Inside a Georgian Manor with 1300 Years of British History

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[Music] today I’m visiting the beautiful Dean’s Court a Georgian Country House in the center of the historic Market town of wimbor in Dorset this is a house with monastic Roots dating back to the 8th Century I’ll be delving into the family archives with William and Ali Hanam whose family has lived here for nearly 500 years [Music] this is a historic home brimming with fascinating stories to tell this is early 8th Century 7:05 ad was the date that the monastery was founded into this is the sort of classic 1930 I’m left speechless by the beauty of the decoration and the creativity of the women who have lived here past and present I can’t resist lending a hand as a Shepherd I got a little bit left I want to give it to you come on and I wait in to give fly fishing a whirl and fish Upstream [Laughter] [Music] oh that would make sense when I married into the British aristocracy it was the start of a wonderfully exciting Journey but it was also a little daunting I became a VI Countess and for an American girl from a small town outside Chicago that was quite a shock I live with my husband Luke heir to the Earl of Sandwich and our family at mapperton house in Dorset living in a place like this is a joy but also a challenge and every day we’re aware that we’re preserving a very special part of Britain’s heritage mton has opened up an extraordinary new world for me and I can’t wait to share it with you [Music] all so if you love castles and manners and stately homes as much as I do please join this American VI Countess as I journey into the British Countryside in search of some of Britain’s Finest historic houses [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hi how are you oh I’m great so nice to finally be here oh welcome Dean’s court it’s good to have you here so nice Ally I’ve been wanting as you know I’ve been wanting to come come here I know for so cuz you are practically neighbors I know 45 minutes away exactly yeah come down here the um William’s here looking forward to seeing you again hello good how are you so nice to see you and oh my goodness okay so this is a b so exciting this is lty hello my daughter and Dan her husband and baby Maisy they’ve been living with us for 18 months look at that the beginning of Co and never and never L well I can’t wait to learn more about the history you’ve probably noticed my NeverEnding enthusiasm constantly moving from one project to another but just like anyone else there are moments when life’s pressures become overwhelming and the need for someone to talk to emerges and in today’s Dynamic world grimming with challenges prioritizing mental health is vital particularly amidst uncertainty mental well-being should be given as much attention as physical health yet it often slips under the radar personally I felt the impact of daily life work relationships and societal expectations on my mental health and just as we commit to maintaining physical health through exercise it’s equally important to prioritize our mental well-being and that that’s why I’m thrilled to announce our paid partnership with betterhelp betterhelp is dedicated to revolutionizing therapy making it more accessible and affordable their online platform simplifies the process of finding a therapist just answer a few questions and within 48 hours in most cases you’ll be connected with a credential therapist to take the first step simply click the link in my description betterhelp.com / American VI Counce by doing so not only are you supporting our Channel but you’ll also receive a 10% discount on your first month of better help it’s an opportunity to connect with a therapist and gauge its impact on your well-being various therapy options are available whether through phone calls video chats or messaging choose what works best for you plus you can schedule sessions at your convenience just as we prioritize physical exercise for our health let’s give our minds the same level of care over 4 million people have chosen better help to embark on a journey towards a healthier happier life if you believe therapy could be beneficial for you why not consider taking a step with better help click the link in the description or visit betterhelp.com SL American VI countis as I prioritize my physical health I’m e equally committed to maintaining my mental well-being recognizing the importance of both aspects is essential for a balanc and fulfilling life once again a big thank you to better help for supporting this channel take care and always remember seeking support is a sign of strength did you get a sense when you walked in of sort of tranquility and an oasis of calm absolutely that’s what I found was so extraordinary because all of a sudden I arrive here and knowing that steps away as wimbor and it’s tranquil it’s beautiful it’s Serene what this goes back to I like to think is that there was a monastery here very long time ago um and um I think that sense that feeling of of sort of almost spiritual Tranquility still pervades the gardens here I’m glad you picked up yeah no no I absolutely I I absolutely did and but the history of Dean’s Court I know that it dates its 88th century yeah so it’s that’s originally 8th Century but then it’s been added on yeah yeah so there’s an 8th Century House buried in the core of the building which we’ll show you later but there’s a Georgian wrap around the sides yeah I mean it’s very it’s Georgian and when did you actually take over the running of Dean’s Court about 12 13 years ago I S I started coming down from London to take over but we really didn’t move in until what um 10 or 11 years 10 11 years ago yeah we sort of we start we tried as probably a lot of people do at the beginning to keep our businesses going yeah I had an antique business in glossier William had an art business in London but within a few years we realized this was not going to be possible so actually we just moved in and started our own businesses here right because when you move into these historic houses they become your business I mean that is that’s what’s happened now that’s what’s changed so much over the past really 50 years so you this is your business and then as as far as Renovations cuz I know what it’s like living in these historic houses it’s constant repairing and restoring what have you both done since you moved in 10 years ago well we put two new bathrooms in it and the very first central heating first we put a few radiators in downstairs but before that it was just fires or you froze that was it fires you froze and there was only one place to to use a bathroom right people used to rise to theek and they would literally in the winter not take the coats off we’ve got some rooms that were redecorated in the 1930s which will show you and actually we won’t change them great and that’s a very important feature I think of looking after a house like this you want to keep it up to date you want to keep it as a modern you know livable in home yes but every time we do a makeover in one room we try to keep a few elements of the previous generations so that the story and the continuity works and then you get also you get that layered look which is what we all absolutely love about all these yeah because it’s like you want to be able to walk into a room that has your touch your legacy in it but also at the same time it’s combining everybody else who’s been in that room before you so making sure all those elements stay within the room but you’re adding into that as well for future Generations you’ve always got to keep adding or else they they they they literally they don’t move forward do they and then they get stuck in the and you’re living in a museum you’re living in a museum yes you’ve got to constantly keep changing little bit this is what I really like about these historic houses that are private still privately owned lived in by the families because they’re not museums we’re continuing to evolve and we’re continuing to add on and we’re continuing to really add to the stories that only we can tell when we have people come for weddings come to the shop come to the restaurant and that’s what make these these historic houses so much more interesting in my mind to come and visit and see because it is living history I mean this really is living Heritage living history right here absolutely and this this house is a lovely example of that because every single moment in in English history for the last 1300 years has left in it has left an imprint particularly in the last 500 years you know I’d love to go see some more great you do that yeah perfect you lead the way right so I can really start to T now the difference between what you’ve done with this paint and then this yeah this these these rather startling colors these are the old original colors which defined the difference between the staff quarters of the house and the non-staff quarters we mentioned the earliest part of the house and these two rooms in here and in there formed the Saxon part of the house and you can see that it’s actually built a very thick masonry those two archers over there