Nestled on the north
coast of the Isle of Wight,
Osborne House is unique.
It's almost a time capsule.
No other royal residence can offer
such an up-close-and-personal
glimpse
into the private world
of one of our greatest monarchs.
It's like time stood still,
and they're still there.
This is where Queen Victoria
and her husband came to escape
the pressures of royal life.
They get to let go
of their "royalness"
and just almost act
like a normal family.
Its creation was a labour of love.
I think the house was almost
completely in Albert's vision.
It was the only place
they could really call home.
This was a place where they
could indulge their passions...
Victoria and Albert loved
a bit of nudity...
and raise their family.
Osborne was a holiday place,
and it was a place where
they could be with their children.
But Osborne House was so much more
than just a holiday home.
It was a test bed of innovation...
Queen Victoria's walk-in shower.
Heavens above, a shower!
I mean, hot running water
was revolutionary enough...
and a seat of power.
From here,
Victoria and Albert presided
over the biggest empire
in human history.
Osborne is all about recasting
the monarchy in a new light.
Now English Heritage have granted
unprecedented access
to this most special
of royal palaces.
This is a glimpse into Queen
Victoria's most cherished home.
I don't think there's anywhere else
that you can get
a true feel for Queen Victoria
other than Osborne House.
Osborne House, Queen Victoria's
magnificent palace by the sea,
draws visitors
from all over the world.
How are you? You've got the map,
you're in charge.
That's a lot of pressure.
It contains hundreds of rooms,
opulent interiors,
and around 12,000 items,
the treasures and trappings
of Victoria's long life.
It's also a shining example
of Victorian
engineering and innovation.
All mod cons.
It really was quite sophisticated.
It's fireproof. There was running
water, very modern plumbing...
and central heating.
It's a stunning symbol
of the power and might
of one of the most popular monarchs
in British history.
But back
at the start of Victoria's reign,
the monarchy was
on pretty shaky ground.
Across Europe,
you're seeing revolution,
monarchs being deposed,
radical demands being made
for constitutional reform
and voting rights.
And there is panic in Britain
that this could also spread
and could turn against
the British monarchy.
Victoria's forebears had done
little to improve public opinion.
During his reign,
her own grandfather, George III,
went raving mad.
He was mentally unfit to be
a monarch.
George IV was notorious for
being this horrendous, overweight,
lecherous, nasty old man,
most of which is true.
To make matters worse,
from her early 20s to early 60s,
Victoria was the victim
of numerous assassination attempts.
In her lifetime, I think people
try to assassinate her seven times.
Victoria wanted a place
where they could go and be safe.
The Queen craved
somewhere she could escape to.
So when Osborne House,
complete with private beach,
on the Isle of Wight,
became available,
they snapped it up for 28,000.
The fact that it was an island
made it very, very attractive
to Victoria and Albert
because it meant
they could have some privacy.
At this point,
they'd only been married four years
and had four young children.
Royal properties
like Saint James's Palace,
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle
belonged to the state.
But Osborne House would be
their very own.
Queen Victoria and Albert
were able to pay for it
out of their sort of private money.
And this meant that they could
control how they spent their money.
They didn't have people saying
they had to sort of follow
certain rules.
As a German prince
married to a British monarch,
Albert had been viewed
with suspicion
and deprived of any real power.
I don't think we should
underestimate how hard it was
to marry into
the British royal family...
which, at that time,
still had the vestiges of royal
prerogative and political power.
In comes Albert... and
he has to somehow carve out a role.
He had to prove himself in some ways
because he was judged
with some suspicion.
And one of the best ways to do that
is to be a creator,
to produce things that
people find useful and beautiful.
Albert wanted Osborne House to be
a defining moment.
This was his opportunity to show off
exactly what he was capable of.
Albert wanted to build a place
where, as it were,
he could be in charge.
And he decided to knock down
the original house
and build his own design.
He didn't bother with an architect
and went straight
to the master builder
who was reshaping
the fashionable West End of London.
The builder was Thomas Cubitt,
who built a large amount
of London's Belgravia.
And so, together, they formed
a very successful partnership.
Thomas Cubitt came from a family
of engineers and designers.
And he'd been working
since 1825 in London
redeveloping completely
the smart West End.
He knows how to set foundations,
he knows the practicalities
of joists and the rest of it.
And this is the kind of thing that
Albert was not trained in, actually,
because he went
to the University of Bonn,
but he was skilled in things
like philosophy and politics,
and he studied history of art.
He's a continental prince.
He's a renaissance prince.
He's born in Germany,
he speaks several languages.
He wants to bring a little bit
of that idea of Europe
into, dare I say it,
parochial, narrow-minded England.
I guess
the Isle of Wight is as close
to the Bay of Naples as you'll get,
so it seemed perfectly apt.
The initial vision was a fraction
of the size of today's house -
a three-storey Italianate villa.
Albert was aware that people
would be watching his every move...
so he was conscious not to spend
too much money.
Although it looks very splendid,
it was actually kind of built
on the cheap, you know.
The most expensive way to do it
would be to quarry new stone
and have a solid stone build.
What Osborne came from is
an economic way of building,
with stucco - that is,
an external plaster finish
on cheaper material,
in this case, brick.
And they not only imitated stone
on the outside
but on the inside
used painted marble
instead of genuine marbles.
But Albert didn't hold back
when it came
to the latest contraptions.
He wanted to use Osborne to showcase
fresh technological innovations.
This is
Queen Victoria's dressing room.
However, these are
not normal wardrobes. Far from it.
Queen Victoria's walk-in shower.
And... Queen Victoria's bath.
When Osborne was built,
it had hot and cold winning water,
and it was even piped
with salt water from the sea.
