The Secret Rooms Hidden Inside Britain’s Great Houses

Britain's historic houses chart the social, cultural, and political story of this ancient land. The collections held within their walls bring history to life. As one of the judges for the 2024 Historic Houses Collections Award, in partnership with Fine Art Auction House Druids, I'm visiting all six shortlisted houses. These historic houses are treasure troves full of art and objects that tell stories of family life, social history, and personal taste. This award, created in partnership with Druids, is to honor the owners, curators, researchers, and conservators who preserve and interpret these beautiful and significant objects. I'll be exploring six spectacular collections from the soaring splendor of Watson Manor, the beauty and charm of Hemingford Gray, where life is sewn into a series of patchworks, Grimsnort Castle, gleaming bright with royal treasures and connections, Burton Constable Hall, where 18th century taste and discovery meet, Dean Park, a beautiful ensemble of architectural styles and a bibliophile's paradise, and Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott and his extraordinary collection, almost untouched since 1832. Today I am visiting the magnificent and flamboyant Watson Manor in Buckinghamshire, and I'm here to view the extraordinary Rothschild collection, so I cannot wait to see the treasures inside. Built in the later 19th century, Watson Manor is the creation of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. Inspired by the Chateau of the Loire Valley, this was a house for entertaining and to display Ferdinand's unique collections of 18th century British painting and French decorative arts. Oh my goodness, this is exquisite. This is the Red Drawing Room, and we're essentially at the heart of the house. I think this room kind of tells you everything you need to know about the Rothschild style, or as it was sometimes called Le Gros Rothschild, because it's very French-influenced. Right. Because what you're seeing here is a really, really distinctive combination of English 18th century portraits, so you've got Gainsborough's and one Reynolds on the wall here, with French decorative arts and furniture. Okay. And that's something which the Rothschilds sort of pioneer almost as a kind of a style for interiors and collecting. The objects that you're seeing in this room are amongst the most extraordinary of their kind in the world. So for example, the two incredible chests of drawers over there, they were made by the court furniture maker, the court ebonist, who is a man called Riesner, and both of those pieces were made for members of the French royal family and were in their private apartments in Versailles. And that was the kind of thing that Ferdinand just loved, you know, those stories, those connections. Yes. On the chests of drawers is some of our incredible collection of Sèvres porcelain, which is another of our great glories really. Right. And so these are some of the wonderful groups, they're Incredible. They are glorious. It's quite a difficult collection to look after in as much as it's got a lot of very light sensitive materials in it. So the marquetry furniture, which fades, you know, the textiles. We look at this incredible carpet, which just happens to be one of the set of 92, which was woven for the Long Gallery at the Louvre for Louis XIV. Another great story there. Oh my goodness. So, you know, making sure that we slow that period of deterioration as much as we possibly can is really important. One of the wonderful things about this collection is it's sort of its richness and its variety. For example, we've got a wonderful collection of Dutch 17th century paintings in the morning room. Okay. Which again was kind of a Rothschild family passion, both Ferdinand and his uncles adored Netherlandish art. It's really difficult actually to pick out a category, say, come and see the Gainsboroughs because they're the best thing we've got. Exactly. Because they are amongst the best things that we've got, but there are so many aspects of this collection, which are at that level and the way it works is as a whole. Right. It's that total experience of walking into a room like this. And as you said, when you came in, you just say, wow. Yeah. The craftsmanship that went into these works of art is exquisite. The people who made these things are a really vital route in because there were a lot of the furniture and the objects that are here were made for very elite people. You know, it's absolutely people who could afford this kind of art. And that in some respects, I think is not very relatable to lots of our visitors, but actually the people who made them are because, you know, they were, they were the craftsmen, they were the workmen, they were making their living doing this stuff. Yes. And I think, you know, our collections really allow you to get a sense of the people behind the extraordinary objects. After enjoying the delights of the interiors, Baron Ferdinand's guests were invited to tour the gardens and the aviary. In the 19th century, following on from the royal and princely aviaries of the 18th century, it became popular for noble and aristocratic families to have their own aviaries. Right. And that was something that the Rothschild family took up with alacrity. And Ferdinand's grandfather had an aviary, his father had an aviary, his great uncle, his uncles, his cousins. And once I started researching the history of the Waddesdon aviary, I suddenly realized that if, if you were anyone in the Rothschild family, you needed an aviary. This interest, of course, in birds within the Rothschild family, it's everywhere, isn't