were punched through in 1725 but this was the this was the hall house but you’ve got to use a lot of imagination because you’d have probably had a half in the middle of the floor here with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out and there’ have probably been straw on the floor dogs uh Livestock in the underc underneath to keep the place warm but it would have been very busy because this was the this was the Beating Heart of the Saxon Monastery it’s and wonderful and it was built by a very Royal person called cth burer she was the sister of the king of Wessex and she was the the wife or the consort of the king of North Umbria and that marriage sealed an alliance between wesex and North Umbria but this was where she lived so this was the Royal Palace of wimbor and her quarters would have been in what we call the solar next door there but this is where the sort of General day-to-day business of the administration of the monastery went on so remind me again what century am I literally standing in right now this is early 8th Century 7 705 ad was the date that the monastery was founded and we think that this house was was built at the same time so yeah 13300 years people have been living and working in this house it’s incredible it is unbel so that’s the first 800 years right do you want to go and check out the next 500 years yeah because that’s should we have a look at that when my family became involved right so even I mean here I am, 1300 years but also it’s you know it’s Quite a feat that this has been in your family for nearly 500 years yeah um not a lot of families who can say that yeah William is the 13th baronet to live at Dean’s Court generations of his ancestors look out from the walls reminding us of the previous lives lived here it was in the mid 16th century when the family first took up residence so that brings us to this character here John hannam who was a MP for pool and he was one of the Commissioners for Dorset and when Henry iith Died um Edward I 6 government sent in the commissioners of Dorset to break up the Church lands of which was still the property of the church so that was the end of the 800 years Bas that was the end of the church’s yeah um ownership of the land and he basically redistributed most of it to himself right because he was the MP so they gave him the job and they said right you’ve got to yeah he did it all legally though all above Bo he was a very eminent lawyer in the middle temple in London so he he he assigned himself a lease to start with and then his son took over um uh and and Grant bought the free hold okay okay but so when he saw this place of course he thought well I’m going to have this absolutely yeah no it suited him down to the ground he was also looking for a wife at the same time and in 1548 um he picked out the richest aess in wimbor and married her so this is a very good year for him indeed so this is though a tutor painting this is a lovely yeah portrait it’s probably done in the year 1548 but it’s U it’s by a Flemish an Anglo Flemish artist we should say don’t know who exactly the the closest painter is someone called Steven Van de moand who did come to England but a little bit later than this but what it shows is a is a man um presenting himself in a sort of merand style right um as a wealthy wealthy man this is the whole point the gloves that he presents are a sign of affluence and of course the Signet ring which which tells us about his family but the rough and the hat and the whole style of the painting um just sort of shouts I’m doing well I’m wealthy and you know I’m going places right yeah but it’s a it’s a lovely it’s a beautiful painting and it’s it’s probably the best one we’ve got in the house yeah no no it’s beautiful but uh he would have he would have paid the that Painter with with his new wife’s money right but but the sad thing is he didn’t Accord her the same high quality portrait as he did to himself oh here she is oh yeah there’s definitely there’s a big difference there’s a big divide there’s a big quality gap here they’re not even a pair because she doesn’t face him so this is a pendant it’s obviously done later than his own portrait but he was very he was very keen to establish himself at first with his own portrait and I think this was an afterthought done by a much less expensive painter and um and what is she holding there gloves she’s holding gloves as well yeah it was it was her money after all okay but she’s called Alice orange she nothing to do with the Dutch House of orange this is before all that happened so this is a French name it was Alice de right yeah fantastic it was the third baronet Sir William Hanam in the mid 18th century who transformed the layout and appearance of Dean’s Court the Saxon Great Hall was wrapped in a sequence of Georgian rooms and the facade of the building we see today was added each generation adapts these historic homes to their taste and the library was the first room William and Ally decorated when they moved in so this is the library oh wow you I can see you’ve you’ve definitely redecorated in here this is lovely paint color yeah this is the first room that Ally and I set about painting the thing about this room was it was unbelievably dark when we we came in here because it was actually a very dark turquoise color but all the window surrounds and the door surrounds and the fireplace around was all covered in this wood graining this is actually just painted wood graining from the 1930s so you can imagine with the bookshelves and everything this place was just so gloomy and what we did was try to drag the light in from outside it’s cheered the room up no it’s wonderful and what do we have here then so this is this is a little uh group of objects which relate to an ancestor of mine called Captain John Hanam who fought very bravely in the first seat wars in the Punjab which were not very well known about these battles but they were some of the bloodiest in British history and here we have a letter that he wrote home in 1845 from his T this so this battle is around so he’s he’s fighting in sort of mid 1800s 1840s 1840s okay these are the medals he got from the three main battles and one so he was quite a hero then he was a hero he came home yeah quite decorated and um you know a heroic Survivor very decorated he came back to England he was um posted to Preston in in Lancashire he married he had a he had a wife called Amy who’s a very interesting personality as well but they were living up there even though they they had Dean’s court and this was their home so this was his home he comes back after MH and he’s married and but then they move away being in the Army he had to go where he was posted one day in 1861 he punished a very young 18-year-old Irish private very very severely for a tiny little infraction he’d sent him to get the names of some children that were bothering some of the staff and he went out and he could only get one name cuz the children ran away and he came back and reported this to Captain Hanam and the colonel and they put the poor private on a charge and that was a very nasty business in those days you were constantly having to get up in the middle of the night and clean your kit and you were humiliated by having to walk around the barracks and salute all the centuries so he was this 18-year-old Irish 18-year- old Irish man yeah was really punished and he was he went and got his musket and he loaded it no yeah and he waited um in the barracks by by by wall in the barracks until John Captain John hannam and the colonel came walking across and um he took aim he was a very good shot and the bullet went through the colonel first of all and then lodged in Captain Hanam and the colonel died within a few hours but Captain Hanam took two days to die with his wife beside him taking instructions about how to manage his estate after he’d gone you’re kidding me yeah and she wrote very very heavily about this afterwards and we have a very long letter here no well and it has obviously you know it’s got the black order around it that’s the morning the morning when you wrote letters when you were in morning that’s when you’re in morning but in that letter she describes how when he was dying he actually forgave the private that had shot him and he said I want to go I I hope to go in peace and that includes the man um the man who’s killing who’s killed me and I can see even in here because it says says Dear children but it says Monday the 9th of September 1861 we started started a very happy and merry party um so she’s really describing the day to her children in this letter yeah they wake up it’s a normal day he goes off to work um can I can I touch this yes of course yeah oh my goodness she has so much to say you can see it does yes it’s a it’s a long old letter um but she was a wonderful writer his his wife Amy and she wrote copiously about all sorts of other things what you get from her writings not this but also other writings is the incredible Despair and grief that she felt at the murder of her husband this wasn’t just a marriage for for financial reasons or anything this was a real marriage of love and she was absolutely