All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S08E03.A.Royal.Deception.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A dense Indian forest
that hides a royal family secret.

She seemed to appear out of
thin air, like a ghost from Macbeth.

A fortified compound in england
overrun by a determined force.

Any Soviet spy would kill
for the secrets kept there.

A windswept Atlantic island once
home to an iconic American family.

All this beauty and grandeur masks
what this place is actually about.

And in South Africa,

a building that offered hope,
hijacked by criminal intent.

It's definitely not the kind of place
you'd wanna be alone at night.

Decaying relics...

Ruins of lost worlds...

Sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

In the middle of Delhi,

an Indian megacity of 30 million
people, is an unexpected sight.

It's one of the biggest and
most bustling cities in the world,

and then right there in the centre
is this giant jungle-like forest.

To find a forest of this size
where we are is amazing.

It's said that the only
residents are mobs of

monkeys and howling jackals.

There seems to be
something hiding behind all that

thick foliage - the
ruins of an old building

that look like they're
from another world.

There is bushes and trees
growing out of the roofs,

and some of the staircases
are beginning to collapse.

But they were quite well built,
because they're still standing

after what looks like centuries.

Formidable stone walls and grand
archways haunted by years of neglect

disguise a more recent past.

Whatever furniture and decor
were once in this place are gone.

This has been thoroughly
plundered, thoroughly ransacked.

There are hints to its
former glory, but now

it's just a shell - no amenities,
no interiors, no signs of any life.

Yet concealed within is a
story of intrigue and deception.

Given the imposing nature
of the place, it's sensible

to conclude that someone of
significance must have once

lived here. But that doesn't
get us any closer to answering

the question, where have they
gone and why was this abandoned?

Only a few years ago, a
mysterious family occupied this

forlorn jungle home. Although
rarely seen, rumours of

their strange existence
quickly spread.

Jawahar lal lives nearby
and was captivated by

the incredible tales of these
reclusive forest dwellers.

There are different versions.

Some people said they look
like jinns or supernatural beings.

They were not social at all. They
really wanted to live in secrecy.

There were many stories told
about them. What is clear is that

the people who lived here
wanted no contact with outsiders.

There were even signs up
saying that unauthorised intruders

would be gunned down.

Though every so
often they would Grant

an interview to a
foreign journalist.

And what a story it
was they had to tell.

The first record we have of

the inhabitants is when
the mother of the group

showed up unannounced at a
Delhi train station in the early 1970s.

She turned up with her
two children, servants

and 15 bloodhounds.

She called herself
begum wilayat mahal,

and she claimed to be the direct
descendant of the kings of awadh.

She was the rightful heir
to the throne. Of course,

there was no throne anymore,
India was a democracy,

but she claimed they
owed her something

for the great injustice
done to her family.

The kingdom of awadh was a wealthy
Muslim state in the northern region

of India, but it hadn't
existed for over a century.

The British east India company

in the 19th century was gradually
taking over more and more of India.

Sometimes they collaborated with

the local governments, other times
they more or less overthrew them

to take control of
the resources of India.

But the final in richest
state was forcibly seized

by the British on the
basis that their prince lived

a debauched life, which
made him unfit to rule.

Outraged by the wrongdoing
inflicted on her royal ancestors,

queen wilayat demanded
the Indian government return

what was rightfully hers.

And her bizarre behaviour soon
attracted the world's attention.

The children, called prince
Cyrus and Princess sakina,

addressed their mother as
her highness or your highness,

and the Nepalese servants
only approached her

walking on their knees.

She would never answer
any question directly.

It should be placed
on a silver platter

and then through servant
and the servant will read aloud.

This must have
been quite a sight.

I mean, imagine all this going
on in a train station waiting room.

Over the years, the Indian
government offered her various houses

and large sums of money. She
refused all, demanding she be given

something worthy
of her standing.

And reporters would come
and she would give interviews

and she would make demands,
and she was such a compelling,

imperious figure that
people eventually said,

"well, we have to
do something for her.

We have to get her out
of the railroad station."

In 1984, after ten years of living
in the train station waiting room,

the government finally offered

the begum a building of
regal descent to occupy,

and to their great relief,
she accepted their offer.

This 14th century medieval
hunting lodge, called malcha mahal,

became the new home
of the deposed aristocrats.

This place was all carpeted,

and on these columns there
were nice paintings were hung.

