Beatrix Potter's Lake Legacy - Secrets of Historic Britain - History Documentary

From magnificent country houses to monastic ruins, these are the landmarks and treasures that reveal our rich heritage and history. Grand country estates to the factories at the heart of our industrial revolution. These are the buildings, landscapes and stories that uncover Britain's amazing past. It really is living breathing, isn't it? From the wilds of Snowdonia to the dramatic Dorset Coast, join me and a host of celebrities with a passion for the past as we explore the riches, treasures and secrets of one of our most loved institutions, the National Trust. From the prehistoric... I have never found anything like this. ...to the present day. Congratulations. The Trust has given us behind-the-scenes and below-stairs access... Are we going right to the ground? ...to some of its finest buildings and locations. There was gold under these hills. We'll meet the people keeping our historic traditions alive... Incredible! ...and the experts revealing the lives of those who shaped our past. Oh, look at that. It really is a treasure house. This is our heritage, our history. Welcome to the secrets of the National Trust. Today, we're in the Lake District, a place that inspired one of the best-selling children's authors of all time, Beatrix Potter. Because hidden behind her famous tales lies a real-life story of how a formidable woman... She was unsqueamish enough to actually... Skin him? ...abandoned her hugely successful writing career. The thing about Beatrix was that she was becoming not just an author, but a brand. And exploited her character's fame to become the Lake District's greatest guardian. This managed to make sure that all that out there would be preserved for the nation. Also, Joan Bakewell travels back to where the National Trust first began. Congratulations! The first part of the jigsaw. Oz Clarke finds his way into a top-secret nursery in search of some of the rarest plants on Earth. You've got barbed wire on the fence. You do get some crazy people who are plant collectors. And Susanna Lipscombe is witnessing how the preservation of a coastline helped save a species. Oh, I think I see one or two. But before all that... This is the village of Neosori in Cumbria. There's not a lot here. A couple of dozen houses and a village pub. But this is where some of the most famous children's book characters in the world came to life. And they're books that I absolutely loved as a boy. Known as The Little Tales, they were a series of 23 books. Colourful stories about the lives of human-like animals. Offering a quintessential view of English life. And it's here, on the streets of Neosori, that Beatrix Potter found inspiration for the stories and pictures that fill the pages of her books. While her characters were having adventures outside the local pub, their creator was busy writing her next tale in the house next door. Nestled in the centre of the village, up this long garden path, sits Hilltop Farm. A rather unassuming 17th-century cottage, once part of a 34-acre working farm. Bought as a holiday home by Beatrix Potter in 1905, with the proceeds from her first five books. But if you know where to look, it's so much more than your average farmhouse. Because around each corner lies a familiar scene. Of a garden in a farmyard. It's very atmospheric, it feels as though she's still here. You know, she must have woken up in the morning in that bed, and the sun streaming in through the window, looked out on her lakeland garden and thought, ooh, I think I'll send you my puddle duck down there today, by that gate. Beatrix's career as an author began in 1902, with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The book was filled with page upon page of Beatrix's own hand-drawn images of animals. And it's how she managed to create these lifelike drawings that gives us our first glimpse of the real Beatrix Potter. House and collections manager Liz Hunter-McFarlane explains the macabre lengths the young Potter went to. She was renowned for her accuracy in portraying animals anatomically, and plants and flowers, from my point of view. How did she get that accuracy? Well, from being quite young, when they were on their holidays on the Scottish estates, she and her brother would bribe the game keepers to bring them animals that they could then dissect. Dead animals? Absolutely. She saw herself as an artist in training and a scientist. She was somebody who was interested in how these animals worked, and she wanted to know from the inside out. But it was her pet rabbit who'd inspired her to create her first books, copying his markings exactly to reproduce her fictional character. But when that pet rabbit died, she faced a problem. I'm now wondering what this rabbit pelt's doing here, and I'm beginning to suspect... This is the pelt of Benjamin Bunny. And Benjamin was one of Beatrix's favourite pet rabbits. So this is, was, Beatrix? Yeah, absolutely. Benjamin