destroyed by the by the death and you’ll see here we have a little box which says the bullet that made me a widow no Amy ursila Kyle those Hanam those are her initials which she had this is the bullet this is the bullet that made me a widow and there it is did she write in did and yes and there she has written on the day that he died this um extraordinary sort of outpouring on thee their life blood lies oh fatal cruel oh loved oh darling one these are all exclamation points how long must I there mourn make thou me strong at duy’s call um let Duty’s path be short mhm so she wants to die she wants to go she wants go off to him yeah when his dear children Know Thy Name oh call me from this world washed with my savior’s blood uh let let me be where he is let me go after the trial of the Irish private who was called maccaffrey and it was sent to her by the local police the police constable and we’ve got the sort of letter that you know came with that as well but the interesting thing about mcaffrey um was that he was obviously sentenced to death and he was publicly executed in January 1862 outside Preston jail but it was the penultimate public hanging in the country they stopped doing them soon after that right so he was hung he was hung yeah and in front of a crowd of 35,000 mainly Irish onlookers who’d come out in disgust at the whole thing they’d heard the story story and of course there had been the trial and they were on his side and they hated they hated the British army all of these so the 35,000 that came out were actually on his side on the Irish men’s side because they were predominantly Irish it was hugely um written up by the Press particularly with by the time we got to McCaffrey’s execution in January but this is four four days after he died his body is put on the train from Preston down to wimbor it arrives 8 hours late so it’s quite nice to know that it’s the trains actually did not run on time those days and so the funeral which was supposed to take place at midday took place at night at 8 8:00 p.m. and they marched from wimbor station to the cemetery and and 2,000 residents of wimbor turned out to pay their respects how unbelievably heartbreaking though this story I mean heartbreaking on both levels you know you’ve got somebody who was murdered and and now you’ve got the Widow who’s absolutely beside herself broken but then also you have this 18-year-old Irish boy yeah who was also executed the Press when they wrote it up said he looks like a child he looked like a 12y old oh I can’t even I mean I I that gives me chills that gives me chills sad story it’s very very sad story Amy Hanam retreated to Dean’s Court in deep mourning following Victorian social convention she dressed in black and muted tones of gray and purple her room here is painted in the same color scheme so this is the m room it’s stunning I mean it’s really stunning how I mean if you’re in morning I would like to be in this room because it is there’s something even though you’re in morning at least there’s a little bit of cheerfulness here yeah and a quite it’s a nice calming color actually I mean I know even if it wasn’t to do with morning it would still be quite an interesting and so did you is this the original I mean it looks this isn’t the original paint That’s is why it looks in quite good Nick because in the 1980s my it was falling off it was peeling so my parents um actually just replicated the exact color scheme um so this is how this is how it how I mean how extraordinary and wonderful for your parents to keep it as Amy had it that’s what’s so fascinating but this is a piece of social history I think which is really important to hang on to absolutely mhm [Music] I’m very happy Buster is coming with us I know he he does actually love a visitor he ton send attach himself to them as if we don’t give him enough love so here we are coming to the kitchen Garden lovely hidden behind protective walls Dean’s Court boasts the most glorious kitchen Garden just as it would have done 100 years ago it provides fruit and vegetables for the family but also for the wider community so Julie come and meet James hi hey Julie how’s it going James is totally in charge of just under one acre of kitchen Garden there a lot of kitchen Garden J there’s a lot I’ve got some fantastic volunteers so yeah definitely really helps james’ green fingers ensure the kitchen Garden is productive all year round so this kind of here is just all different varities of beetroot ex and are they ready to come up yeah yeah yeah we could pull one up now pull yeah yeah so so basically they’re in little clumps so what you want to do is sort of twist one and then pull it out so if you take pick a nice big juicy one okay so then with that and then you twist and then ah so that’s how you pull it it out and then you get a nice it’s beautiful lovely little beach and a big one I’m looking for a big one yeah the biggest one in the bunch so the smaller ones will keep growing so in a couple of weeks time we can take the next one and the next one so yeah find a bunch lovely I’ll use this yellow one yeah do okay little twist okay oh my goodness there you go perfect look at that it’s beautiful natural oh wow that I mean you know I don’t want to ask if I can take them home but can absolutely 100% yeah yeah I can make a delicious salad beetro salad yeah I love it just roasted as well and then toss for a salad just simple and can I put these in your basket basket wonderful and then you’ve got here behind you’ve got uh curly kale yeah so some different types of kale so this is a yeah a red kale so these have been here all season so since the spring which is now they look a bit unusual for um I love the look of them yeah they almost trees so so these are ready to be yeah yeah so this is all ready to go so I show how so you sort of pick the outer leaves so again it’s like picking them like that yeah like that and then we leave a few at the top so I’ll probably take that one right that far and then you’ve still got this lovely so this will then and then this will be and then yeah just like the beetroots they’ll keep growing and then you’ll be able to take more so I they keep growing all winter Wen they yeah so these ones will probably finish but we’ve got some other ones over there which went in in the Autumn and then they’ll go all the way through until the spring well do you need any help with anything absolutely yeah 100% there’s some stuff over here we could go and pick for sure and this soil James is ially fantastic because it’s completely organic isn’t it yeah absolutely so yeah wonderful we do the no dig system what is the no dig system I’m glad you are it’s become very popular recently with small scale gardeners right um really Champion by a guy Charles daing over in Somerset and basically it’s trying to mimic um the natural processes and apply compost directly on top of the soil there you go you can probably get that a tug now you might need both hands there you well there you go and then you can Shake It Off okay wow this soil is particularly fantastic soil because this was the first kitchen Garden in the country to be certified by the soil Association so it was William’s mother Jane Hanam when she came here in 1973 turned it straight away over to an organic garden so she was yeah a complete she’s a real Pioneer oh my goodness a complete Pioneer in the in the organic movement and she was sort of mixed with the very very early moves and shakers in the organic um world that is very early 19770 when the rest look what the rest of the world were doing in 1973 they didn’t have a clue about no were fertilizing everything fertilizing everything yeah it’s fantastic so this soil is particularly amazing because it’s probably been organic for longer than any other kitchen Garden really fantastic soil I mean I you know and and um that’s why I wanted to put a lot of it back cut this off and it will go in the compost anyway and then it’s coming back here so it’s not nothing’s wasted that’s the whole thing is great also it’s all about composting the whole time but James then puts back in the Wonder I mean that is what it’s about giving back and it’s and and that is what it’s giving back to the land and then the land giving to us and it’s just this wonderful perfect cycle Clos loop system 100% that’s what we want this one’s enormous thatl yeah we can let you yeah these are all cauliflowers growing up I have to watch you do it first though one and then the big one the big one okay brilliant so you’re just going just underneath yeah and then just use this as a serrated knife so just like a bread knife it will cut through ah and then there you go wonderful so in there is a cauliflower so we’ll pick off these leaves James would you use the outer leaves yeah you can cook with I would use them not the biggest you want the young ones these younger ones inside absolutely I was just picking them off to reveal look at fabulous that is I’m just going to really be naughty here I don’t even mind if I get some soil in my mouth cuz now I know that it’s been organic since 1973 so this is like the best soil in all of England is what I think that is delicious