This incredible place has

a rich and varied history

and there is so much to explore.

So, let's get started.

I'm having a bit of a nose

around the main house and I've just come across

this corridor and it's like walking

through a natural history museum.

You've just got these cabinets

of curiosities

everywhere.

Hi Peter!

Peter is curator

of collections here at Audley End

and wow, this house

is incredible.

Tell me a bit about the room that we're sat in

right now. Well, the room we're in now is

called the Saloon and it's where

the family in the 18th and 19th century

would have enjoyed tea

perhaps after dinner, they would have entertained

their guests here, just somewhere to

relax and spend time enjoying the view

perhaps. So, I guess we would

think of this as a lounge or sitting

room, something like that. Exactly. But when you

say the family, are we talking about

the Braybrookes at this point?

Well, there have been many different owners of Audley End

over the years, some with children

some without children,

people would have had very different ideas about

how they want to furnish the room, so in this room

for example, we have a ceiling that

is 400 years old from the Jacobean period

We have paintings from the 18th century

We have furnishings from the 19th

century, so it's a real

mixture of different periods and

styles and tastes of different family members.

I love the idea that this house

has belonged to

a family of travellers and explorers

and I love

the eclectic style that you get here.

It's amazing. Well, I really

enjoy working with all these objects and

sometimes people have an idea of what a typical

English country house is, but this

completely blows that out of the water, you find

things from every corner of the world, it's like

a microcosm of the world

in the collections that you find here.

So, this is the Great Hall

Wow.

Is this one of the first rooms that guests or visitors

would have seen? This is really the first

room that people would see when they came into the house.

and it's definitely designed to have the wow factor.

You know you've arrived at a really

great, important house when you

come into this space. What was the room

used for? Well it really came into it's

own when there were big grand events -

weddings, Christmas dinners,

any kind of feast or banquet,

this room would have been filled with tables

and chairs and people dining.

But when those types of events

weren't happening, and the family with their

8 children in the 19th century were here

on their own, we know that the children liked to

play badminton here.

Why? How? A few years ago, when we were

cleaning the Great Hall screen,

we found some 19th century shuttlecocks

lodged high up

so wayward shots perhaps that

they couldn't retrieve.

Peter, there is a lot of taxidermy

at Audley End, but what's so special

about this one? Well, this is one of

my favourites. Meet Paddy the

female otter. Well, the 5th Lord Braybrooke

acquired Paddy during a

fishing trip to Ireland. And when we say acquired

Paddy, this is Paddy as a

an alive otter? As a live otter,

as a young

otter pup, and Paddy

was brought back to Audley End and

as the label says, lived up

afterwards for many years in a pond

in the Rose Garden, so became something of a

family pet, and then

after Paddy's death, Paddy became

part of the taxidermy collection.

They didn't want to let go of Paddy?

Well, Paddy has been immortalised here and

will stay here forever more.

Wow, how interesting.

This is

the definition of a

cabinet of curiosities

I love it. And if we have a little

look inside, you can see that

it contains perhaps some of the more unusual

quirky, types of objects

that might have intrigued children

perhaps horrified them.

I can understand that, and you say horrified

I'm looking at that - that is disgusting.

Well, this is a lovely specimen, that is a

Russian rats tail killed in Sebastopol,

still with a little bit of fur on the end.

And, there's a little tin

there, can I open it up? Yes, well this little tin

has a label on the front

that says chocolate nougat from Africa

If you open it

you can see it's still

inside. Woah.

How old is that?

That we think is about

120 years old.

Why didn't they eat it?

I don't trust anyone who leaves a bit of

chocolate in a tin. Would you like to eat

that? No, I'm alright.

We have come to the top of the house

to use this key.

Where is it going to lead us?

Well this isn't somewhere that people can normally

go to, but I thought perhaps you might

like to have a look on the roof? Because you can see

the landscape and the rest of the site you can explore

afterwards. Ah some good views then.

So, here we are on the roof

and from here you can really appreciate

this beautiful landscape.

It looks very natural. It does, yes.

But actually it's completely artificial

and that was what Capability Brown was

known for doing in the 18th century

so, the lawn is levelled off

the river is widened to look like a lake,

even the hillside is

in some respects artificial with trees

positioned at particular places.

I've been

wandering around the kitchen gardens and I

am surrounded by delicious

fruits and vegetables,

and that's all thanks to Head Gardener

here, Louise.

This is a wonderful place to be.

It really does feel

alive, there's something quite magical about

gardens I find anyway, with all the

life bursting around you. So it's all

used, it's all harvested.

It's either used on sites,

so through the tea rooms

and the restaurant on site.

We also sell some to visitors, so we have a

a small produce shop,

and the majority of it we sell to

a local organic box scheme.

It's not just the kitchen gardens you have

here, there's an ornamental garden

as well, yes - what do you call that?

The major ornamental area is the

Parterre Garden, at the rear of the

house. What is Parterre?

Parterre means pattern on the ground,

so it's a bit like a tapestry.

It's really designed to be seen from above.

What is it that you do here?

I'm the historian and I've worked on a number of projects

including this one in the service wing.

What I love is that you can explore the kitchen

gardens and see the produce,

then you can come to the service wing

and get an idea for the recipes

that would be made, and then you can

walk to the main hall and imagine it being served

at some lavish banquet.

You really get a sense of the whole picture.

Yes, you certainly do and you can go from

field to fork here which is just such a

unusual situation to be able to do. The fact that we've got

the kitchen garden growing things authentically

how they were in the 1880s

and we know that because of some of the records that we've got.

We've got a diary from one of the gardeners

And then we can go all the way through to

the kitchens and

we are cooking those recipes

So it's really nice to be able to do that

and have that level of authenticity.

Wow. I've come to explore

the stables in the grounds

and from the outside you would never

know this was a home

to horses, because the building itself

is so grand

but I've come to talk to

Head Groom, this is Charlie,

and of course we're here with - Hovis

Hovis is lovely.

He's a very handsome boy.

And why were there horses here at Audley End?

All the families

used them for carriage driving, it was the way

they travelled around, they did a lot of hunting

as well, the ladies rode side saddle

and it was

for show, a status symbol,

the more horses and carriages you had - the richer you were

So how many horses did they have?

They would have had on average about

17 or 18 horses at a time, but they had

room for up to 40 because they needed to

accommodate all their guests horses when they came to visit

as well. Really? 40 horses

in just this area around where we are now?

Yes. Wow. And how many horses are here today?

Today, we have 5 resident horses living

here all year round.

I've had such

a wonderful day here at Audley End and

there really is something for everybody

all year round. Whether you

want to wander through the grounds,

and the gardens, or

feel immersed in the service wing, or

even pick apart those layers of history

in the main house and explore

all of the fascinating curiosities.

Being here is

a bit like going through

a journey through time and I can't wait to

come back with my family.