But if it was too cold
to go outside,
the water would come to you,
which I think is quite innovative.
Albert had set out to create
a safe haven,
where he and Victoria could relax
and escape
the stresses of royal life.
On their own turf, Albert and
Victoria challenge convention...
They wanted their quarters to feel
THEIR quarters,
not reflecting their ancestors...
allow their guests to break
royal protocol...
The fact that they were
round the corner behind a curtain
allowed them to sit down
without upsetting the Queen...
and set new trends.
Women, including Victoria,
played billiards.
The table is designed
to accommodate women,
so that women aren't compromised
bending over.
I think it's higher
than most billiard tables.
We can't possibly have
Victorian women compromised.
Good heavens, no.
Osborne House, the family home
of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
on the Isle of Wight,
offers us a window into
their private life like no other.
In September 1846,
after two years of building work,
the original square wing
of Osborne House,
known as the Pavilion, was complete.
By royal standards,
the three-storey Italian-style villa
was rather modest.
It looks a lot like a house in
Holland Park or something, you know,
but with a tower sticking up,
just for a better view over the sea.
But that's as far as it goes
in terms of palatial.
For the time it was built,
it featured
a unique, show-stopping layout.
The ground floor is made up
of their key entertaining spaces -
a dining room, drawing room
and billiard room -
all built
around a central staircase.
For you'd expect
for a palace to have
a sort of grand kind of throne room.
What happens at Osborne
is that you don't get
the sort of chain of rooms
that you do conventionally.
Ahead of his time,
Prince Albert's innovative ideas
were set to create
the perfect family home.
It's all very clever and open-plan.
You might think that
that was the wonder child
of Silicon Valley in the 1990s.
No, no, no - Albert was there first,
well over 100 years earlier.
Albert might have been
the brains behind the build,
but when it came
to the lavishly appointed decor,
it was very much a team effort.
People often attribute
Osborne House to Albert,
and it is true that he designed it,
he was very involved
in the architecture, all of that.
But they worked together
as a couple on the furnishings.
Their pride and joy was the room
they used to receive foreign royalty
as well as sing and play the piano
after dinner.
This is the, um, the drawing room,
which is in the Pavilion Wing.
It's redolent of
their taste and their style.
Everything was bought, created,
commissioned for Osborne.
So all of the furniture
in this room came from
a London company called
Holland and Sons.
It's sumptuous, it's upholstered,
and there's
lots and lots of yellow silk.
And that's sort of fashionable
in the mid-19th century.
It's quite, um, zingy.
It's very much
Victoria and Albert's.
For their time, they're very modern.
They wanted it to be
a sort of domestic palace.
Osborne was a holiday place,
and it was a place where
they could be with their children.
It's not a great big place.
It's quite a cosy place.
It's a place
where they could, I guess, nest.
Victoria couldn't have been
more delighted.
The beautiful gardens offered plenty
to keep visitors entertained.
Albert helped design them.
There should be about ten
along this edge.
These days, Jordan Aspinall
is one of a team of gardeners
tasked with making sure the terraces
live up to their past glory.
If we do a ring around, erm,
and then inter-fill, just randomly.
It just kind of breaks it up,
makes it a little bit more natural.
'I've worked here
for about seven years now.'
I think the best thing
about kind of the job
is that you get to show off
the history of the garden.
'Being able to design your own
little area's really special.
'This kind of... what we call
the Palm Terrace is my one.
'And I've kind of gone
with a design from 1888.
'So it's historical.
'We're trying to stick
to what Victoria and Albert
'would have kind of
designed and seen here.
'I've got a palm tree to work with
in the centre.
'The one behind me was actually
planted by Queen Elizabeth II,
'and that replaced one
that was planted by Queen Victoria.
'The terraces are planted up
with about 15,000 plants.'
It's so important to make it
colourful.
It's really kind of
that Victorian extravagance
that, I think, really kind of pops,
and especially here,
we just need to kind of cram it in
with loads of colour
and give that kind of Victorian
experience on the terraces.
For Victoria,
the vast, secluded gardens
allowed her the freedom to play.
Victoria's personal time
or private time
was going out on a carriage drive.
So she'd be pulled by horses
along the carriageways of Osborne.
Bouncing along on
un-metalled roads.
She felt self-conscious,
as if, if she was spotted,
she'd be seen skiving
or taking time out.
And so no-one admitted to seeing
her,
and there are
several diary accounts,
where senior ministers,
men of 6ft tall, hear this rumble,
and here comes the Queen
on a carriage drive.
And so they would dive
into the bushes literally
so that she wouldn't know
that she had been seen.
So there are these games
around what was...
what was appropriate time for the
ruler to spend in affairs of state.
From conception, Queen and Prince
were determined to break convention
and make their own mark
on their private palace.
Just off the drawing room,
through a set of double doors,
was where Victoria, Albert
and their guests would dine.
The Victorian standard meal,
at least in the early part
of Victoria's reign,
was served
in a style called a la Francaise,
so you had lots of dishes
on the table at once.
Served simultaneously,
normally in two to four courses.
Kitchens were capable
of turning out a lot of food
at once to be served piping hot
to the people that needed it.
I mean, this is quite a feat.
There would always be soups,
there would always be fish.
There would always be
a choice of entrees.
There would always be roast meat.
There would always be
something that was a bit more fancy,
with lots of bits and pieces
sticking out of it, and sauces.
Then there would always be
vegetable dishes.
And a lot of these dishes
were moulded.
They had lots of garnishes.
And especially
as the children got older,
then the children would dine
with them.
Traditionally, in a dining room,
people would have displayed
their portraits of their ancestors.
But here,
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
have hung portraits
of their own children.
They wanted their quarters to feel
THEIR quarters,
not reflecting their ancestors.