so I’ll give you that all right this is a Whopper here yeah yeah you put them that is a whoer so I’m going to go like I’m going to go at the base that’s it perfect okay just like yeah slicing slice of bread okay okay yep how was that James was that all right brilant yeah okay I’m going to hand you back that knife I’m going pull these away and it’s the big reveal right here perect yeah oh my goodness look at this glorious cauliflower yes so weast incredible it’ll be delicious certainly will I just have to have a little bit of that right here yeah 100% yeah organic fresh best cifl I’ve ever had cauliflower James uses the organic ingredients from the kitchen Garden in his cooking Conjuring up the most delicious recipes you’re cooking a curry I’d love to come and help you amazing that would be fantastic 100% any helps great so should I meet you later yeah yeah we’ll I’ll grab the veg together and we’ll meet over there shortly oh my gosh brilliant thank you James this has been eye opening fantastic beyond the kitchen Garden William is introducing me to some inquisitive members of the family all right wait so William just an FYI I have a fear of cows now I know that goats aren’t the same as cows but should I be fearful right come on okay okay facing my fear of goats I just don’t want to really leave here with another phobia of another animal goat [Music] okay woo okay okay yes you keep hold of the food he’ll knock her out of the way do you have to be super quick at this she’ll come over here okay okay and then we stand back wolf his down and then what happens and then you’ll come and butt her out of the way no no oh yes oh wait look it okay so so these two goats the the you have you have goats Orlando yeah who huge he’s a Nubian but goat right and um Les what is she something else might be new as well but some people say that he’s the biggest goat they’ve ever seen right and what we’ve done we’ve brought them on here so that they can clear out all this all this trashy dried grass here that didn’t get moan when we took hay because there a lot of Earthworks here and it was difficult for the tractor so before we move the sheep on for the winter I want the goats to clear out clear out all this stuff and they’re already making a good start on it and then they go around and they also clear the hedges oh so so they’re useful oh yeah they’re useful goats oh they have a they have have a purpose They’re Not Just Pets well with the names like Orlando and Pringle I thought maybe they’re your pet goats look at this okay there Pringles like give me that’s it give me give me some more oh dear oh dear sorry Pringle okay oh my goodness Orlando literally like headbutted Pringle out of the way that was extraordinary complete brute so what happens when you finish with all the feed like what happen will they go after you next they don’t need they don’t really need feeding we just do it so that we keep them under control and when we want to collect them up and take them somewhere else with their little house they’ll come running yeah right yeah so that so that was it yeah but they’re obsessed with food they think about nothing other than eating okay and it’s what they live for but this is this helps me the next time I encounter goat I’m just going to make sure that I’ve got some with me okay get out of [Music] here Orlando and Pringle aren’t the only ones mowing The Meadows here on the estate a flock of 35 sheep graze happily under the watchful eye of shepherdess Louise Marshall it’s just so wonderful to wander around Dean’s court and then of course I’m wandering and I find you and I find um your sheep yeah but you know when I think of England I always think of England green but of course then I see you know all around uh England you see sheep grazing but for me in one sense it kind of saddens me because I know that the sheep that are grazing are usually going to be on people’s plates but that’s not the case with yours is that right no they did start off as a breeding flock but I rapidly changed my mind and they’ve become a rescue Sanctuary now so now I rescue sheep everywhere you do but how do you rescue them are you are you finding them that they’ve been lost or no sometimes the BET will call me and say there’s a lamb here that’s going to be um destroyed because a farmer doesn’t want to invest the time or the money in them um some people they have them as pets and they’ve died they need new homes or they’ve moved on or right um sometimes they’re welfare cases that need to be somewhere so you kind of rescue the lost sheep yeah The Unwanted the uned go there’s their fee they have it’s called Sheep nuts so it’s all sorts of molasses and vegetables all put into a nice cake for them and they love them right so this is like real proper nutrition nutrition right here oh Fant always a St we’ve got lots of grass here it’s very nutritious um but these are just an added extra to keep them sort of friendly towards you and through winter as well give them a bit extra and how do you feed them do they come up yeah just give it all Shake and watch them watch them run come on go do you have do you have your names oh yeah so you know every single name no this is my oldest sheet this is horaa horaa that’s Penny here they come that’s buttons there you are oh my goodness they’re literally all coming look at this look at this one running that’s Rosie Rosie that’s big old Rosie to Bonita Lita how do you keep track of their names um well it’s like children really uh that’s this eglantine she’s really old she’s my second oldest she’s your second how old is she then uh she’s 14 she’s 14 so that’s considered old in sheep years I mean yeah generally sheep don’t really get past N9 or 10 oh so really well she fantastic cuz she’s very active there too what we could do we could put them in their troughs if you like we can top up top brilliant right you start at one end to fill the trough and I’ll meet you in the middle and just a little bit in each of them yeah yeah just SP them all [Music] out so they are how brilliant all done how brilliant they love their food and they’re all healthy they’re very healthy y you’ve nursed them back to life really yeah yeah some have really horrible injuries but yeah they can all come if you spend the time and the effort um they all come good again so you’re still rescuing if you hear or somebody contacts you you’ll take another the two there’s two commercial farms around here and in laming time they’ll often have an orphan orphans or they’ll have a m that’s lost their their lambs in delivery and they don’t want to keep the M anymore because she’s not a good breeder for them so she’ll come here and sort of retirement really like a luxury retirement yeah well exactly I wouldn’t mind that I mean look at you get fed you’re on this beautiful estate here who wouldn’t want to retire here Dean’s court and its landscape stand Testament to the political upheavals and stylistic changes of generation past from the foundations of the Saxon Monastery led by a royal abbis to the 18th century facade we see today wonderful oo I love it and this Georgian door isn’t it lovely yeah it’s just extraordinary opening wonderful yeah right where are we off to right let’s go and look at the pond fantastic this way it’s just so beautiful and calming here and look at you have a p now too I you have everything here everything wow so I mean I mean this is just so lovely I mean I would think I would want to swim there you know at William I’m a big cold water you could do lengths it’s 125 yards not sure if I do lengths I like my 2minute cold dips so it’s quite cold I see it is pretty cold I mean I’ve only been in the in the summer clearing weed um but it’s not very deep and you know it’s about four or 5T deep right that’s perfect for me to do my my dunking yeah Absol brilant this was probably a Roman Reservoir originally because we had a Roman Fort just across the fields there in about ad45 okay a huge Garrison with 4 and a half thousand legionnaires and um we dredged it in 2013 we took a th000 tons of debris that had all fallen off the trees out spread it over the field next door and found huge amounts of stuff I spent a week in there with the metal detector you’re kidding me yeah was so fun that one of the things that I found is this which is uh it’s a Roman coin with the head of Claudius wonderful makes perfect sense because Claudius was on was the emperor at the time and he issued a license to the garrisons in England to to Mint their own coins to pay their armies which was eminently sensible Roman practice rather than shipping money from Rome to the you know across the Empire um so that was a very nice did your metal detector go I mean was it like it was pretty busy yeah yeah you must have been so excited when you found this yeah cuz that sort of does confirm that that this yeah this piece of water is is pretty ancient you’re pretty ancient well as is you know all of Dean’s Court really yeah yeah but there have been people Liv you living and operating and now this is the other little thing I found okay it doesn’t look like much much but it’s a Saxon dress pin and British museum have got lots of these with