it, here at Waddesdon? Birds are definitely a big thing. Real birds are definitely a big thing, but they also seem to be ever present in the art collections in the house as well. Mia brought together the Rothschild interest in birds and beautiful examples of porcelain to create this year's exhibition, Flights of Fancy, a celebration of the life and work of the 18th century painter of birds, Louis-Denis Armand. The Flights of Fancy, I've arrived. Oh my goodness. Explain a little bit more about maybe a couple of your sort of favourite objects here, because there's so much to see. Yeah. The exhibition is basically a kind of chronological survey all the way around the room of Armand's work at Sèvres, which began in 1743 and he was there until he retired in 1786, 87. Okay. And this terrine, he was evidently really proud of because he signs it actually on the porcelain rather than just marking it with his mark. A signature like that is pretty much unique on porcelain. This pair of objects have got a wonderful history. So the snuff box on the right is in our collection and it shows Madame de Pompadour's pet birds. And this vase also shows Madame de Pompadour's cockatoo. After she died, her collection was sold and this is the first time they've been together since 1764. Oh, okay. That's my favourite as well. Yeah. And then here are some more of Andy Singleton's wonderful paper birds. I mean, these are absolutely beautiful and it's just wonderful to see them dotted around the entire manor. How fantastic just to bring the exhibition to life as people are also, you know, walking through and visiting the manor themselves. Absolutely. And to bird spot inside as well as outside. Exactly. And speaking of bird spotting, I spot lots of birds on your dress. You're in keeping with this theme, aren't you? Well, if in doubt, dress as your exhibition. It's wonderful to see the Rothschild family passion for all things ornithological combined with these astonishing contemporary art installations. But 60 miles in a northeasterly direction, once contemporary works of art, have become a hand-stitched life story. I'm here at Hemingford Grey in Cambridgeshire, a 900-year-old manor house and one of the oldest continuously inhabited houses in all of Britain. In fact, much of the original house remains intact. And I'm here to view the outstanding collection of patchworks made by Lucy M. Boston between 1939 and 1984. And I cannot wait to see them. Hello, Julie. Lovely to meet you. So lovely to meet you. Julie, come into my wardrobe. Oh, my goodness. Now, Diana, what century am I stepping into right now? I'm standing on what century? You're now in the 12th century. In the 12th century. If you just think, these walls have heard 900 years of people talking. Just imagine all the different fashions they've seen. Now, there was a certain woman who's the reason that I'm here today. Is that right? That's right. My mother-in-law, Lucy Boston, bought it in 1939. When she finished with the restoration of the house, it was 1941. And she contacted the welfare people at Orie of Witton, suggesting that maybe once a week, when they weren't night flying, some of the airmen might like to come and relax. And the Padre got very excited. Oh, yes, I'll borrow one of the Air Force buses and I'll fill it with chaps and they'll all come over. So a couple of friends came out from Cambridge and covered pillows with different fabrics so they could sit on the floor and they brought in mattresses. You can see a mattress very nicely wraps around the back of the window. Oh, my goodness. It formed a perfect place. Place to sit. To sit. And how often does she do this? Twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday night, all through the wall. And the most I've counted in this room, in the visitor's book, is 36 airmen. And she played an old EMG gramophone. Absolutely beautiful. Now, does it still work? Of course. It was made in 1929. I've already thrown away three music things made this century. This record was played very often to end the evening, to wrap it up, as it were. It's a very favourite Orieth hymn. Goodness. I got a little choked up there. It's so moving. It is the thought of all those airmen. Very often it's the last evening that they have. She sounds just wonderful, your mother-in-law. Absolutely wonderful. Lucy Boston created the most exquisite and original patchworks. Peeling back layers of history, they remain a multi-layered and beautiful historical record. Her first major one. Wow. And the one for which she's most famous. Oh my goodness. The Lucy Boston patchwork of the crosses is now one of the top 10 best-known patchworks worldwide. It's so beautiful. It gives me chills. Do you know how long this took Lucy to create? Well, I think three winters. Wow. These patchworks are works of art. They are. She now limits her palette to these colours. And she's still only 77, 78, 79 when she makes this. What? She's in her 70s. From now on, each one is one winter, one winter, one patchwork. This one she made for her first granddaughter, Kate, and the little one for Kate's doll. Did she? Kate and doll both have their stars. And 1981, she's 89, waiting for a cataract operation. So really doing this one by feel. She went on and made another two, making the last when she was 92. Now. She's a great hope to the elderly. Oh my goodness. So there we are. Oh my goodness. That is incredible. Thank you so much, Diana, for showing me these exquisite patchworks. Lovely. Well, thank you for coming and it's been fun showing them to you. The creativity and exquisite skill of Lucy Boston is inspiring. And to be working on those beautiful patchworks into her 90s. Spending time