To mark this fresh start,
they commissioned a family portrait
from their favourite artist -
Winterhalter.
Queen Victoria is wearing a crown,
but at the same time, the children
are playing on the floor.
So there's these elements
of regular family life.
This painting
was really quite powerful.
Traditionally, pictures of monarchs
focused on wealth and power.
Instead, this was
a picture of domestic bliss.
Victoria and Albert wanted to be
royal,
but they would also be incredibly
close and devoted parents.
It is a painting
which shows the kind of,
in a way, the sort of inspiration
for what a house like Osborne
was about.
It's a brand-new house, and
it's about their brand-new family.
And, you know,
it's the start of a new era.
They are trying to undo the damage,
reputational damage
that had been done to the monarchy
by the philandering Georgian
monarchs that they'd had.
And to have that on display
in the dining room at Osborne was
really key.
It was saying to all their guests,
"That this is who we are,
and this is what we now represent."
After dinner, the royal couple,
guests
and members of the royal household
would often retire
to the Billiard Room.
Women, including Victoria,
played billiards. I love that.
But to spare any blushes,
the table was specially adapted
for them.
The table is designed to accommodate
women
so that women aren't compromised
bending over.
I think it's higher
than most billiard tables are,
believe it or not.
We can't possibly have Victorian
women compromised, good heavens, no.
Especially when they might bump
into men in that open-plan design.
The people who accompanied
the royal family to Osborne
were essentially the household
that they would usually have
at Windsor or in London,
perhaps rather fewer of them.
But they would have
their ladies in waiting,
there would be Albert's equerries.
And even though they were all
aristocrats in their own right,
whenever they were
in Victoria's company,
they had to observe
a strict code of behaviour.
Everybody would have to stand up
the whole evening,
unless Victoria said,
"Do you want to sit down?"
And quite often, she would forget.
The fact that they were
round the corner, behind a curtain,
allowed them to sit down
without upsetting the Queen.
They could sit down between shots,
but they were still
in the Queen's presence.
Racy artwork at Osborne House.
Victoria and Albert loved
a bit of nudity.
Let's not forget
this was their private palace.
Surprises in the royal bedroom.
Albert had
a special button installed
so that he could press the button,
and that would lock the door.
So nobody could disturb them.
And the holiday retreat
is transformed
into an empire-ruling palace.
It's a play for political power
on the part of the Prince Consort
and his wife the Queen.
It's them staking out their turf.
Of all the royal residences,
Osborne House is unique
because it offers us
an up-close-and-personal glimpse
into the private world
of Queen Victoria and her family.
By royal standards,
it was modest and cosy,
designed to raise
their growing family
and primed
for their private functions.
Set over 350 acres with
woodlands and meadows and gardens,
it demonstrated
their command of the landscape
and the country they governed
beyond it.
I think the gardens were
pretty important to Prince Albert.
They really allowed him to exercise
his passions for horticulture,
forestry, farming,
that sort of thing.
He always wanted to do stuff.
Victoria and Albert
really popularised tree planting
here at Osborne.
The trees that were planted
that you can see in the garden today
were planted and looked at
by the royal family.
They planted
about 260 memorial trees.
A lot of them were planted
for all sorts of occasions,
for things
like the Queen's birthday.
And even just, "It's a nice day,
let's get the family out and plant."
Trees really do give
that... continuity of history.
They're also one of those things
that people think last forever.
But nature has its own power
and sometimes it's beyond the
control of Osborne's gardening team.
Well, this is a cedar of Lebanon.
It actually predates
Victoria and Albert's time.
It was planted in the 1770s,
we think,
so that would make it
around about 250 years old.
And Albert kept
four of these very large cedars
when he was planning his garden.
When they fall down, when they die,
whatever reason,
it's quite a loss.
So, really, we're trying to keep
that history going
by replanting the same plant
in the same sort of place.
We've taken lots of cuttings off it.
You can't propagate it by cuttings.
But you can propagate it
by grafting.
So we sent these small cuttings
off to a specialist nursery.
And they've actually produced
some young plants for us,
so they'll be growing those on
for us
for the next five years potentially
until we've got a tree
that is large enough to plant
in more or less the same place.
But the actual tree itself,
it's gonna live on in other
wooden products and so on, really.
Other things that endure
are the displays of
a passionate relationship
the royal couple enjoyed here.
And it's on
the first floor of the Pavilion,
home to their private apartments,
that you truly get a sense of
the strength of their relationship.
Their bedroom was their sanctuary.
Today, it's out of bounds
for filming.
But what happened inside
is no longer a secret.
Well, we know that Victoria
and Albert have a lot of sex.
They have a lot of children.
It's not rocket science.
The prince's keen eye for detail
ensured that
here, they could have complete
freedom to indulge their passions.
He was so determined to be able
to enjoy his wife's company,
shall we put it, in peace,
that he had
a special button installed
so that if they, you know,
were to get into bed,
he could press the button,
and that would lock the door...
so no children could disturb them.
There were big locks on their
bedroom door for obvious reasons.
Victoria loved sex.
Couldn't get enough of it.
Hated the results,
the children that came with it
but actual sex, brilliant.
The Queen's diary entry
from the night of their wedding
describes
the chemistry they discovered.
We know on the first night,
her wedding night,
she talks about the way she's being
kissed and touched and de-robed.
And this is somebody who is sharing
with us her deflowering.
She loved every minute of it.
She's, what, 20?
This is a young woman,
who has been unbelievably sheltered
her whole life
but is very aware of men,
who has suddenly discovered
the power of the orgasm.
They loved each other.
And I think that...
that is somehow... still...
possible to pick up on
when you go as a visitor.
In many ways, Osborne House,
its light colouring,
its classical lines, its love story,
it's about life.