that particular design it’s called polyhedral with dott and pin um pattern um but it’s they date usually from 600 to 900 ad so the timing is pretty good for a Saxon Pond and I imagine that what used what was common was for the Romans when they left left reservoirs everywhere because they were obsessed with water even in a country like England but of course of course I mean look at bath spa exact yeah and of course when the Saxons sort of took over instead of digging new ponds they just took over Roman Reservoir and usually expanded them and it was very common practice for monasteries to do the same because monasteries needed fish ponds because they had so many days where they couldn’t eat meat of course so they at fish yeah but next to the pond here we’ve got these two incredible trees and this this is the swamp Cyprus yes which is 110 ft tall and next the T tree which is about 90 95 ft tall two American trees which anytime I hear the word American I’m like yes yeah so so why do you have two American trees here at Dean’s Court very good question we think the only possible explanation is that they were planted here by Thomas Hanam who sailed to America when he returned in early 16007 that he brought them with him and he planted them here so these are I love doing maths here four look at me I’m all about aging everything 400 over 400 years old 15 something yeah and you know I have to ask this is there a point that they stop growing do they the RO there do they continue um like like old trees they just carry on growing that’s what I thought yeah they slow down right exactly but uh some they’re healthy they seem very healthy exctly you know the only bit of the tree that’s really alive of course is the outside B the outside wood Michelle I mean this point of As you move back from this SW you can see unbelievable it’s it’s at least twice the height of the house there this is an exceptional tulip tree usually they only live for 3 400 years um but at the most but uh if they’re situated on gravel grally soil and they’ve got plenty of water like they have here they apparently in America they will go on for 500 years wonderful so hopefully this tree’s got another 100 years left [Music] hello hi Julie I thought I might find you here yeah to the morning room excuse the chaos no I love you know I’ve just done a little bit walk around myself and every room is so different very different which is wonderful and it’s like you’re walking back back into into time in some of the rooms you know I’ve just gone from the library which is the room we’ve completely red redecorated but here what where am I walking into right now what century you’re walking into a bit of a mixture in here you’re walking into a room that was the wallpaper goes back to 1868 and the painting is 1930s it’s the one room we’re not really quite sure what to do we absolutely love it we’ve just taken the carpet up because it was Mo completely moth written um the the original carpet that was put down in here the painting absolutely beautiful but then you can see look at the ceiling and the Beautiful molding yes but it’s you know if we just painted the ceiling it would look ridiculous you suddenly have this bright white ceiling it would emphasize actually how grubby and stained the wallpaper is but I am really noticing though so basically I’m in a room of 19th and 20th Century kind of a mix match of the two of the centuries but what’s extraordinary is just all of the painting absolutely beautiful the detail yeah so Cordelia who came to the lived in the house from sort of 1900 to about 1948 and came with lots and lots of money after the 20s she had started redecorating and she in the 19 early 1930s would have commissioned a a decorator but when sort of everyone was into painting and color and um special effects with the paints and stippling and that’s exactly what these beautiful doors so she obviously decided to leave the wallpaper in here which is absolutely beautiful hand painted so the the wallpaper the wallpaper 18 1868 1868 68 yeah and in fact this particular wall here in Williams parents area I think it said in the 1980s that had a big damp problem so actually they sort of redid this and they cut out every single star that was original and put it onto new paper and they readed this corner so they were able to save the Stars yes they cut them out they cut them out and put them onto new wallpaper CU you can see that’s slightly whiter also than say the wallpaper over there and same with the Border here same with the Border yeah but you know you can see look at the deterioration there but how do you Salvage this wallpaper because surely that’s something you want to do well we would love to but I don’t I don’t I don’t think I don’t know if we can I mean you can’t take the whole all the wallpaper off and rehang it I mean I think we’ll I think we’ve got this far we’ve got the carpet up it has turned into rather a box room we’ve got to sort this out obviously and we will work out how to sort of touch up the lovely lovely molding and redo the ceiling somehow but what’s fascinating about this room is obviously you’ve got the mixture between the two centuries kind of mashing together you’ve got the wallpaper from the 19th century but then this painting this beautiful painting yeah that was very influenced by the Charles in the 1930s vessa Bell Virginia wolf John Fowler they all sort of went you know they all congregated in the house in Sussex Charleston and painting painting these beautiful colors experimenting with colors experimenting with paints and I think Cordelia was obviously very influenced and you can see it’s absolutely beautiful the the colors very very Charleston these colors very 1930s and you know we wouldn’t want to change that at all because that is so beautiful she she’s you know that was the period that they would decorate on these sort of the Georgian features that you would have in the house the Georgians obviously would this would just be completely plain they exactly they they did not like too much color they liked plain right so it’s fascinating that you’ve got such a mix cordelia’s restyling of the Interiors here all also included commissioning the iconic Liberty store in London to decorate some of the rooms and then we go through into the next room oh two drawers into the next room oh wonderful those Georgians yeah look those Georgians the Georgians the paneling and you know couple of doors into this is the sort of classic 1930s so you can’t change this no the color is so amazing isn’t it oo the color is so wonderful okay what’s happening herey this is R embroidery this is fantastic what a lovely place to do it all right so what are you I’m I’m totally intrigued right now okay so um basically this is like a lockdown hobby that grew hob um started as a lockdown hobby it’s embroidery basically it’s all done by hand um and I’m doing at the moment some little Christmas stockings that I’m doing for someone that has um all their on how wonderful so this lockdown project then became a fulltime bus a business it was a total um like kind of suddenly cuz we were all here in lockdown and we had so much time um I just had to go and I literally learned by YouTube by YouTube well we love YouTube so I started doing it then I basically set up a little Instagram account for it and then it just grew and but I think it’s fascinating also because you’re doing what they did sort of 100 years ago but this time you’re you’re being a really fastforward um businesswoman which is trying to be yeah no it it’s quite yeah it’s been fantastic and it’s been lovely during lockdown actually to do it and and nice that this room’s being used again because it was a bit of a museum this room for the for the W of since we’ve been here no one really came in here I think I think what’s extraordinary is you’re taking this lovely craft that’s been around you know for a long time but you’re you modernized it and making it into a business so it’s like this I love it this modern working mother taking a craft and making a business out of it well also yeah that’s what’s quite nice it’s such a therapeutic kind of like old-fashioned thing to do but I literally couldn’t do it have done it without technology couldn’t I wouldn’t have sold anything without Instagram and I wouldn’t have learned how to do it without YouTube YouTube yeah it’s the meshing just like that room over there was meshed in the centuries we’ve got the meshing up here the same thing happening sort of 21st century with the 19th century if you like yeah exactly no and it’s so exciting and I feel now it’s kind of like got to found a new kind of well business that I can now do going forward with a baby and just work great well I’ve got four children and I might be contacting you and commissioning you for something doing maybe four stockings since we’re coming upod anyway I will leave you to your piece cuz I know how important that is especially when you have a 4 half month old L’s business threads back to another creative woman who lived at Dean’s Court in the 19th century Amy hannam who had been widowed when her husband Captain John hannam was murdered created beautiful embroidered