with Diana and listening to the gramophone was so touching and brought a small piece of the history of World War II to life for me. Each of the shortlisted houses I visited have fascinating stories to tell, both personal and of national significance. At Grimmsthorpe Castle, royal connections and service of the family are told through its collection of treasures. I'm here at the spectacular Grimmsthorpe Castle, a real mix of architectural styles. This is a house of royal connections and absolutely magnificent interiors. Since 1516, Grimmsthorpe Castle has been the ancestral seat of the Willoughby de Ayresby family and home to the exceptional family collections and a very special conservation project. I've just stepped into splendor. Julie, you've just had the reaction that this hall was intended to have on every visitor here since it was built, which is wow. Yes. And you really do walk in and you know exactly whose house this is. So it's always linking to the family and also to the British monarchy, to whom the family have always been very closely connected. Fantastic. The Willoughby family, since 1626, have been the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlains of England. Okay, so tell me a little bit more about that role. Well, this is one of the most important offices of state, great offices in England. It's certainly around since the 14th century. Right. And in 1626, the Willoughby family, they took on this hereditary office, which now is shared between three other families. One of the points about the office is that the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain is in charge of the Palace of Westminster. Okay. And from that office, as part of their payment, as it were, for their duty, they are allowed to take perquisites or perks, as people might understand it. So what we have here at Grimsthorpe, amazingly, is probably the largest collection of royal thrones outside the royal palaces. Sadly, the perquisites stopped in Queen Victoria's reign. So that was the end of all these lovely bits of furniture that came sailing through the door. These two are George III's thrones. Wow! And they would have been in the House of Lords, and George III would have sat on those for various state occasions. I mean, the carvings are sensational. They are amazing. You know, it is screaming out, I am your king. Yes, but what is even more so screaming out, I am your king, is this one. This is George IV's throne. And this throne, it was actually the throne that he sat on in Westminster Hall, where they had a lot of the state business before and after the coronation. This is the King James Drawing Room, and it is named after King James I of England and VI of Scotland, who is in this picture here, and his wife over there, Queen Anne. So there is a suite of state rooms coming up, and you would walk along this enfilade. I must show you this, Julie, because this is a wonderful table, regency table, underneath here, which was the table that Queen Victoria signed her coronation oath on in 1838. Okay, that just gave me chills right there, knowing that her presence was... Absolutely. So this bed is extraordinary. It would have been the canopy that was over the throne of George IV that we saw in that first state dining room. A highlight of the extraordinary collections held at Grimsthorpe Castle is an exquisite piece of fashion history dating from the early 17th century. I really can't stress enough how rare it is to find a doublet and a trunk hose matching the same suit from this period. I found these at Drummond in about 2019 in quite a bad state. So you found them? Yes, in a box, in the armoury of all places. Very well packed away, but in quite a state of disrepair. Really? Yes. Let's talk about conservation a little bit on both of these pieces, because what I can see here is there is a netting around the... And what is the material that is underneath the netting? That's silk velvet, and the netting itself was specially dyed so that it would match as perfectly as possible this sort of clarity terracotta colour. Yeah. But as I view this, I don't see any netting. So these trunk hose were in much better condition than the doublet. So what was your plan for this to conserve it to what we see today? So the first thing it needed was a light, gentle surface clean. Okay, that was step one. That was step one. Step two, because they were in such good condition relative to the jacket, step two was basically making them good for display and storage. And I created this pair of cycling shorts bolster cushion that slipped inside, and that can now live inside it because that is acid-free, conservation-grade materials. So even when you take it out of the display case and put it in its textile... And the same with the jacket and the boards as well, so we don't even need to handle the garment at all. So it is real hands-on. Yeah. Which will be fantastic. This should be stable now for as long as one would wish. Yeah, yeah, of course. Another hundred years. Or 400 years. 400 years. Exactly. And I think what's fantastic about our collection is it's very rich in terms of these objects like this, which are so connected with the people who lived here. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Thank you both very, very much. Royal connections and fascinating conservation projects also feature at glorious Dean Park in Northamptonshire. I'm here at the absolutely magnificent Dean Park in Northamptonshire, home to the Brudno family since 1514, and I cannot wait to see Charlotte and view the rare and unique Tresham Brudno Library. Welcome to Dean! English and then American. Lovely big hug. There we go. Lovely big hug. You're going to have to remind me a little bit, Charlotte, of just the architectural history here. So we are an amalgam of architecture. We've got sort of medieval, we've got Tudor, we've got quite a lot of Jacobean, and then the Regency Enfilade, the modern bit as I called it. I love it that the Regency is modern. There was also Victorian ballroom, but unfortunately that was pulled down before it got dry rot. So you come round Dean and it's an architectural romp. Yeah. The Great Hall. Yes. The Great Hall. And it is one of the Great Halls, isn't it? It's one of the last Great Halls to be built before they went out of fashion by 1600. Absolutely fantastic. Tell me a little bit more about the history of the Brudno family. Well, let's roll back to 1514, when Sir Robert Brudno, this gentleman here, first took on the lease of £18 a year. And then Sir Edmund, his grandson, who was knighted in 1565, had the great luck or joy of having Queen Elizabeth I stay here for one night. And she was meant to be going to Burley House, but the children had smallpox. Wow. So we only had her for one night, which didn't bankrupt the family. Yeah, well done. And Sir Edmund then thought, why don't I pull down my little Great Hall and build this huge Great Hall, and she'll come back and she'll make me an Earl, a Duke or whatever. But Queen Elizabeth never came back to Northamptonshire. This is the almanac, which was Sir Edmund's sort of diary. And we have here, it's 1566. Yes. On the 12th and 13th of August, we have Regina Appud Dean. Wonderful. So there is our proof, Queen Elizabeth did come here. Yes. Amazing that, you know, this has survived. We're talking 500 years. Thomas Brudnell married Mary Trusham, daughter of Sir Thomas Trusham in 1605. It's believed Mary's dowry included part of the Trusham Library. Today, the library remains one of the treasured delights on display in the Bow Room at Dean. This room houses half of the Trusham Brudnell Library. Half? Half of it. So the whole collection is 2,000 books worth, and they're Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, English from the late 16th century. And the story of the library is terribly sad at one stage, because during 1643, we had a little skirmish at the top because the parliamentarian troops arrived at Dean to sack the house. And they took away the paintings and the furniture and the library. They did? All of it. How did you get it back? Well, he ended up, he escaped Wales and then he was handed over. He was in the Tower of London. And he was released, and he was allowed to buy his library back. But he didn't get all of it. Some of the books are now in the Bodleian Library. And every now and then, we find a book that's for sale, and we try and get it back for the library. I brought out just a couple of books, which I thought would interest you. This is the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, which is rather lovely. There it is. Geoffrey, Geoffrey. This is one of my favourite books. This is a 1570 original copy of Palladio's Quattro Libri, with its fabulous vellum cover. Of course, it was reproduced again, you know, 100 years later when it all became popular in England. And then we have the Vitruvius Britannicus, which is the English version of it. Thank you, Charlotte. What a collection. Rare, unique. And cherished. It's very cherished, but also it's, to me, important that it's very cherished by those who need to use it and who want to do their research. Caroline Bendix, Specialist Library Conservator, has taken on the precious task of stabilising the collection to ensure its survival for the future. The major threat is gravity. And gravity is a problem because book covers are bigger than their pages. So let's just have a little look at this one. OK. And what we have here is, as we have with most hardcovered books, the pages are smaller than the cover. So what happens is that gravity starts to pull here because this is the unsupported fore edge of the book. And that, in due course, will tear the cover off the pages. So, I mean, evening, just looking at this little book, we've got a Thomas Brudinel practising his signature. And that is instantly making that person come alive. He's not just a portrait. He's not in a painting. He's a real person practising his signature. And that's just in this little book. But to stop it sagging. Yeah. So how do you do that? What we do is we have this, which is called a book shoe, which has this text block support. So the text blocks the pages. This support is tailor-made to fit in that gap under the pages. It was designed by Dr. Nicholas Pickwood in the 1970s, particularly for historic house libraries, so that it doesn't have a spine or a top to it. So that when it goes back in the bookshelf, you can see that it's pretty much invisible. Of course, the problem with this is it takes up space. Right, of course. But there is a solution. And that solution is just here. And what we do is we get a piece of archival board and we put it on the shelf and then we stick the support directly underneath the book. It's not as good as the book shoe, but at least takes that gravitational threat away. That is clever. Gosh, this has been a real special treat for me. So thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. To see how these wonderful collections are being preserved for the future is such a privilege. And I could have spent hours with Caroline and Charlotte discussing the conservation of the Trush and Brudnell Library. The eclectic interests of the collectors of previous generations are wonderfully on display at Burton Constable Hall in Yorkshire. William Constable inherited the hall in the mid-1700s, remodeling much of the building