creative aspirations. OK, keep going down. 13. 12. No. 7. No. 6. No. 5. 4. 4's quite nice. Yeah, 4's nice. That's what you like with 4, I think. It's less green, isn't it? Yeah. Please don't make me change it again. Catherine, John and Polly face a long night ahead if they're going to fix all the lighting gremlins in time for doors opening the day after tomorrow. It's just sound. We've got a huge booking for Sunday, so we've got about 990 people through the hall. So, it's a big day. So, logistically, we just need to be spot-on for that. The next morning, Tom's cousin, Anne Tennant, Baroness Glen Connor, arrives for her annual Christmas inspection. Hello, Catherine. Oh, Anne, lovely to see you. How lovely to see you. How are you? I'm very well. How are you? Good. Very well indeed. Lady Anne, the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, grew up at Holcombe Hall. If she had been born a boy, she would have inherited the estate. Married at Holcombe's church, St Withberger's, in 1956, the ceremony was a short hop from Sandringham for the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. Have you seen the red, white, blue room? No, I'd love to see that. Is that in honour of our darling Queen? Yeah, it's a sort of homage, I suppose, to the Jubilee and the Queen. Well, have you got a dog? Come and have a look. Ooh! Lady Anne was also a Maid of Honour at the Queen's coronation in 1953. Oh! Gosh! Isn't this wonderful? Oh, and there is a royal corgi. That's too sweet for words. I love its crown. I love all the flags and the... ..the elevated teapots. Wonderful. And the catalogue stamps of the Queen. Yeah, and a few more corgis. Oh! I mean, the Queen would so love this room. Good. As you know, she's mad about dogs. That's wonderful. And she used to come here quite often. My mother was a lady-in-waiting, so she used to pop over quite a lot and bring the corgis. Oh, did she? Do you think it would get the Royal Seal of Approval? Well, I do. I might ring up King Charles and say, Yeah, give him a call. I might give him a call. Brilliant. Holcombe's 1,000 acres of forestry are not just the lungs of the estate. They also power its beating heart. The day before Christmas opening, disaster strikes in Tubbins Wood. Hello, mate. What's the problem, then? Erm, I've figured out what it isn't. So it's... What we have in here are two biomass boilers. The fact that this one is down, not really a good situation. The boilers, fed from the woods, release less CO2 than burning fossil fuels and have been sustainably heating the hall for the last seven years. We've got Christmas just around the corner. There's so much happening down in the house. Without these, we have no heat, we have no hot water. Woodchip is not getting through to the furnace, which must be kept lit at all times. Oh! It's blocked up again. And have you found a problem, then, Daniel? I've found a lot of woodchip that's blocked. It's not looking too good at the minute. Sounded like the gearbox at the back might have had it. Much more sustainable job than we thought. If a new gearbox is not sourced today, then Holcombe's Christmas will be getting off to a very cold start. At Holcombe Hall, it's the first morning of Christmas. Lastminute.com. Hall manager John is still not happy with the lights. Four candles, twice 300. But he has no time to waste. Right, morning, everyone. Morning. Here we are, big day, first day of opening. Public are due in, in... Ooh! ..12 minutes. So, not leaving it to the last minute at all. The rota's in place, we're all happy who's where and when. It's exciting. In Tubbins Wood, the success of Christmas rests upon one man's shoulders. Got a message off of young Daniel, saying that the gearbox and everything is sorted. Yep, and that looks like a brand-new gearbox and motor. Can Hooker get the broken biomass boiler fired up before visitors arrive? Hopefully, this should come on. Spot on. The fan should be kicking in up here, and that should start to auto-feed in a little while. That means the wood chip is now travelling up that pipe into the bottom of the boiler. And if there's flame in there, that means everything is good. Everything's nicely alight. Yep, yep, that looks like Christmas is saved. We've got to have heat and hot water around the whole estate. Christmas at Holcombe is back on track, and just in time, because the 2,000 expected visitors this weekend have started to arrive early. Are you all going for the candlelight tours? Yes. Yeah? Lovely. Oh, brilliant. We're really excited to see the decorations. All feeling very festive. Have a little mince pie and a walkabout. And in the hall, Catherine and Polly are waiting in the wings. People are starting to arrive, so, yeah, I can't wait to hear what they think. I always like sort of hiding myself in a secret corner behind a Christmas tree and eavesdropping. It's one of the highlights of my Christmas. Their Christmas vision is complete. The majestic marble hall, alive with 30 real trees, enticing visitors to Hooker's masterpiece in the saloon. The North Dining Room, an Aesop-fabled bee-themed tea party. The Statue Gallery, a fairy tale finally filled with the full complement of 130 houses. And fit for a late queen, a jubilee celebration in the South Dining Room. The Servants Corridor, transformed into a jungle paradise. And finally, in the Old Kitchen, the table is set for a below-stairs Christmas feast. So, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Holcombe's Christmas experience. Oh, wow! But before the tour can get underway, Holcombe's elves must have their day. I've been to other places, but never anything like this. This takes your breath away from the minute you kind of first walk round the corner. As you walk in, it's a real wow factor when you... You know, it takes your breath away. How well they've used the place. Golly, there's been some work. Oh, Christmas at Holcombe is fabulous. You've just got to come and see it. Yeah, it's working really well. We've definitely broken the 1,000 mark. Yeah, easily. It's exciting. So, yeah, it's gone really well. At the Victoria Hotel, on the North Drives Coast Road, Chef Michael is preparing Christmas dinner with a Holcombe twist. The lull before the storm. The wellingtons are all wrapped in pastry. They're in the fridge, chilling down. Ready to go. Hopefully, everybody will enjoy it. It's just a case of waiting for more to arrive now. Staff... Hello, ladies. Hello. Happy Christmas. ..volunteers... Good morning. ..and their Lord and Lady have brought along the Norfolk Christmas spirit. Yeah, it's very nice. It's very nice. I'm a big Star Wars fan, so I decided to bring a little bit of Darth Vader with me. A bit of ho-ho-ho and Darkseid merrily cheer. Oh, yeah. Robert. Robert. Sue. Sue. Hello. The lobster tartlets are out in force. No ladies' compliment. Local lobs. Local lobs. Billy. The keepers, wardens, housemen and their boss, are keen to see what Michael has conjured up with the estate's venison. Looks fantastic. My children call me fatty at home, which I think is totally unjustified. It's a bit harsh. That is really good. It was all in the preparation. Can't go wrong with meat and potatoes, can you? Beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, I think. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas to you. It's been long, it's been challenging to get our vision across, but we've done it. I mean, it's been amazing having all the volunteers. It's incredible what they do for us every year. I think I underestimated how much pressure there was on us this year to make it the sort of the biggest ones yet. But I think we've done it. Just a quick one. Obviously, as you know, I'm the odd one out here. I haven't done anything towards this Christmas thing. Thank you very much to Catherine and to this lady here. And to Christmas 2022. And next year.