Bounce. She was unsqueamish enough to actually skin him herself? Absolutely. And this was a purely practical solution to a problem that she had, which was Benjamin had been such a good model for her, and the markings on him are so beautiful and so distinctive, that when she wanted to make the sequel, what was she to do? Gosh, hello, Peter. I'm wearing blue. Beatrix Potter's approach to life and the subsequent success of her much-loved character Peter Rabbit would make her one of the most famous authors of all time. But in truth, a career as a writer wasn't what she wanted at all. While living in London, Beatrix Potter had bought Hilltop Farm with the proceeds of her first five books, and used these buildings and streets for inspiration. But behind the chirpy, playful children's tales that had made her famous, a darker chapter of her life was unfolding. Author Sarah Gristwood is an expert on Beatrix Potter. The kitchen, I mean, this is the heart of the house, really, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Well, it would have been of an old farmhouse, absolutely. What was the stage in her life when she came here, then, to live? Well, she was at a real, what she'd hoped would be a turning point. She'd published half a dozen of the little books already, but she'd just suffered a huge personal tragedy. Beatrix had become engaged to her publisher, Norman Warne, but sadly, less than a month after his proposal, Norman died of leukaemia. It was a crushing blow for Beatrix, who saw Norman as the start of a new direction in her life. Without him, she'd have no choice but to remain in London with her parents, escaping to Hilltop to write. She was under a great cloud when she came here, looking for release, in a way, I suppose. Exactly that. I think this place was a huge help to her that way, and perhaps that's partly why it became so important to her. Just to put her into perspective, I mean, was she the sort of J.K. Rowling of her day, then, or is that not quite as big as that? How successful was she at that point? Well, no, I think J.K. Rowling's actually a very good comparison, because, of course, the thing about Beatrix was that she was becoming not just an author, but a brand, and so she really was becoming almost a trademark, the two tales a year. Very savvy. Very. Savvy businesswoman. But Beatrix had been brought up as a Victorian daughter, and until she married, her dream of living in the Lake District would have to wait. Even though she was rising 40, a successful author, becoming a wealthy woman, she was still a Victorian daughter at home, who, until she married, was expected to stay there and help take care of her ageing parents. At the same time as Beatrix Potter was having to cope with the obligations placed upon her by Victorian England, across the country, attitudes towards wildlife and conservation were beginning to undergo a remarkable change. Britain had begun to preserve the environment. Historian Susanna Lipscomb is on the Norfolk coast, an area rich in natural history, but whose value wasn't realised until it was almost too late. This is Blakeney Point, six and a half kilometres of shingle spit, made up of sand dunes and salt marshes. An idyllic place for both wildlife and people, and home to one of the most surprising legacies of the Victorian era. This is the National Trust's remote research outpost. For over 100 years, this converted lifeboat station has led the way in nature research and conservation. It might seem obvious today, but in the late 19th century, people were seemingly oblivious to the damage they were inflicting on the world around them. Here on the point, with no legislation to stop them, shooting parties and local fishermen had free run, decimating the seal and bird population. But in 1912, the National Trust took over the site, declaring it a nature reserve, dedicated to the protection and research of the precious flora and fauna. Scientists began studying the local wildlife, working out how best to protect it. But fishermen believed that unless the hunting of seals was allowed to continue, fish stocks would be at risk. The local seal population was in grave danger. I'm with the Trust's coastal ranger, Ajay Tagala. So where are we headed now? We're heading to the western end of the shingle spit. So behind us, we've got four miles of shingle, and then the sand dunes at the end, and we're heading to the very end where the seals should be. It wasn't until the 1970s, when numbers had plummeted, that a protection law was finally passed, and the seal population was allowed to recover. We're going at high tide, so we should see lots of them nice and close. The seals have spent the day hunting at sea, but as the tide retreats and the sandbank is revealed, they've returned to digest their food. Let's see if I can get... There we go. Oh, it's a hard life, isn't it, lying under the sun? Look how... They look so sweet. They are sweet little things, yeah. When