in the Georgian style and amassing an extraordinary collection of curiosities. Hello, Philippa. Hello. So nice to see you. It's wonderful to be here at Burton Constable. And of course, I cannot wait to hear more about the extensive collection from William Constable himself. So where do we start? Did you want to start in the great drawing room? Yeah, we've got our biggest collection of Chippendale furniture. So it's a really beautiful room. Fantastic. So this was William's great invention in 1770 when he had just got married and he needed a nice drawing room for his new bride. Right. It was designed by Wyatt originally, but Wyatt was notoriously unreliable. So Chippendale was brought in to do the entire, entire room. Really? Including the mirrors, which were made using Wyatt's original glass, but Chippendale completely redesigned them to his own specification. So that's a Chippendale mirror as well? It is. And of course, originally everything would have looked very different because the walls were a dark green colour until the Victorian era. So everything would have really shone from the walls with that contrast. Of course. The Victorians, generally speaking, gild everything, although we think the chairs in here were originally gilded. Okay. The second suite of Chippendale furniture we have was also gilded, but it's actually been restored since then and stripped back and restored to its original blue and white scheme. Oh, right. Okay. You have lots of visitors coming here to Burton Constable. They're coming primarily, do you think, really to see William Constable's collection? Because tell me a little bit more about the collection, because it's very unique that it's still here at his former house. So William's collection was absolutely vast and he collected everything, obviously fine furnishings, but also his Cabinet of Curiosities, which is a remarkable cabinet, which is the only one really surviving its original country house estate. So the Cabinet of Curiosities, William's great scientific adventure in all things natural history, electrical, geological. But a lot of the time, William was really basing it on scientific principles and on a wish to learn something. He was buying the latest scientific books and journals and he was trying to carry out the experiments mentioned in those here at Burton Constable. Wow. William was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, did collect a number of things, including beautiful pieces like this telescope by Henry Hendley of York. This is one of the first equatorially mounted telescopes that would have been used to do things like mapping the transit of Venus. It's science of the highest level in that. Of course. So it's a phenomenal piece. At this point, science also included antiquities. So he was also collecting things from ancient cultures, such as the Greeks, the Romans have got a phenomenal number of wax seals that were taken from the Farnese gems. So they're also of international importance today. What is happening in this corner? So at the moment, we're working on a big project to photograph every single object in the museum. It's taking us months. And this has never been done before? Never done before, no. So we've never had good images of these objects before. And hopefully, eventually, we'll be able to put them online and make this collection so much more accessible. So at the moment, she's taking a picture of the Farnese cup. So this is one of William's antiquities. It dates to the second century BC, the original. So it's really ancient. And it portrays how wealthy Egypt was at the time under Ptolemaic rule. So it's a really fascinating piece of archaeology in its own right. Incredible. And also to be able to see the volunteers working so hard here to document this, because that's so important to make sure that this gets preserved for future generations and for people all over the world to one day have access to William's cabinet of curiosities and to look and see what he uncovered, discovered, experimented with, which is wonderful. As well as the cabinet of curiosities, the Burton Constable team have digitized some of the extensive Victorian music archive of the Constable family. So here we are in the pink room. In the pink room. Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. You can see there's a beautiful piece of handwritten music by one of the ladies of the family, where they've actually changed the title. So instead of having the words, I'd be a butterfly, and then a picture of a butterfly, which I think is just adorable. Yeah. They're just the penmanship as much as anything. And we have books of these things because the family, as far as we can tell, we're borrowing pieces from friends and copying them out themselves and giving the pieces back. So these are also all music. They're on top of here. And it's amazing that it's all survived. Oh, absolutely, no. I mean, it's incredible. You don't very often get pieces like this surviving. So you can see it's a lovely old book. Yeah, lovely marbling. And then if we just flip it open, you can see it's actually very complicated music. And you do occasionally find very amusing excerpts where they've actually just crossed out an entire section where they've clearly decided it's too difficult and they don't want to play that particular piece. Oh my gosh, wow, beautiful. What an extensive collection. And to think that this was just one Victorian family, the same Victorian family. Absolutely. It was a really musical theatrical household. And I think that's a really crucial part of the story that we can now tell a little bit more because of this project. And hopefully that's what the museum project