Furnishings harking back to its monastic Roots Dean’s court is just a short walk from windborn Minster and the historic Market town right no no exactly you can literally just walk into town I mean how extraordinary I mean it wouldn’t be a complete walk without Buster it wouldn’t I mean so this is lovely though just walking yeah through here and then you know it it develops your sense of surprise so rather than just having straight PA the town no no exactly but was it always like this no this was it was a there was a trunck you could just about fight your way through the Laurel we’ve extended it cuz this is where the wedding guests when they arrive come ah so this is the entrance just for you is that right in one sense this is like your private entrance in one sense yes exactly but it wasn’t always like this this used to be uh the the vehicular the car entrance to the house and then we followed an Avenue of chestnuts which is still there and then came out to look at the corner of the house you know I was mentioning that Georgian trick of having two sides of the house to look at there’s a story behind there was trouble there was trouble there was trouble yes right so I see so they they used the two Crest used to be up here and these walls were filled in and these walls were filled in yeah okay so what happened was um in 1930 there was a big fight with the town over the ownership of the lane the the council came in laid tarmac down and Cordelia Hanam who was the who was the the lady of the House of the time very formidable character said you you know you you’ve laid tarmac down this is our lane it belongs to the estate and the house and it always has and the council um pulled out some bit of legal stuff and to to try and claim that it it was theirs now and she was absolutely Furious because she’d done so much for the town in the past she her husband built the hospital she gave allotments to the town she built the rectory and gave it to the minst and every time the town the community needed something she wrote the check right and this she was Furious that they were treating her like this basically trying to steal a piece of land off her of course so what she did was she moved the Big White gate that was there up to here built these two Stone peers moved the the fine Hanam yes Griffins press onto the top and she never went into town again she went in she closed all her trade accounts and she literally refused to to engage with the community again the only thing she did do was every Sunday because she was so devout was go to the Minster but she built herself a little walkway over there W walkway which has her own private one with a locked gate to get her as close as possible to the minst so she was Furious yeah yeah but she had a problem this right here because she had a problem though because she couldn’t get it get to the nearest place to go shopping and do business was pool right yeah I was about to say how did she do her shopping if without having to drive all the way around the town to get to pool uh she couldn’t get there cuz the river Allen runs across the land here and is in the way so she solved that by building that very fine bridge over theen and extending the drive 500 yard down to the road to pool and then she built very pretty little Lodge Bungalow Lodge and two more peers like this with very fine rot iron gates and um so she that was it so that was her exit she just couldn’t she couldn’t even drive through the town she couldn’t bear to have anything to do with them extraordin the L people go to when they’re Furious yeah I mean but heartbreak for her she was a flame haired lady and she was I think she was not to be trifled with no and here and so I presumably there was a huge gate here then there was a big vehicle gate here and there was a little pedestrian gate there pretty white gate yeah but you’ve opened this all up now no the court she was taken to court well she took the counsil to court and the judge sat there and scratched his head and thought God I don’t know how to resolve this um so he basically said you’ve got to take the gates down but the ownership of the lane is sort of still in question and we’ve never really resolved it since then right yeah so it there was no there was no judgment yellow lines we can say the her barass exactly she she withdrew from the case and I think that that infuriated her even more cuz her bar said you’re probably not going to win yeah oh my goodness but then she also in 1932 built this gorgeous squash court for her son John who was a mad Sportsman and then she built these two 1930s garages uh and then when we came here 12 years ago this was all completely derel it was overgrown just a farm gate here and just came in the the the squash CT was structurally quite sound but completely direct on the inside so then did you have thoughts of what you wanted to do I was by slightly starting to miss my antique shoping glosser she and was saying with my shopkeeper’s hat on saying this would make a fantastic shop because right on the corner of town this would make a fantastic shop so actually we did quite we’ll take you inside we did quite of basic restoration on it and then a year later I kept looking at this 1930s garage yes which was also derit is that right my father had an old Bentley which he kept in there he’d stopped driving it for years and years and years and it was sitting there just sort rotting away right and so in 2013 we turned into our little cafe wonderful this is good morning Anna good morning hi Anna Anna’s just set up all the cakes all the delicious homemade cakes I think it’s brilliant though allly what you’ve done taking this and you know really thinking outside the box here it was a garage and you’re you know this is the Contemporary progress owners of these you know historic houses you’re the perfect example of one of them thinking like what can we do with it making do a cafe use every why tear it down when we can you know use it um for you know to make something like this yeah can I order a something hot sure course can I have just a black Americano yeah black Americano exactly that’s the Americano for the American do you want a piece of cake yeah you I will have one later I think I’m going to be having some lunch here so I will definitely have that okay perfect thank you so much just wonderful wonderful to see see you later [Music] okay yeah so come over and see the show with her knowledge and background in antiques Ally has furnished the cafe with such style echoing the 1930s so this is our shop hi Al hi Julie hi so nice to meet you so this was the squash cour squash cour imagine it that in 1932 was turned was built yes and it was probably left from I think people often come in here and say oh I played Scot in here once probably from about sort of the mid 80s ’90s onwards right it was um just derel literally everything that could rot had rotted all the wood all the floor yep the doors the balcony the staircase and it was like a fery literally it was just had sort of plants growing in it which actually looked rather atmospheric right so then you walked in we walked in and I thought oh wow this would make the most amazing shop so Ally are you doing all the buying then yeah I do I do all the buying yeah and I I try to buy as much locally endorsed as possible so little soap makers and candle makers and all the people doing their different trades down here but also I go to some of the trade fairs in Paris and London and then I go to India once a year for about a month yeah wonderful and what are you sourcing from India Well India it’s the scarves and the silks and the lovely rugs and yeah we come back Alex with all sorts of things don’t we from India oh this is brilliant um what wonderful space and wonderful shop it’s a good use for an old squash court is well it’s really wonderful what you’ve done Ally is you know coming in to Dean’s court and really putting your mark on this saying okay here’s a derel building let me do something about this with your background in Antiques and buying and creating a shop for the community I couldn’t I couldn’t bear the thought of it being pulled [Music] down just a short walk from the house on the banks of the river Allen William and his friend guy spend mindful afternoons fly fishing for wild brown trout how how do you know it’s a GRE cuz it says so on the tin I hope I’m not gate crashing no just a bit of fly talk a bit of fly talk and and well I’ve come prepared I think oh my God yeah they’re enormous so ready but apparently this is what you need to fly fish that’s what you need is that right waiters that and a few flies and and a FL and a few trout yeah I’d really like to get that trout one two okay okay so I’ve done fly fishing once before and I I didn’t catch a thing is that normal yes yes especially if you’re with us and with a slightly Muddy River today cuz there was so much rain yesterday so the river is not because it’s like we’re we’re fishing on sight so the whole point is to be able to see them through through the clear water and as it’s completely cloudy it’s a bit difficult to know where the fish are but I think um cuz you normally stalk them you