the Trust first took over, this beach was virtually empty. But thanks to the protection of their habitat and the work of Ajay and many rangers before him, this is now the UK's largest seal colony. You can see there's quite a few youngsters, which shows they've had a good breeding season this year, good survival of the young, so that's a really good sign. Oh, look at all of them. They're amazing. So how many do you have here? We often have over 1,000. We're at about 500 in total at the moment, but numbers are fluctuating. They're moving all around the sea, so they're very mobile. Why is it so important to count them? It's important because it gives us an understanding of population dynamics, and with them being top of the food chain, it's an indication of health of the ocean and the fish as well. Had it not been for a change in attitudes over a century ago and the start of conservation as we know it, this seal colony and many of the other precious species might not be here today. Back in the Lake District, Beatrix Potter continued to visit Hilltop, but only for a few days at a time. She must have written and illustrated more books when she came here because I recognise the pattern on the bottom of that dresser from one of the books. You absolutely do. And you can see how she took a huge pleasure in using this house and the village for copy. And she actually wrote about that, how that kitchen range behind you. She wasn't wild about it, but she couldn't replace it. She needed it for the next book. That was Tom Kitten. The tale of Tom Kitten was Beatrix Potter's 11th and most lucrative book to date. Her writing career was flourishing, but her attention was elsewhere. With the help of local solicitor William Heelis, she'd acquired a new focus, buying up key pockets of land around the village. The couple soon became engaged and Beatrix was finally able to escape London and begin the life she'd always wanted to live. So when she did marry, when she did come and live here permanently, she then changed from being an illustrator and a writer of children's stories to being a farmer. What really fascinated me about Beatrix Potter is that her life fell into three completely different stages. And what we think of, the writer of the little tales, was really only quite a small part of it. When she married in 1913, her life changed completely. She was Mrs Heelis. She didn't want to be even called Miss Potter, Beatrix Potter anymore. She was a farmer and that's what she wanted to do for the next 30 years that remained to her. But becoming a farmer was just the beginning of a life she'd been planning since she was a teenager. I'm heading for the shores of Lake Windermere, the location of a childhood summer holiday and a meeting with a man who would change her life forever. Here to show me round is Hilltop's house and collections manager, Liz Hunter-McFarlane. I've seen a photograph of Beatrix and her family standing in front of this castle. What is it? This is Ray Castle and it was rented out and Beatrix and her family took it for the summer of 1882. Now, this is where she met Canon Rawnsley. Now, Canon Rawnsley is a big figure in the National Trust. Tell me about him. Canon Rawnsley was the most charismatic character and anybody would have been bowled over by him. Rawnsley came from a sort of a line of people who were starting to think about the preservation of the Lake District, the caring for this part of the world, this cultural landscape and he recognised the threats that were coming from road builders and the railways and he would talk to anybody who would listen and try and explain to them the dangers of losing the way of life here. Little did they know, this chance encounter at Ray Castle would affect this part of the world forever. So, she was indoctrinated with this, in effect, at a very early and impressionable age and carried it with her throughout her life, the importance of keeping this amazing scenery. I mean, when she must have looked out across that view, who could fail not to want to cherish that? The fells with the sun on them, it really makes you want to hang on to this, doesn't it, as a landscape? It's glorious. Absolutely. But Beatrix's new friend, Canon Rawnsley, was more than just a passionate speaker. He had ambitions of founding one of the largest landowning organisations in the country. Joan Bakewell has put on a life jacket and gone to visit the place which inspired it all. I'm on Grasmere in the Lake District. I have to say, on a golden morning like this, you don't need an excuse to head for this very beautiful little island. But there is something else about this island. It's the spark that helps in the creation of the National Trust. Canon Rawnsley adored Lake Grasmere. In particular, its island in the middle. But in 1893, this island was put up for sale. Not only putting it at risk from developers, but making it out of bounds to Rawnsley and the general public. Without money or a legal