Over the course of their marriage,
Victoria and Albert
filled the house and gardens
with tokens
of their love for one another.
Sensual pieces are everywhere...
to feast the eyes
and perhaps keep up the spice
in their relationship.
Well, I think the art at Osborne is
a very good indicator of
what their relationship was about.
And it's quite clear
that they certainly were not
what we usually think
Victorians were,
which is sort of rather priggish
and frightened
of things like nudity.
Victoria and Albert loved
a bit of nudity.
Let's not forget
this was their private palace.
Today, it's conservator
Dr Sophie Downes' job to preserve
the 12,000 items on display.
Victoria and Albert collected
an enormous quantity of things.
And for a palace, one of the major
problems is the sheer quantity
of objects fitted
into the very small space.
But we like the challenge.
Today, I've just been taking
some condition images
of the Andromeda statue,
to make sure that
we haven't got any adverse changes.
Victoria and Albert were very into
modern techniques and materials.
So these statues, although
they look like solid bronze,
actually quite a lot of them
are hollow,
made from either
zinc or electroplated copper.
So they're a lot more vulnerable
than you think they might be.
Queen Victoria acquired
the Andromeda statue
after seeing it
in the Great Exhibition of 1851.
It reflects
not only the Greek legend
of Perseus
saving and falling in love
with an African princess
but the love of Queen and Prince
at Osborne House.
So, we have an annual maintenance
programme with the statues.
It's part of a team effort
to make sure that
the objects are kept
in the best conditions
and making sure that
everything is nice and stable
so they can last for a lot longer,
to be enjoyed by the public.
Greek mythology is
also a big feature
in Albert's most private place
on the first floor of the house.
The most interesting thing
about Osborne House
is Albert's bathroom
because it is... it's such...
I mean, people think that Albert
doesn't have a sense of humour.
But when I look at
Albert's bathroom,
I just think this man
really had hidden depths.
There's his bath,
and looking down over his bath
is a picture of Hercules,
the great Greek and Roman hero
holding a distaff,
which is a sort of feminine symbol.
He's being held in bondage
by an Amazon queen
called Queen Omphale.
And Hercules was, of course,
notoriously strong.
But he was also, apparently,
in classical legend,
Hercules was made to do
all sorts of women's work,
women's tasks.
And some people have suggested
that Albert's choice of Hercules
is basically a coded reference
to the fact that Albert is fed up
by not getting enough responsibility
to do the real man's work.
That has to be a reflection
on the relationship
between Victoria and Albert
because, you know,
Victoria is the Queen,
and Albert's this brilliant man,
who can't be king
because he's only married
to the Queen.
And, you know, as he said,
"I am the husband
but not the master in this house."
I don't think
it actually was true in Osborne.
Cos I think he was
very much master of the house.
Here he is, putting all his huge
powers of decoration and invention
into designing
the inside of a house.
When he perhaps
is sort of slightly hinting
that actually,
it would have been better
if he had been allowed to play
at politics a bit more.
It's a funny reflection
on Albert's situation.
The painting in Albert's bathroom
is rather tongue-in-cheek.
But the Queen also had
her own playful side
on show in their home office.
Well, this is
the Queen's sitting room.
And what's really nice is that
it's a small, intimate space,
very domestic.
One of the noticeable things is
this very large painting.
It was bought by Queen Victoria
as a birthday present
for Prince Albert.
The Queen purchased
the painting in April, 1852.
They would have sat there writing
their papers together,
but in front of them,
there's this quite large painting.
It's just a sort of riot
of naked flesh.
So... And this Victoria gave to
Albert, thinking he would love it,
and he did, he thought it was great.
It's not exactly a dirty picture,
but, you know, the idea that
somehow Victoria and Albert
were in any way prudish
is completely contradicted
by this painting.
Cos you wouldn't want to sit there
looking at
all of this creamy abundance,
if you weren't reasonably interested
in the pleasures of the flesh.
Even though
this picture would remind them
of their passion for each other,
it wouldn't stop them
from performing their daily duties.
We've got two quite discrete desks,
one for the Queen,
and next to her,
one for Prince Albert.
So, while they were here,
she was still running an empire,
from this small desk.
And next to her, Prince Albert,
he was as busy as she was
when they came here.
The desks are aligned side by side,
and there's a letter at this time
from Albert,
saying how marvellous it is
that Victoria has allowed him
to sit next to her
when she does her paperwork.
So you get a very human sense
of the couple's existence.
The underside of the desk has
slightly different heights
cos Albert had good, chunky legs.
And longer legs as well.
And so his desk
is slightly taller than hers.
They're shaped around their bodies.
And once you spot that,
then, you know...
they're still there in that house.
Osborne began as a holiday home,
a retreat where Victoria and Albert
could be alone with their family.
But soon, events around them meant
it started to take on
a more official role.
About the time they went to Osborne,
it was 1848,
and 1848 is a very significant time
in European history
because there are all these
revolutions all over Europe.
You know, in Austria, in Germany,
in France.
And Albert and Victoria
were quite concerned
that it might spread to England.
You know,
there was a Chartist rally,
there was
a certain amount of unease.
And so Osborne House was
a kind of refuge,
you know, was a place
that they could go and be safe.
The Chartists are starting to make
similar radical demands.
There's a real fear
that the volatile atmosphere
could arrive in London
and could turn against
the British monarchy.
Victoria and Albert
decided to very quickly flee
to their new home in Osborne
to escape
in case
there is any chance of danger.
And the more time
she spent at Osborne,
the more reluctant she was to leave.
Doesn't like leaving it,
doesn't wanna come back
to Buckingham Palace,
what does that mean? Well,
if your head of state is offshore,
then your politicians
have to go offshore as well.