Everything was tidy.
In the kitchen there was

a nice crockery and a silver tea
set, and everything was lined up.

Royalty may have
originally built malcha mahal,

but that was 700 years
ago. It was never intended

to be a permanent
residence in the modern era.

The word 'mahal' means 'palace'.

We all know it from
the Taj Mahal, of course.

So when you see this
crumbling ruin out in the forest,

it doesn't really
look like a palace.

It was overgrown long
before the begum arrived

and hadn't been
occupied in decades.

There was no running
water. There was no electricity.

When she came here, she was
promised to have the facility of

water and electricity,
which she did not get.

Moreover there were
no doors, nothing.

You can see Delhi off in the
distance, and standing up here,

the family - you can
imagine them thinking,

"oh, we rule over
everything we can see."

But that wasn't the truth.
Really all they ruled over was this

tiny little building
and its environs.

But for the queen of awadh,

malcha mahal wasn't enough,
and soon tragedy struck.

In 1993, the
begum killed herself.

It was even said that the
way she committed suicide

was by grinding up all of her
diamonds and eating them.

And after that, it was only
the prince and the Princess left.

The surviving heirs continued
to tell their tragic tale for

the next two decades until they
too died alone and in poverty.

It was at that point that

the whole story of queen wilayat
and her family started to unravel.

In 2019, a reporter
for 'the New York times'

was curious about this famous
story, and she started digging deep.

She looked into records.

The journalist followed the family
coffers, which led not back to any

royal ancestry but to a certain
mr butt back in Bradford, england.

He was her stepson and he was
no prince and she was no queen.

It was all an elaborate hoax.

She was a Muslim woman whose
family had moved to Pakistan

during the partition
of India and Pakistan.

This was a wrenching moment.

In the late 1940s, when India
was granted its independence,

the British in their wisdom,

decided that they should just
divide it up into two countries,

and the muslims were all
supposed to move north to Pakistan,

the hindus were supposed
to move south to India.

In Lahore, the family
lived a comfortable life,

but wilayat had never
wanted to move to Pakistan.

Her home was in India and,
consumed by unhappiness,

the cracks started to show.

After her husband died, she
grew more and more eccentric.

There were also signs of
her mental health failing.

She was said to have
received electro shock therapy

while she was in Pakistan.

And then, next thing we know,
she turns up at the Delhi train station

proclaiming herself
this long-lost queen.

For three decades malcha
mahal served as the residence for

a royal family that never was.

We don't even know if prince
Cyrus and Princess sakina

knew that they
weren't in fact royalty.

Did they believe their
mother or had they just lived

this lie for so long that
they had forgotten the truth?

It's a tragic story
about lives torn apart

by conquest and division.

Today the jungle encroaches
ever closer to the ruins of

this crumbling building. It
faces an uncertain future.

The government is not paying
any attention, and it's very difficult

to approach here. It's
such a thick forest, so I think

it will just remain like this.

In southern england is
a common where history

is hidden in plain sight.

At first glance there doesn't
seem to be much out of the ordinary

here at all. It's shrubs,
grass, pleasant fields.

You'd have never
imagined that something

earth-shattering happened
here in this region.

There are chain-link fences
and barbed wire all around it.

Today people just walk
past, but at one stage

this was very high security.

These fortifications were
put in place to protect

a precious resource
inside a concrete vault.

Tucked away at one end is
the most striking part of the site,

long, dome-like structures, covered
in grass, possibly as camouflage.

Buried within are secret rooms
built at a time of national panic.

This place looks like something
out of a science fiction movie.

With its heavy doors
and the security around it,

it really gives the impression
of something that's either

from the future or heavily
technological from our present.

I grew up fairly close to here,
but I never came here as a child.

This was like a
massive no-go area.

Long ago, this was a place of
state secrets and maximum security,

but in 1983, that
security was breached.

At one end of the site
is a reinforced building

that few people have
been permitted to enter.

Rebecca mordan has
been given access.

This is a really exciting room.

Gosh, it's like
something out of a film.

Some of the rooms have these
strange, purpose-built troughs

full of like a weird
white powder.

It's like talcum powder.
It's like to absorb something.

This place is clearly a rat run.

You go through a series of rooms,
passing this absorbing powder,

and then you get to this room
with this big, heavy metal chute.