foundation, Canon Rawnsley was powerless to stop the sale. As historian Merlin Waterson explains, Rawnsley was going to need some help. There were three founders of the Trust. There was Canon Rawnsley and then there was Octavia Hill and Robert Hunter. Octavia Hill had all these influential friends and was able to generate a lot of support that way. But Robert Hunter was the genius who realised how you could create a body which had these statutory powers. Their plan was to acquire vulnerable land and buildings, protecting them from the ever-increasing threats of the Industrial Revolution and keeping them open to the public. But it wasn't going to be easy. How did he get the money together? Octavia Hill was very clever at raising money. She had a lot of very influential friends and when these inaugural meetings were taking place, very well-heeled people came and people with real political influence. She brought that to the party. The renowned social activist's list of contacts went deep into London's high society. Such names as the first Duke of Westminster, Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Louise and one Helen Beatrix Potter, one of the fledgling Trust's major donors. The Trust soon set about acquiring more land and has since become one of Britain's largest landowners with over 600,000 acres, more than 300 properties and 775 miles of British coastline on its books. And the story has come full circle because in just the last few months, this island has finally been donated to the Trust. Well, here I am. Allowing Grasmere's manager, Dave Almond and I, to head back to where it all began. I think it would be lovely and so fitting under this spreading oak tree. To mark out the next chapter in its life. Righty-o, that's very good. If you'd like to just stand back a bit, I'll give it a bit of a wallop. One that will allow public access to it forever. One can only imagine how thrilled Callan Rawnsley would be. First piece of the jigsaw. It's really extraordinary. It's taken 120 years to get this island. It was where the idea began, 120 years row by and we've put it back. It's great. When Beatrix Potter purchased Hilltop Farm in 1905, Callan Rawnsley's National Trust had been gaining momentum across the UK. Inspired by her old friend's achievements, she vowed to do everything she could to conserve even larger areas of her beloved Lake District. So when Troutbeck Farm was at risk of becoming holiday lands, Beatrix Potter snapped up all 2,000 acres of it. But it wasn't just the income from her book sales that made this possible. Beatrix was a smart businesswoman, decades ahead of her time and she knew that to achieve her goal, she needed to exploit the commercial power of her much-loved characters. Didn't she patent Peter Rabbit quite early on? She did. She created the first Peter Rabbit doll and in fact, there's a photograph that she sent to the patent office to register her Peter Rabbit doll and here he is, made with a real rabbit pelt. Oh, so she made this? Yeah, bristles from a broom and lead shot in the feet to weight him down, so very child-friendly. And unfortunately, she couldn't find a British toy manufacturer at the time to produce this doll, so the first Peter Rabbit dolls were made in Germany by Stief. Who make the famous teddy bears? The very famous button-in-the-ear teddies. And so this is one of the very first Stief Peter Rabbit dolls that appeared on the market. And if you took that onto the Antiques Roadshow now, I mean, that's worth an awful lot of money, isn't it? Well, the provenance of this one, of course, makes it worth that little bit more. Oh, this is hers. So this belonged to her, yeah. Hello, Peter. The range of merchandise known to Beatrix as the little sideshows was vast, with everything from board games to must-have children's gifts. She's doing this because she knows he's a money spinner. So yes, she's writing delightful children's books, but she's got a great business sense as well to do all this. Absolutely. I mean, Beatrix was the original sort of merchandise guru. She beat Disney before Disney knew what they were on then, really, in terms of this kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. And Peter was the first licensed character. In the later days, she was really pushing her publishers to say, which new little sideshows have you got coming out? What are you producing now? She really wanted to make sure that they were making the most of her product. You know, it's absolutely fascinating to look at the romance of the picture and what's out there and to think that, yes, but this managed to make sure that all that out there that she painted would be preserved for the nation. Her plan was making her rich. And in 1930, when the Trust couldn't afford to buy over 3,500 acres of the Monck-Coniston estate, Beatrix Potter stepped in once again. Aged 64, she was finally achieving what she'd set out to do. The purchases gave her power and responsibility in the