will do too. It'll give us a lot more material to get those stories out, to explore the interest, to look a bit more at what they were trying to do and how they were doing it and how we can actually make that more relatable to people today. The interpretation of objects and the stories they conjure is at the heart of the collection of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford in the Scottish Borders. I'm here in the Scottish Borders at Abbotsford, home to Sir Walter Scott, who is one of the leading writers of the 19th century and also a collector. He built Abbotsford in order to house his extensive collection and I cannot wait to get inside and explore. Julie, hello. Welcome to Abbotsford. Thank you so much, Christy. It's so nice to meet you and wonderful to be in Scotland. Yes, at Sir Walter Scott's former home. What an entrance hall. I mean, this was not what I was expecting. It was built in the 19th century, is that right? Exactly. You know, this is a Georgian building. This is an 1820s construction, but it feels like it stepped straight out of the 16th century with all of the heraldry and the hunting trophies. Very baronial feel. And that was quite deliberate. That was Scott kind of mimicking stepping into the past because, of course, he was a historical writer. He wrote novels. A lot of historic houses are about power and prestige and, you know, very, very valuable items. For Scott, actually, it was about showcasing stories and kind of absorbing them so that he could tell them to the reading public. And a lot of these items have amazing stories associated with them. So, Julie, this is what Sir Walter Scott called the handsomest room in Scotland. He was a little biased. The room we see today is pretty much how the room was when he was living here. Exactly. And I think that's one of the most special things about Abbotsford because Scott was phenomenally famous when he died in 1832. Very quickly after his death, only a few months, the house opens to the public formally, which is very, very quick. Very quick and very unusual. Exactly. And people are kind of wanting to see these rooms as a shrine. So the family leave things as they are. They make very little change. So the books that you see in this wonderful room are all sitting in the positions that Scott left them. And that gives us a really good sense of how he used this library as a historical research library to fuel his imagination for his novels. He was not just a literary genius, but he also was a collector. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think at heart, collecting stories was what fired him up and he had to find a way to pass them on. And it was writing that he sort of settled on to do that. But he was also very famous for his sort of dinner entertainments and tours he would give of his home during his lifetime, where friends and visitors would effectively get, you know, a version of what we still do today, where you're introduced to objects and kind of fall in love with their stories. And yes, we've got, you know, emperors, we've got royalty, you know, the real sort of powerhouses of the past. But we've also got, you know, members of Scott's own family represented here. We have completely anonymous people. There's an oat cake crumb. I don't know if you spotted that. One of our most famous items. This was effectively part of a man's last ration on the battlefield of Culloden. So, you know, Jacobite, the last big pitched battle on British soil with the Jacobites against the government forces. This was salvaged from a dead Highlander's pocket on the field and it was gifted by another collector friend to Scott. So it's actually, I mean, it has no financial value, of course not, but it's actually, it's a man's last morsel. And it suddenly opens up this whole story about the futility of war and, you know, the sacrifice people were making. And that's what Scott was about. You know, he was as interested in the ordinary man as, you know, the people right at the top of society. Right, as in Napoleon here, which I see, we've got Napoleon's pen case. Yeah, and the blotter. And they came from the captured baggage train after Waterloo, because of course that's happening during Scott's lifetime. Of course. And he can't wait to get over to Belgium. And six weeks after the battle, start collecting things associated with it. He realized that, you know, history isn't just looking backwards. It's also history is in the making all of the time. And these things will be stories of the future. So of course, this isn't the entire collection. Can you tell me a little bit more about the wider collection within the house? Actually for the size of the house is pretty vast. We're talking about between, you know, 6,000 or so objects. We have almost 10,000 books in this room, but we have an archive that we're working through at the minute, the family archive of the Scott family, which has tens of thousands of items in it. It's wonderful. And what a treat for me to come in here and have this fantastic chat with you and learn not just more about Sir Walter Scott himself as a person, but also about really the care that he took in his collection. And I think it's still teaching us, you know, valuable lessons today, you know, right down to the placement of items and how they interrelate. It's remarkably clever. It's like stepping into a brain, Scott's brain. Yes, exactly. I quite like it there. It was truly a delight to visit all six shortlisted houses and explore their remarkable collections. And that's the true magic of these historic houses and their distinguished treasures. They each hold an abundance of fascinating stories waiting to be discovered.