Monarchies are being overthrown.
She has to play a careful game.
So she invites people
into her house,
that's how Osborne changes.
It quickly became clear that
their three-storey holiday hideaway
was no longer appropriate.
So they decided to add an extension
and what an extension.
A whole new wing. In 1851,
Osborne almost doubled in size.
There's a moment
where... Osborne is actually recast
from a royal house into a palace.
The new building is effectively
a suite of state rooms.
This new wing is created
with rooms with
titles such as the Council Room
and the Audience Room.
And this shows us, I think,
really what's happening here
is that when the Prime Minister
or some important foreign politician
comes to Osborne,
they will be met in these rooms.
So, I think this is a sign
that there's
a sort of growing aspiration
to intervene in politics.
But it could also be read
as a recognition that
really if you're Queen,
you can never really escape
the Red Box.
It's actually
a play for political power
on the part of the Prince Consort
and his wife the Queen.
It's them staking out their turf.
Two irregular towers, one serving
very much as the clock tower,
you can't help but think,
it's a little microcosm
of the Palace of Westminster
with Big Ben at one end
and Victoria Tower at the other.
And they're being built
and developed at the same time.
It's a very subtle way of,
if not sticking two fingers,
you know, to London,
it is doing things on her own terms.
And it's done in the most subtle
way, but once you see it,
I think you don't forget that
that's what it stands for.
Queen and Prince put family first.
He really wants to ground
his children
and make them self-sufficient
in many ways
but also kind of humble and
capable of doing ordinary things.
Their eldest and heir to the throne
reveals a rebellious side.
Bertie used the Swiss Cottage
as a place
where he could in secret smoke
cigarettes.
And a delicious tradition takes off
at Osborne.
Victoria loved taking
what became known as afternoon tea.
What could be more brilliant
than yet another chance
to have a meal
and also loads of cake?
Osborne House was rapidly becoming
an important seat of power.
But family life still revolved
around the original Pavilion.
And here, Prince Albert had very
deliberately broken with tradition.
The usual arrangement
for royal or upper-class houses
would have been to have had
a children's wing,
where they would be out of sight
for the grown-ups.
At Osborne, the children were
directly above Victoria and Albert.
The royal children were upstairs
immediately above them
in the nursery.
You know,
cheek by jowl with the parents.
Victoria and Albert
were a sort of modern family, not...
You know, they had more in common
with sort of middle-class families,
than perhaps
with the traditional aristocracy.
By the 1850s, Victoria and Albert
had nine children,
all in close succession
to one another.
And they were determined to bring
them up in a stable, loving home.
Prince Albert grew up
in quite a cold, unhappy environment
with his parents' relationship...
and saw breakdowns there.
Whereas, Queen Victoria's,
although her parents were in
a happy marriage for the most part,
so there was
this real pressure and expectation
on the young Queen Victoria to be
this wholesome, bright future
for Britain.
And both of them
are quite morally focused on this.
They didn't have
a normal upbringing
and felt that
they missed out on parental care.
They were gonna give it
to their children,
and it was an important principle.
With an estate
as big as a theme park,
offering woodlands,
gardens and a secluded beach,
Osborne House offered
the perfect environment to spend
quality time with their children.
Their kids loved
to be on the beach playing.
She's done some very pretty drawings
of her children on the beach.
Sketching the children
wearing their summer clothes
and their sun hats and their sailor
suits in the bright sun,
I think I must have been
very special for them.
And then you've got essentially
a kind of theme park in the garden.
That's how powerful
some of the garden design was -
that actually,
it enraptured those under 15.
It's really this playground,
there was
a considerable amount of frolicking.
Hidden deep within the woods,
well away from the house,
Prince Albert installed
another surprise for the children.
Suddenly, you come across
this perfect Swiss chalet.
It's every child's dream, really,
to have this place
they can absolutely run wild.
And they were encouraged
to run wild.
Cottages like this were quite trendy
in the early 19th century.
And there were thoughts that
this one was actually something
that was shipped over
from the continent.
But it seems like this was
actually constructed in England.
Prefabricated on the mainland.
And then constructed here
by local craftsmen.
But the children were all involved
in helping to lay the foundations.
Albert wanted the children to have
a place of their very own,
where they could be together.
I think the word Swiss Cottage,
when you describe it as a kind of
playhouse for the children,
you conjure up
something quite small.
Swiss Cottage is quite a lot bigger
than most people's houses,
I would say.
You could say it's the coolest
Wendy house for little kids
that was ever invented.
It even came complete
with a fully equipped
three-quarter size
dining room and kitchen.
The children learned to cook
in the kitchen.
They were being taught
by Louisa Warne,
who was the wife
of one of the under gardeners.
And it seems that all of the
children took part in the cooking,
and there wasn't
much gender segregation
in terms of how the children played.
There's a lot of culinary moulds
for things like jellies and cakes,
that kind of thing.
And we know
a few dishes that they did cook.
We know they cooked pancakes.
We know they cooked
a thing called Schneemilch,
which was an Austrian dish,
which is a very light, blancmange-y
frothy kind of syllabub-y dish,
very, very nice.
And we can surmise that
they cooked things like cakes
and possibly bread as well.
Besides being schooled
in the art of cookery,
the children
were also encouraged to garden.
They were each given a plot
of ground with about 14 beds in it
for them each to grow
vegetables, fruits, flowers.
They also had
their own spades, shovels, forks,
all of a child's size.
And even small wheelbarrows.
For Prince Albert, the Swiss Cottage
was central to his plan
to bring his children up to be
well-rounded human beings.
He really wants to ground
his children
and make them self-sufficient
in many ways
but also humble and kind of
capable of doing ordinary things.
He wanted the children to know
the value of money.
They all grew the same things.