region, power the National Trust still wields today. Hilltop Farm. The inspiration for many of author Beatrix Potter's most famous stories. But it's outside, in her garden, that one feels a connection with her two most famous characters, Peter Rabbit and his cousin, Benjamin Bunny. If the little rabbits were here today, this is where I'd find them, in Hilltop's garden, cared for by head gardener Peter Tasker. It's his job to keep it just as Beatrix would have had it over 100 years ago. But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet? Not Mr McGregor, but Pete the gardener. Lovely to see you, what are you doing? Just putting out some wallflowers. Oh, go on then, I can't resist. Show me a few over here. I'll keep my hand in, you know. Was she a keen gardener, Beatrix Potter, do we know, Pete? She was a keen gardener. She'd never really done any gardening until she came to Hilltop, but when she got here, she was obviously interested in the natural world and gardens, so she really went to town with Hilltop. Yeah, because it wasn't the thing that well-brought-up ladies in long frocks did. It wasn't at all, no. Young ladies of her social standing were basically just encouraged to find a husband, a suitable husband, and that was that. So she kind of railed against that and decided she was going to do all sorts of manual stuff as well. And of course, the garden features in so many of the books. Jemima puddled up on the rhubarb and the gate. We've got Jemima's rhubarb patch behind us, and the main path features in the tale of Tom Kitton. There's a picture of Tom and his sisters in their Sunday best, heading off down the path. There must be a great pressure on you to keep it looking like it did in her day. There is. In some ways, it's nice to have these pictures because you can base your design around them. From your and my point of view, it's lovely that it includes so much gardening within its pages. It's just that we now are branded all we gardeners as all being as grumpy as Mr. MacGregor. Well, that's true, yeah. Mr. MacGregor didn't do us any favours, really. He didn't, really. Although I have to say, I think he was justified in a lot of his grumpiness. I think I would have been the same if the rabbits had come and taken all my onions or eaten my lettuces and stuff like that. It can be hard work at times. Even if they're called Peter. I have to tell you, in my garden, rabbits aren't generally called Peter. They're called something else. Yes, exactly. Give us another wallflower. There you go. Come springtime, these wallflowers, which Peter and I are tucking in for the winter, will burst into life. But across the UK, many plants face an uncertain future. Oz Clark is at a secret location to find out more. This is not exactly your typical National Trust property. Gone are the welcoming smiles. Replaced with high fences and razor-sharp barbed wire, it's more like entering a top-secret facility. This is a place that you won't find in any of the Trust's guidebooks. In fact, they prefer to keep the exact location under wraps. And with good reason. This is the home of the most important plant conservation initiative the Trust has ever undertaken. Precious blooms that are considered as valuable as fine paintings or grand stately homes are brought here. Gathered from the Trust's 200 gardens across the UK, this place ensures the survival of some of their rarest plants. This is a cutting from the anchorwick yew. That's the tree which saw the Magna Carta being sealed in 1215. And the tree's about 2,500 years old. The Romans hadn't even arrived then. This is our native juniper. Here's the female with the berries. Here is the male. This is the only male of its type in existence. So for the sake of English gin, got to preserve this. Chris Trimmer is nursery manager and protector of all 8,000 plants growing at this clandestine location. Why is it so secret? It's basically done for biosecurity reasons. We don't want any nasty pests and diseases getting in. This is why we don't have many visitors. You've got barbed wire on the fence. Yeah, it's there as a deterrent. For what? You get some crazy people who are plant collectors. Something really rare, they'll go and nick it? Possibly, yeah. The majority of the work Chris and his team do here is propagation. Bringing in rare specimens and growing new ones. Today, I'm helping him re-pot a critically endangered species of rhododendron from Northern Ireland. So OK, I've got this jelly. Yeah, so just scoop around the outside. Scoop around the outside, yeah. It's at risk from fatal plant pathogens which can wipe out whole species. And that goes into the water here. Into the water, yep. So to protect against this, Chris and the team take seeds and cuttings from a healthy plant to create new specimens in case disaster strikes. Take a pot for me. Yeah. Fill up to about three quarters full. Last year, this place propagated nearly two and a half thousand plants for 64 National