find a fish and then kind of stalk it and then you stalk it so now it’s just down to luck so now it’s down to yeah potluck okay down to potluck okay okay so you going to waiter up take a chair I’ll take a chair a rocking chair is not going to work no no but where are your waiters um um I thought this was we’re going to sort of watch you are you just so seasoned as that you don’t even need waiters anymore absolutely years and years of doing nothing but fish that you don’t need the waiters anymore I mean they are rather spectacular though beautiful Waiters I know lined as well W listen I need to come prepared woo look at this and what are these dangling things for that’s just strap them on if you want but no I think that’s meant to attach to something that you probably should have higher up like a waist or something to keep you to keep them up when I land a fish you can hook one on each side I can hook it on each side now that would be a photo right that would be a fa okay brilliant okay so you’ve got you’ve got the waiters on got a couple years have you both been fly fishing about 10 years so you’re you’re semi-professional then once a year but guy and I cleared this River when when when we arrived here it was it was almost grown over you couldn’t fish it at all so we he and I got stuck in together spent a long time and it’s amazing clearing it if we did a little nature did quite a lot for us after that it was extraordinary experience actually okay do I need a rod yes you’re going to we’re car for you we’ll be your ghilly that’s brilliant thank you both very much okay okay so probably Judy the best thing is if um guy gives you a little demo right and um the best place to do casting is in a field not next to the river cuz there’s less to catch okay there less things for the fly to get caught on okay so if I let guy give you a little run through I’m going to keep out of the way okay so I’ll just give you a very quick demon rtion okay should I stand clear yeah yeah I’m just um going to quickly just do a a cast or two and then kind of get you to do the same so the idea is to get this tiny fly imitation fly that we have on the rod on the line here right is to get it out into the middle of the field um and projecting projecting it as far as possible which is why we use a slightly heavy line to give us some weight so if you the idea is to come back sort of like you’re answering a telephone call just at 90° to your ear um no further because if you take it further the line will drop behind you we want to keep the line in the air behind us and then pull on this as it’s coming forward so just like this so we go back and we pull a bit on this and we using the line now to get out as far as we can to where the fish you’re pulling this back towards you yeah just slightly like that and then up to here and then forward again sort of moving forward until you find your final destination okay where the fly should drop down in front of the fish and then you bring it back to the bank okay so you give it a whir so there we are you take the rod you right-handed I am right-handed okay so where’s my fly it’s here the Red Is it supposed to look like a fly yeah okay this doesn’t cuz it’s got a bit of felt on the on the um on the Barb to stop it coming back and hitting us oh okay few bring it back like I’m saying hello and I might say hello it might help me okay and let the line go behind you okay and then pull and go forward just a gent that’s it okay and then back again cuz you’re going to do it lots of times to feed the line lots of times I going to do this several times in a row yeah yeah okay okay the same thing so and then forward again I didn’t pull it you didn’t pull it hello and that’s whoops now we’ve now a heavy line sort of come down through the rod let go of the line if it’s this difficult on dry land I don’t think the trout have anything to worry about when I wait into the water don’t flick it and remember what we’re trying to do is imitate fly life so when that fly lands on the river it needs to be really gentle like a like a real one so you just want to almost feel like gently okay [Music] okay better I it felt better it was it was getting there the only thing that made it go slightly sideways was you just got a breath of air which is every Fisherman’s nightmare every fly fish can I do it one more time you think I’ve done it you think it’s okay okay it’s getting there and let it go that’s it so there you go and it landed although you didn’t well we don’t want to go far but it landed prop it landed nice and gently gently okay I think I’ll end on that one well it’s a definitely High it I mean it’s an improvement from from five minutes ago yeah massive didn’t need to entangle anything exactly and if there’s been a fish that we’d have eaten it that’s right I’ve succeeded with not tangling it up this tranquil landscape is beautifully unspoiled and bursting with Wildlife I can absolutely see why William and Guy enjoy spending time here so this might be a nice little spot to try it’s lovely and it has a bench has a bench won’t be fishing but is it safe to go in it should be because this is this is a this is a shallow a shallow bit this is a chalk stream this is a chalk stream yeah which that this is a very special type of Waterway and it’s very unlike the usual what we call coar rivers that you see everywhere um chalk streams are fed by Springs which uh from rainfall that comes down through the a falls on Chalk downlands is filtered through the aquifer and then comes up in Springs and then forms a river oh my goodness rather than being fed by runoff from fields which is why all other rivers are usually cover color because they’re fed by you know muddy silty water but when a chalk stream is looking really good it’s absolutely crystal clear because it’s fed by this filtered very very pure nutrient-rich water so you can drink the water drink it yes but not only that it attracts a huge amount of wild life because there’s an enormous amount of invertebrate life going on at the bottom of the chalk stream and then you up you’re going up the food chain you’ve got the fish then you’ve got the birds that come for the fish the ERS and all sorts of things so these chalk streams are absolute um habitat for everything and some people call them the um the rainforests of Great Britain and the interesting thing is that um because we’ve got so much Chalk in the southern part of this country uh we’ve got about 76% of the world’s chalk streams in England and about 50% of them are within 30 Mi of here you’re kidding me yeah they’re a really rare resource and people fly in from all over the world to fish for trout brown trout on these streams here and we are right in the center of some of the best fishing in the world so when you’re fishing for trout you you obviously want to go to chalk streams but you want to be able to spot the fish first so you’re not just you know going in it blind and hoping for the best no you’re finding a fish and then you’re like stalking that fish so as as when William was just saying it’s gin clear we walk down the bank and we could if it was clear now we could see lots of different brown trout so you’ll look at the fly life of that particular particular day and that time of year and then you’ll imitate that by putting a fake fly on one of these lines and then try and imitate it again landing on the water but as you’ve already seen your fish so you’re just trying to aim just in front of it nose so that when it FL it’s much more fun than regular fishing better than just sport it’s like a proper sport but a really really good fly fisherman will only spend 50% of his time fishing he’s sitting there on benches like this watching watching the fly life watching the fish seeing where they’re Rising what they’re Rising for and watching their behavior and then you’re just trying to imitate exactly what in Wild you’re out whing the fish yeah you’re out winning the fish which is rather fun so can I see you do a little cast we can do a little casting but it’s going to be hit and miss obviously because we can’t see can’t see but I still have to see your you know extraordinary skill of [Music] casting I have to get in and it’s safe what did you get one oh my gosh I thought you afraid not and and all the fish that we we catch here we we we catch and release now right so everything that we catch goes back into the river fantastic um which is great I think yeah which is great it’s just I think that’s it doesn’t take anything out of a sport and then it was time to put the waiters to the test oo is it deep it’s a muddy at the side okay I mean they’re working I just want to you know don’t go here there’s a pool there so go straight straight up you sure you I know I should say okay like I’m not going to just all of a sudden plunge to my yes you need a rod don’t you okay where is it is it what you look prision where’s your um okay wait woo it’s quite I mean the current hold on okay I’m just going to do you think that you know this is good this is great take take a road yeah so I really look like I’m sorry will okay I mean I’m not going to but you could it around prend yes I’ll just pretend yeah