It's becoming quite
clear what this is for.

This is a
decontamination chamber.

It was built in the 1980s

when the world faced
nuclear annihilation.

In the 1980s, you had america
in the west and the Soviets

in the east, and each
of them with their fingers

hovering over the
nuclear buttons.

And britain and Europe were
quite literally caught in the middle.

The cold war was a massive,
overhanging grey cloud

on our childhood in the 1980s.

And it seeped into everything.

It seeped into our
television programmes.

If there is a nuclear attack
and you survive the initial effects

of an explosion,
you will have at least

a half-hour to get to a public
or a home fallout shelter.

Built at a time of global crisis,
this is greenham common,

a former American military
airfield and key strategic base

prepared for war
against the Soviet union.

Any Soviet spy would kill
for the secrets kept there,

so security was very tight.
But on one night in 1983,

three unauthorised
people snuck onto the base

and into the control tower.

In 1980, this base was chosen
to host a new development in

atomic warfare -
the cruise missile.

Cruise missiles were cutting
edge and ultra high-tech,

and they could carry
nuclear warheads at speeds

of up to 550 miles an hour.

But not everyone was
happy to see their arrival.

The cruise missile program was

very, very controversial
in britain, and one group

decided that they were going
to be the ones to put a stop to it.

I remember there being people
waving you in, sitting you down

and, "come and sit
with me at the banners."

Or, "would you wanna come to
the fire? Are you warm enough?"

Rebecca's mother is one of
many who answered a call to arms

for what was to be a
women-only protest.

A chain letter spread across
the UK. This was a time

before the Internet, so still
had to go through snail mail.

And that letter invited those who
read it to come to greenham common

on December 12, 1982.

When the missiles arrived,

they were met by a crowd of
protesters some 30,000 strong.

These greenham women,
determined to protect

their children's future, built
camps all around the base.

So this is one of the
gates for the base.

The American military added
razor wire. They then added

dogs and sentries and more
police, we've got military police

and English squaddies,
British squaddies, all protecting

the Americans who were living
right in the middle of the base.

It was by and large peaceful,
but on occasion it did have

a sort of anarchistic kind
of flow to it, and that's,

of course, when
it made the news.

The protests made
global headlines,

an embarrassment for
the British government.

They ordered the police to
move the protesters by force.

There was definitely a feeling
that, particularly when a lot of

outside police were bought in,
there was a much higher risk of

violence to the women.
They'd come with the bin Van

and they chucked
everything that the women

weren't carrying into this Van
and just destroy everything.

But this group of ordinary women
wouldn't be got rid of so easily.

In 1983, britain's secretary
of state for defence explicitly

told parliament that
there was no way

the protesters would ever get
onto the base. He was wrong.

One night, three protesters outside
the base discovered an open pipe.

And they realised, quite
rightly, that it was probably

an overflow pipe, so
they crawled into it,

not knowing where they'd
come up, and where they came up

was actually on the runway, or
near the runway for the whole base.

They make their way
over to the control tower

for the most heavily
guarded nuclear airfield

in the country, and they
haven't locked the door.

They just literally waltzed in
and they found state secrets.

They found log books about
what to do in the case of

nuclear emergencies, and they
wrote their names all over all of it.

Eventually American soldiers found
them, pointed guns at their faces

and escorted them off the base.

By the time the women
were discovered,

they'd been inside the
control tower for five hours.

This wasn't just embarrassing
for the government,

it was a humiliation.

But the control tower
wasn't the biggest breach

of security at greenham common.

The key thing on this airfield

was not the control tower
or the runways themselves.

It's the silo. The big, big
structure that actually houses

the vehicles with the
nuclear warheads on the back.

The protesters drew up a plan
to storm the nuclear bunkers.

The greenham women waited
until it was new year's Eve,

and they reckoned that all of
the squaddies, most of the base,

the military police and that
would all be in town celebrating.

This was incredibly dangerous.

You would have to keep
in mind how important

this site was and how crucial it
was to keep these weapons secure.

The soldiers were all armed
with assault rifles, and their orders

were to shoot
intruders on sight.

They managed to put ladders up,
put the carpet over the razor wire,

get onto the silos
where, theoretically,

the nuclear missiles were kept.

These women are not there to
do malicious harm. All they can do

is sing and dance at the soldiers
responsible for the security.