Trust gardens across the country. Just press it down like that. Yep. Right. In time, this seedling too could help save this threatened species. Good luck. It's rare to leave a National Trust property without a stirring of your emotions. And these feelings for me today have been intensified by having a greater understanding of the sense of purpose and of pride at the heart of the Trust's plant conservation agenda. Back in the Lake District over 90 years ago, Beatrix Potter was taking on yet another challenge, preserving a local endangered species, the herdwick sheep. Wool prices had dropped and numbers were declining. The livelihood of Lakeland Farms was at risk. Having used her wealth to buy up huge parts of the Lake District, Beatrix was able to protect the traditional farming ways from the large-scale developments of the 20th century. Today, the National Trust has to balance that same farming heritage with tourism and conservation. But for General Manager Jeremy Barlow, getting that balance right isn't always easy. This was her land and it's still herdwick sheep, her sheep, on the fields there at the foot of the fell. It's important to keep it a working landscape, isn't it? Absolutely, and she really understood that she wanted this to be a living, working landscape. But the challenge is about how we put the natural environment at the forefront of the agenda, while at the same time making sure that this land continues to be living and working and producing food. Conservation isn't just about preserving things and wrapping them up in cotton wool. It's about managing change. What are the difficulties that are presented by what you have to offer tourists and making sure this is still a practical landscape? Do you find the difficulty comes there? Well, see, there are always pressures. With 15 million people coming to the Lake District every year, there are pressures on access, on footpaths. There are issues around the management of things like dogs with livestock all around. It is a really delicate balance. The Trust is not without its critics. You're sometimes accused of being too muscular, I mean, particularly in buying tracts of land. We have to be really sensitive to the way people feel about this. So we have to listen to what local people and people throughout the world who love this landscape and who come here on a regular basis, what they feel about it. Each year, Hilltop Farm attracts over 100,000 passionate Potter fans from right across the world. During her career, Beatrix Potter published dozens of books, extraordinary tales about the adventurous lives of human-like animals. Such was their popularity that Beatrix was able to create and sell merchandise right across the world, using the profits to buy land for the National Trust. Today, these items have become highly collectible. But rather than collect Hilltop memorabilia, Japan has built its very own replica. It's just north of Tokyo and it's exactly a third bigger. Why do you think Japan particularly? Well, we think it's a number of reasons. We think that because the books were translated into Japanese right from the early days, about 1917 was the first translation. And also, at one point, the books were taught as an English text in schools, so they learned English from the little books. But also, the stories are the quintessential view of England. I mean, wouldn't you just love England to look like that, you know, everywhere? I mean, that explains it, because when they come here, it does. It absolutely does. Do you think she'd be pleased with what she'd see today, with all these people coming into her little house, with what the Trust is doing in opening it all up? Well, she was always surprised at how she caught what she called Peter's perennial charm, the fact that people were still interested in the storybooks, even from the time when she first wrote them up until her later years. Who wouldn't be flattered by that kind of attention? One such fan is Candy Beal, who's travelled all the way from North Carolina in the US. How passionate are you? I mean, do you collect things? I do. I have all the figurines. How many have you got nowadays? Well, somewhere around the 500 range. Candy's home is stuffed full of Potter merchandise, with cabinet after cabinet of figurines. Being rude now, what does one have to pay now for the... What's the most expensive one nowadays? Several thousand dollars. Yes, for Duchess with the Flowers, it's very rare, because she's on this little pedestal, and many of them broke when they were being made, and so they're very few. So, for us, if you can find it, it's about $3,000, because if you're a serious collector, you have lots of... Now, that is very serious. It is very serious. That is worryingly serious. And it's costly, too. Beatrix Potter dedicated her life to conserving the Lake District and protecting the farming way of life she saw being threatened. Comedian John Culshaw has been to Snow's Hill Manor in Gloucestershire