I mean I want to shut your eyes and do the Zen thing that’s right I’ll do the Zen thing it’s my yoga there you go so here’s my thumb keep wait hold on yeah that went straight exactly I like the hello that’s looking good that that’s great and then I’ll just let it kind of sit there the only and fish Upstream oh that would make sense yeah gosh but you could really spend hours here couldn’t you you could people do you tune into the wildlife and the Flies and everything standing in the river with it going in in and around your legs quite often you’ll be standing there and fish should be like swimming in and around you I mean that’s incredible and then you’ve got the joy of all the other Wildlife we’ve got a pair of King fishes I really could spend hours here I can see how many people spend many hours here because you’re not just trying to catch that fish you’re trying to find a little bit of Peace yeah you’re immersed in it and it is a bit like meditation because you’re so concentrating on the one so incredible object in [Music] mind [Music] so judie there’s just one little part of the house I’d love to show you if you if you don’t mind down in the cell down the spiral staircase so this spiral staircase this spiral staircase was the one that was used by the staff pretty much exclusively they weren’t allowed to use the main staircase but they could get from the sellers all the way down here all the way up through the house right up to the top it’s quite a steep climb yeah that is a steep climb it’s quite yeah exactly claustrophobic yeah right so so now we’re heading we’re going to head like a maze to the other corner of the house okay I’ll follow I’ll follow the sellers run all the way through the house and they were very important part of the function of the house particularly when it came to food because a lot of meats were cured here they were brined or they were hung and um there were stores that’s the Apple Store in there uh these are all really food storage rooms or food preparation rooms and there’s one room yeah it goes on throughout the whole house but this is the Saxon bit we’re now coming out into the Georgian bit and you’ll see they sprung the The Arches off the old Saxon bit and this is this little piece of wall here is the only exposed bit we’ve got so this is the outside of the house that was built in 705 or thereabouts oh my goodness so you can see outside of the house so when I was standing in the hall mhm I was standing in the middle of where this wall would have been when we standing in the hall we would have been essentially on what you call the second floor cuz you’d have to go up but but because this was an undercroft but um and you’ll notice here where we scraped out a bit of brick work here this is an old window that was blocked up by the Georgians and there’s the lovely Stone lintle there and you can just make out the outline of the the ancient window how wonder and you can see that there’s this this whole mixture of different types of stone here so they didn’t matter mind what they used a lot of it is what we called Heath Stone because there’s there’s a lot of Sandy Heath around here and of course it was fairly light to transport and it was easy to build with but there could well be some Roman Stone in here because they would just Quarry anything that they came across 1300 years ago yeah MH I mean incredible I’m so pleased I got to see this that is just yeah I that is a real treat just like the fictional Downtown Abbey historic homes once functioned with housekeepers footmen and butlers tending to the needs of the family here at Dean’s Court the basement is a warrant of rooms where meals were prepared and food stored after harvesting the wonderful organic produce from the kitchen Garden James is busy preparing supper I’m supposed to be helping him I’m trying to find James right now but I’m rather interested in exploring down here as well so I shall just follow there’s another one I’m going to follow the smell but before I’ve got to try to get into as many rooms down here look at obviously wine seller recycling excellent but wonderful wine Celler so fun I mean this would be brilliant for hide-and seek actually quite scary no there’s more rooms in here I mean I love going to downstairs of these historic houses because there’s so many rooms it’s quite extraordinary oh there comes the light not sure what this room was used for [Music] but but obviously this one’s used for Billiards now but it’s just extraordinary how many rooms there are look at this look at this look what look at this oh my goodness it’s like a treasure Trove in here look at this Old Carriage this is really filled with real Dean Court Treasures here I mean I would have a hey day here all right this is where the smells are coming from I found you I mean it was so easy because it smells amazing and oh my it’s beautiful so yeah cool so so what are you making then for so we’ve got the beetro that you picked earlier so this is going to be like a beetroot Chutney uh so got yeah loads of nice spices and some lentils and stuff so that would be like a nice dipping Chutney lovely uh then we’ve got some uh tomato based sauce here uh which we’ve used some of our own spices so the coriander and fennel to flour and then I’ve harvested the seeds um and used them in some of these dishes and then we’ve got a dll at the back so here are all the other veggies we harvested oh my goodness so cauliflower your cauliflower this is your c k and then this is a butternut squash which I harvested before but these are going to go in with the dll at the back and then these ones are going to be dressed up with some of the herbs parsley and stuff from the garden oh my goodness I what a feast this is fantastic wonderful okay so what can I help with so there’s some Obin just over there so if you want to just slice them up and then we’ll pop them in with the tomato sauce and then 15 20 minutes will be good to go okay wow fantastic so I I’m just going wash my hands cool so is there like a particular way to slice up the oene they’ve already been roasted but literally we just want to slice them into pieces like that big okay um so you can do a few at a time okay great yeah okay so this is going into the Tomato yeah sauce so that’s yeah some of the spices from the garden and wonder and these are all your recipes a mixture yeah yeah I get inspired I did some traveling in India when I was what 5 years ago or so and that’s yeah it’s the food I most like eat in my girlfriend’s vegan so it kind of like spices make vegetables taste better they they do spice it up go so you can shut that straight on them with these Tomatoes okay fantastic and you give them a nice stir get all that flavor ooh lovely I mean the smell is I mean the I mean smell is pretty darn amazing so I know that the taste is going to be outstanding and then at the back here we’ve got the rice and I forgot to say earlier I picked some of the Fig leaves from the Fig Tree so we’ve actually got what fig leaves in there um and hopefully they’ve got a slightly coconut flavor um so yeah so I’ve literally just cooked it as you cook rice with a few fig leaves in fantastic an experiment I like that experiment but why would the Fig bring out a coconut flavor I’m not sure it’s really strange sometimes different parts of a plant have flavors reminiscent of other things it’s like eating the thing we’re not used to eating sometimes can yield you know something different so well brilliant well thank you James I’m so glad I found you I was down exploring extraordinary down here but I was obviously drawn to the smell of the kitchen so brilliant um so I’ll see you then uh later upair shortly for dinner great thanks James my visit to Dean’s court has quite simply been amazing I’ve loved every second and it’s topped off with a wonderful organic feast in the dining room but can I just say a huge thank you to all of you for just really welcoming me here with such Open Arms letting me sort of you know really spend a full day out I mean just from the beginning learning a little bit about the history of Dean’s Court your ancestors but also you know that this goes back 1,300 years I mean that still blows my mind but also that this house has been in your family for nearly 500 years and then Ally just looking at all the things that you’ve created here and you know the kitchen Garden for you to find peace in and calm but also your passion about lty I’m not just saying this but just finding lty in that beautiful room embroidering with the sunlight coming in and just bringing a pass time back to life if you like but also creating a business out of it as I think it’s just empowering women who are mothers as well and especially young mothers and that’s not a lot of sleep you’re constantly do you know what I mean right you’re feeding your your your you know it’s a lot and then just to find something that you were you know really immersed yourself in over lockdown through the YouTube videos and then now you’ve created this business to me it was just something beautiful about seeing you in that room that I really loved it’s just extraordinary that Che the americ to Dean’s [Music] Court