And then they would sell it
to Albert at market value,
so that way,
they knew what things cost.
Also, they'd understand
the benefits of their hard work.
This was hard work.
And they'd... get to understand
what their servants,
what staff around them,
what people in their everyday life
would have to do to earn a living
as well.
He wanted his children to understand
the world,
not just the privileged background
that they were born into, really.
This is about creating well-behaved,
well-bred young children,
who will be morally strong princes
and princesses when they're older.
Their nine children were to become
key to continental alliances.
They very much see them as...
as weapons to be deployed...
around Europe.
And the more children you have,
the more political dynastic
marriages you can achieve.
Albert was determined to create
sort of dynastic links
with the key European countries,
and, in particular, with Germany.
And so the oldest child, Vicky,
from a very early age,
is destined to marry
the heir to the King of Prussia,
later, the German emperor.
The biggest amount of pressure
is on Bertie,
the Prince of Wales,
the future heir.
For him to be the next model king,
really.
And to help continue the path
that Victoria and Albert have set,
to correct
the wrongs of previous kings,
but also for, you know,
in Victoria's mind,
she wants her son to grow up to be
very much like his father.
But young Bertie appeared to have
other ideas.
Bertie used the Swiss Cottage
as a place
where he could in secret,
smoke cigarettes.
Victoria struggled with her son
and heir's rebellious attitude.
There are challenges, I think,
of having Albert as a father,
industrious, intellectual,
if you're a son like Bertie, neither
industrious, nor intellectual.
Bertie, from a really young age,
there's all sorts of records about
how he's kicking off at his tutors,
how he's really naughty,
he doesn't wanna study,
he throws tantrums.
And yes, you could see that
as potentially
an arrogant, spoiled little prince.
But there's a lot of evidence
to document
that it was also a cry for help.
He felt alienated from his parents,
and he didn't feel heard.
Despite the sometimes
fractious relationship,
Osborne House's Swiss Cottage
was far more
than an educational tool.
It provided a space where
Victoria and Albert could spend time
alone with their children.
They have little birthday teas
or other parties down there.
They went often without servants.
It would be their children
that were serving them a cup of tea.
And just have a bit of fun,
you know, with the whole brood.
It's like a mini holiday home
within the wider holiday home
of Osborne House.
A bit of escapism
for Victoria and Albert
because they get to... let go of
their royalness for a little while
and just almost act
like a normal family.
And the happy times
they spent at Swiss Cottage left
a lasting impression
on the whole family.
As the children grew up, married,
had children of their own,
they came back to Swiss Cottage,
and they often brought
their own children with them,
and they cooked
with their own children as well.
And in some ways,
it is quite extraordinary,
this idea of rulers of Europe
coming back to their home,
their holiday home,
with their own children
and cooking things in the kitchen.
But we all owe a debt
to the Swiss Cottage
because, without it,
one of our most beloved traditions
may never have taken off...
the afternoon tea.
One of the things the children
did cook a lot at Swiss was cake.
And part of that was because
Victoria did have
quite a sweet tooth.
Victoria loved taking
what became known as afternoon tea.
She loved it, she loved it.
I mean, what could be more brilliant
than yet another chance to have
a meal and also loads of cake?
And it's Osborne House's catering
manager Victoria Stone's job
to ensure visitors can still get
a little slice of the past.
Victoria had her breakfast,
and she had her lunch,
and she had her dinner.
But in between lunch and dinner,
she was hungry.
And she wanted something more,
so they allowed her to have
a scone and some jam
and some clotted cream,
and that's
what she used to enjoy here.
And we've kept that tradition going.
Victoria sponge is made
here on site,
and we are now collaborating
with the gardeners.
You would have seen the fruit
in the walled garden.
That is being used as jam
in our kitchens.
And we want to tell that story
through our cakes as well.
You can sit down
in these beautiful gardens
with a nice cup of tea
and a slice of Victoria sponge.
It's still keeping that story alive.
They're actually buying
a piece of history.
Victoria and Albert transformed
the public perception of monarchy.
It was no longer
about one individual,
it was a whole family unit,
a royal family.
I think that must have made
such a difference
to the way that the royal family
was viewed by the people.
Made it easier
for them to connect with them.
And if you think about it,
maybe one of the reasons
that our royal family has survived
and others haven't.
Bertie is embroiled in a scandal.
He was having an affair
with a prost*tute
when he was 19 years old.
It broke his father's heart
and destroyed his spirit.
A harrowing end
to a royal love affair.
Victoria was thrown
into incredibly deep morning.
She lost the use of her legs.
She could barely speak.
She was absolutely distraught.
This room is amazing.
And the Queen developed
an Indian infatuation.
A whole extension of the house
given over to an Indian idea
because, guess what, the Queen's got
at least an emotional crush
on one of her Indian servants.
What had started out
as a fairly modest
three-storey seaside retreat
for the royal family,
had over the years transformed
into an impressive seat of power.
But in December, 1861,
some 15 years after they created
this space of love,
the visionary behind it,
Victoria's beloved Albert,
died unexpectedly of typhoid fever.
His death happened
at Windsor Castle.
He was only 42 years old.
Victoria was thrown
into incredibly deep mourning.
She lost the use of her legs,
she could barely speak,
she was absolutely distraught.
We think of her
as kind of this old widow,
but at that time, she was only 42,
and suddenly, Albert's died,
and she really wasn't expecting it.
She'd had
something of a nervous breakdown.
Where did she go? She went to
Osborne. She could hide in Osborne.
Osborne also became for her a site
where she could memorialise Albert.
So she could put around Osborne
things that reminded her of him.
She always slept
with his portrait over her bed.
You know, she felt safe there.