to see how one man's obsession with preserving the past has created a legacy of items that, were it not for him, would have been lost forever. Now, what is it about unusual, random objects that makes us want to seek them out and hunt them down and collect them, sometimes en masse, filling the whole house? And then you catalogue them and organise them and put them into a lovely order. Well, I've done this in my time, collecting things from cards from teabag boxes to beer and whisky glasses, even a Ford Granada and a Ford Cortina. And if, like me, you like your collecting random and sporadic and beautifully all over the place, then you'll adore what's in this great house here. Every corner that you look, there is detail. It's like an Aladdin's cave in here. Atmosphere packed into every square millimetre. Over 22,000 extraordinary objects filling every nook and cranny. Drums, hats, boats, coats of arms, flags. There's just everything here. This unbelievable collection is the life's work of one man, architect and artist Charles Padgett Wade. Everything is just scattered in this brilliant way that just fires your imagination. But since Wade's death in 1956, it's fallen to the National Trust to care for it all. Being in here, it's the closest you can get to time travel. Beetles and stick insects and above, the largest lepidopteran moth in the world. I'm finding out more about this extraordinary man from the Trust's Harriet Groves in the aptly named 100 Wheels Room. This is the kind of tour de France I would like to see. Look at that. What sort of character was Charles Padgett Wade? He was a very talented artist. He trained as an architect. He used to throw parties for his friends and they'd all dress up in his costume collection and they'd perform Victorian Gothic plays. You can imagine it was quite atmospheric here when he was in. I think he would have been quite an unusual but interesting person to have been around. Wade's appetite for collecting was prolific. But why is his collection so random? He bought things that spoke to him, I guess, in a way. That he saw the beauty and the craftsmanship and the design in them. And I think he could really appreciate the work and the time that was spent to make certain objects. And Wade certainly appreciated clocks. A clock made entirely of wood. I wonder how that sounds when it's working. Maybe like a very ordered, slow woodpecker. Something like that. Over 178 clocks and timepieces are scattered throughout the house. Mike Flannery has the wonderful job of keeping them all up and running. And the patient for today is no spring chicken, dating from 1750. It's a beautiful little clock. It's gorgeous. Just the one hand there, that's interesting, isn't it? In the day this was made, this clock would have been set off a sundial. We only had one hand because you didn't need to be any more accurate. Here is the vacuum cleaner. Every year, this old timer gets the once over. And I've been given the rare chance to give Mike a hand. What we're going to do now is to put a tiny bit of oil on a couple of these parts. Just a dab of oil on the essential moving parts will keep this centuries-old timepiece running like clockwork. That's lovely. Beautiful job. Snows Hill Manor is filled with objects that have been sadly replaced by the progress of technology. But for me, stepping into the extraordinary world of Charles Padgett Wade is the perfect antidote to a busy, demanding and frenetic modern life. Whether it's rare clocks in Gloucestershire or precious landscapes in Cumbria, history will always remember those who've paused to care for our nation's heritage. And here in the lakes, one name will always stand out. Because by the time Beatrix Potter died in 1943, there'd never been a greater contribution of land to the Trust. Her legacy to the Lake District is enormous. It is. I mean, she was uniquely placed to be able to protect areas that were at risk at a time really when people weren't recognising the need to protect valleys and the kind of cultural landscape that we have here. How much did she leave in total? Well, it was over 4,000 acres by the time she died. So a huge sort of portion of this part of the Lake District that was protected just because she was able to do so. Beatrix Potter was an author, an illustrator and a businesswoman. But she'll also be remembered around here for being a great environmentalist long before the term was invented. The Lake District gave her respite and inspiration. In return, she gave us the Lake District. Well, certainly a large part of it. Next time... Oh my goodness! I'm going behind the scenes at Attingham in Shropshire... Ooh, I was expecting ice cream! ...to see how one man blew a family fortune. Who were they expecting for dinner? Comedian John Culshaw uncovers a World War II secret... Oh, look at this! ...and Annika Rice fishes one of the most expensive rivers in the UK. Just all action! Are we going right to the ground? No. We're down.