The circumstances of his death
cast an even greater shadow
over the already troubled
relationship
between Victoria
and her eldest son Bertie.
She held him responsible.
He was having an affair
with a prost*tute named Nelly
when he was 19 years old.
When that reached Albert's ears...
he was very upset.
And he spent
a significant amount of time
out with Bertie
walking in really terrible weather
and telling him off essentially
because of course
this was exactly the opposite
of what they had wanted him to do
or expected him to do.
She believed it was this episode
that led to Albert's death.
Victoria felt that it was Bertie
who broke his father's heart
and destroyed his spirit.
And for that reason,
Victoria never forgave her son.
Prince Albert had always been
Victoria's strength and stay.
Utterly alone, she looked for
other ways to fill that void.
After his death,
she fell back very much
on her first love, which was food.
She did put on
quite a lot of weight.
Who else could she turn to?
She was Queen,
she couldn't really have
a relationship with other people.
So her best friend,
really, at that point
was beef, plum pudding, cakes
scones, tea, wine, whisky.
Victoria had completely retreated
from public life,
holed up
at her beloved Osborne House.
And the popularity of the monarchy
began to suffer.
But in 1878, she ventured
back into the Council Room
for a very special demonstration.
Sir Graham Bell
comes down from Scotland.
He's just got
a patent for his telephone.
And he's going to do a demonstration
in front of his queen,
and she's totally fascinated
by this.
Yes, Albert's long dead,
but she very much carries forward
that scientific mantle
in his honour.
She leans into tech.
She's enraptured.
It must have been
a very faint and crackly line
but a miracle, nonetheless,
like the first glimmering pictures
on a television.
Completely change your world view.
It's fascinating, I think,
that Osborne as a technologically
innovative royal house
is the place where that happened.
I don't think it's a coincidence.
For nearly two decades,
Osborne had become a shrine
to its innovative creator Albert,
a place where
Victoria could hide away.
But she was beginning to reconnect
with the world.
And in 1876,
15 years after Albert's death,
she received a much-needed boost
when she was made Empress of India
by the then Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli.
Victoria was incredibly flattered,
Victoria felt that actually,
"Queen" wasn't quite good enough.
And so she liked the promotion.
In 1891,
Victoria added another extension.
Her daughter Beatrice
was only allowed to marry
if she and her husband set up home
at Osborne,
their quarters were
on the upper floor of the new wing.
But on the ground floor,
the building had a new
reception hall to wow their guests.
It was a world away from
Albert's initial Italianate vision.
This room is amazing.
You come in here,
and I love watching people go wow.
It's really unexpected. It's nothing
like the rest of Osborne house.
The Durbar Wing was a love letter
from Victoria to the people
of the Indian subcontinent.
Durbar means a royal court.
And Victoria wants to bring India
and India's people close to herself.
She writes her own proclamation
to say to them,
"I am your Queen.
I'm here to serve you.
"And I want you to feel as equal
as British subjects of my throne."
So she created this image of herself
as this noble, benevolent Queen.
She creates the Durbar Room
in Osborne
as a statement of being an empress.
Not purely Indian because it's got
a minstrels' gallery at one end.
It sort of represents
the idea of Queen Victoria
being empress of a wide range
of people and cultures,
and whatever we might think
about that today,
it's really interesting
when we think about it
from a 19th-century context.
It's like going back in time
to a big mediaeval banqueting hall.
But... cast
in this exquisite Indian design.
It is overwhelming
in its level of decoration.
It's like being
inside a wedding cake.
But not everyone around Victoria
was impressed by
her obsession for the subcontinent,
suspecting it was inspired
by her love for one Indian subject
in particular.
One minute, you have Albert,
this German consort,
with his continental ideas
and artwork.
We see that in Osborne House.
And then a Durbar Wing,
a whole extension of the house
given over to an Indian idea.
Because, guess what, the Queen's got
at least an emotional crush
on one of her Indian servants.
Abdul Karim was one of two Indians
selected to become
servants to the Queen,
but he didn't stay in that role
for long.
He was promoted to be her teacher
to teach her Hindustani.
He was later promoted to be
her private secretary
for Indian affairs.
There was a very strong bond
between the Queen and Abdul Karim.
This really rubs up
the royal household.
I think it's important to remember
that there is almost nowhere
quite as hierarchical
as the royal household.
And in comes, oh, shock, horror,
an Indian.
So the Queen
totally has her head turned.
And he is a permanent fixture.
Abdul Karim was
Victoria's closest confidant,
who taught her
all about Indian culture.
In her last years,
it's quite funny to think
that she was starting to eat curry,
learning to read and speak
Urdu and Hindustani.
Many members of the household,
including her son and heir Bertie,
really hated Abdul Karim.
And they just could not understand
why she was so attached to him.
It becomes
a relationship of mutual support.
And others looking in
really don't understand it,
but they definitely view it
through racialised mistrusting eyes,
and that creates a real problem.
They didn't like it,
and Victoria didn't care.
And he was clearly
her favourite person.
I think he did a very good job
of making Victoria happy.
In the last decade or so
of her life,
Victoria celebrated
two big milestones,
her golden and diamond jubilees.
She had won the public's affection
and was even captured smiling
on camera.
But it wasn't going to last.
Victoria continues
her technological trailblazing.
She had her home adapted.
That meant a lift being installed.
The Queen fights for her life.
You get this impression of
this woman who does not want to go.
She's dying,
but she's desperate not to die.
And her beloved servant
is sidelined.
The venom against Abdul Karim
really comes out
when Queen Victoria dies.
Throughout her life,
Victoria always returned to Osborne,
the home her husband had created
for the family.
It was where their children played,
and she had found comfort
after his death 30 years earlier.
But as she reached her 70s,
it became harder to manage.
Her eyesight started to fail.
I don't think she ever lost control
of her wits, certainly.
She was always
completely compos mentis,
but she couldn't do all the things
that she'd done before.
She needed to be moved in her bath
chair towards the end of her life.
And into the 1890s,
she found it impossible to go
from storey to storey.
She insisted on going
back to Osborne,
but the stairs were
too much of a challenge for her.
So, in 1893, the Queen followed
in her late husband's footsteps
and introduced yet another
technological innovation to Osborne.
As Queen Victoria aged
and became more infirm,
like most people,
she had her home adapted.
That meant a lift being installed.
The original quote
from the lift company Otis
was 30 more
for a mechanised version.
But Queen Victoria
went for the cheaper option.
That 30 could pay
for three members of staff
for their annual salary.
And they could actually
manually operate the lift.
It has a red carpet,
a mahogany seat,
nicely carved details and so on,
it's all very regal.
So, here we are
down in the bowels of the basement,
underneath the lift.
The bell would ring,
and the servant
would start pulling on this rope.
Now, we have to remember
that the lift itself was wooden.
The Queen was sitting
in a wheelchair.
She's wearing
layers and layers of taffeta.
Quite a weight, I would think,
so the servant down here pulling
would have to be
quite a strong person.
The same year the lift was fitted,
Osborne also became
the second house in England
to be wired for electricity.
It's very comfortable, and I think
Osborne was a nice place to be in.
Victoria had been able to enjoy
Osborne
all through
the later years of her life.
But at the turn of the century,
her health suffered a steep decline.
She lost her appetite,
and she became very, very worried.
Shortly before she died,
the Queen asks for
the Prince of Wales... Bertie.
The Queen and her son and heir
had always had
a difficult relationship,
but he rushed to Osborne
to be with her.
When he came into her bedroom,
she put out her arms
and embraced him.
And Bertie,
who was rather an emotional fellow,
was in absolute floods of tears
because he sort of knew that
this meant they were reconciled,
rather too late
but they were reconciled.
You get this impression of
this woman who does not want to go.
She's dying,
but she's desperate not to die.
And it goes on and on and on
and then she doesn't.
She comes back from the edge,
and then again, she starts to die,
and this time, it's for real.
Queen Victoria died at 6:30pm
on the 22nd of January, 1901,
aged 81.
She had been the longest reigning
monarch in British history.
She was surrounded by her children,
but one of her closest friends
Abdul Karim
was not allowed into the room.
The venom against Abdul Karim
really comes out
when Queen Victoria dies.
This was a man
who she had had by her side
pretty much every minute of the day
when she was well
in the last few years of her life.
And then all of a sudden,
he's quickly sidelined.
After her death, Queen Victoria
was laid to rest in state
in the dining room
at her beloved Osborne.
The final irony
for a woman who loved food.
The table was covered with a cloth.
The family portraits
were all covered up.
And her coffin sat there for days,
guarded by soldiers,
in the one place where
I think she really was very happy,
which was eating at Osborne House.
But there's politics over
who is the last person to see
her in her coffin,
before the lid goes on.
Bertie deliberately makes sure that
Abdul Karim is the last person to do
that, right?
And he intends it to be a snub to
say, "You're the least important."
But actually,
what it has the effect of doing
is that Abdul Karim is
the last one to see her
before her coffin is closed.
And that in its own way
was very poignant,
that he is
the last person to say farewell.
Victoria left Osborne House
to all her children.
But as the new king,
it would have fallen
to Bertie to maintain it.
Bertie decides that
he can't afford it.
I think it shows us that
Bertie had never been entirely happy
at Osborne.
He didn't want
anything to do with it.
His home of choice was Sandringham,
which he had done up,
which was suited to him,
which was a vast sh**ting estate,
and he really liked k*lling things.
Osborne, not much to k*ll.
So what was the point?
The house was gifted to the nation.
And in the years that followed,
it would be used as a college for
the Navy and a convalescent home.
But the heart of Osborne House
was preserved.
When that happened,
the intimate part of Osborne,
which is the suite of rooms
of Albert and Victoria,
their bathrooms, their bedrooms,
all of these very private rooms
were locked.
The ground floor
was open to the public,
but this floor remained closed
out of a mark of respect.
And to ensure
that visitors couldn't come in here,
Edward VII installed
these rather magnificent gates.
They remained closed until 1953.
And then during
the coronation of Elizabeth II,
she gave permission for visitors
to come in and see this space.
However, out of respect, filming
is still banned in this space.
For over 50 years,
Osborne House had been
at the centre of Victoria's life.
In death,
it was dedicated to her memory.
As a result
of King Edward's actions,
visitors can enjoy
an undiluted glimpse
into Victoria and Albert's
private world.
No other place can offer
such an intimate view
into the lives of a husband and wife
who shaped our world.
When you go to Windsor Castle,
you can go
right back nearly a millennium,
but no,
this is preserved for eternity.
And it remains, if you like,
in some ways,
not just a mausoleum to Victoria
but this celebration of their lives
and their vision as a couple.
I find it rather reassuring.
They loved each other.
It's a place
that's just soaked in atmosphere.
And when you're in that space,
and you know that next door,
Victoria sat putting her stockings
on, while Albert looked at her,
and they whispered sweet nothings
to each other,
or discussed the business of life
or whatever else,
it's a really lovely place to be.
They were innovators, and
they did things on their own terms.
From the conception of it
as the private holiday home
at the beginning,
to this real location of drama
at the end of her life,
this was her doing with Albert.
They shaped the space,
so just as much as you have
documents and paintings and diaries,
the building itself is a really
important historical record
of their reign and of
their own ideas about their power
and the world they lived in.
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Osborne House: A Royal Retreat (2023)
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Biographies Movie Collection