The dance on the bunkers
was broadcast around the world.

How much does that get under
your skin if you're in charge of

guarding the world's biggest
nuclear deterrent and you've got

a bunch of rag-taggle middle-aged
women dancing and singing on top of

your prized possession? It's
brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

(Indistinct singing)

The activists remained outside
the base for nearly two decades.

Their watch ended
when the final missile

was removed and
the airfield closed.

There's no doubt that the
greenham common protesters

were one of the
most iconic images

of the 1980s, which was a
decade of real conflict in britain.

I also remembered a greenham
woman talking to me and saying there was

a point when she was stood
in the mud at her gate looking

at women, even though they
were in driving rain, cooking, helping

each other to create a
community, and she just thought,

"oh, my god. We can do anything.
We don't need men or anybody."

In 1997, the fences
that had surrounded

greenham common for 50
years were finally torn down

and the 800 acre site
returned to public use.

The anti-nuclear movement has
made some really, really important

accomplishments and
certainly bought the nuclear issue

out into the open in a way that
simply wasn't possible before.

On the northern edge of
Johannesburg, South Africa,

are the remains of
a sprawling facility.

This is a very
impressive building.

Multi-wing edifice.

And it doesn't look like it's that
old - built maybe 50 years ago?

Though it might look
quite new from the outside,

internally it's a
whole different story.

The inside is just completely
ravaged and ripped apart.

There's paint that's
peeling from the walls.

Some of the windows are smashed,
papers and documents strewn about.

It looks like something
out of a horror picture show.

This is a pretty scary place.
There are gaping holes in the ceiling.

There's what looks like
bloodstains on the wall.

It's definitely not the kind of place
you'd wanna be alone at night.

As you venture further, the more
ominous the building becomes.

There's medical equipment,
confidential documents.

It looks like people
were just there one day

and then they
suddenly got up and left.

It one room there are giant
refrigerators that look so big

you could fit a body inside. And
then there's huge, broken slabs.

This building is rumoured to be one
of the most haunted in South Africa.

It's said that paranormal
activity often concentrates

in places that have had
a lot of deaths and births.

So what is it that happened
here that might cause it

to be haunted like that? What
dark secrets does this facility hold?

This place was intended
to help those in need,

but not everyone who came
here got the care they deserved.

This is kempton park hospital.

It was completed in 1978,
and at the time it was the largest

medical facility in the region.

It's a huge hospital, as
you can see, 400 beds.

It had a maternity section. They
had all the surgical disciplines.

It had a medical ward. It
had an intensive care unit.

Dr Nick wolmarans was a
consultant surgeon and head of

the emergency
department at the hospital.

This used to be a excellent
facility, and to see it

in this dilapidated
condition is very disturbing.

I worked here for ten years.

I treated a lot of patients here,
and it was an amazing place to work.

When it was built, it had a
very specific purpose in mind,

and the clue is
hidden in its design.

I walked along this
passage for a very long time.

I never noticed how
wide this passage is.

And one of the hospital groups'
ceo told me this was built for

disaster purposes with the
idea that, in the case of a disaster

coming from the airport
or the explosive factory

not very far from here,

they could park and
accommodate beds in this passage.

At the time, the hospital was at
the cutting-edge of technology.

This is a very spacious theatre.

Look at the size, look at the
high ceiling, look at the equipment.

They don't make and build
theatres of this size anymore.

In such an expensive and
advanced facility, one would imagine

that the staff would
be very highly qualified

medical professionals,
but it turns out

the kempton park hospital
was hiding a horrific secret.

In 1982, the hospital
took on a paediatrician

called dr esterhuizen.

He had his own practice and
he came highly recommended.

It's believed that during his
time at the hospital he treated

more than 4,500 patients - mostly
babies in the paediatrics ward.

Dr esterhuizen was so confident
in his abilities and his expertise

that he put himself forward as head
of department, and he had a lot of

support from his colleagues
at the time for this.

But it turned out
that dr esterhuizen

was not who he seemed to be.

Dr wolmarans was working at
the hospital at the same time.

This is the paediatric ward where
dr Andre esterhuizen worked.

He worked here for approximately

three to four years in
the late '80s and '90s.

As time went on, a lot of parents
and colleagues were very concerned

of his way he
treated the children.

A lot of... children had
serious complications.

One of those children
was in dr wolmarans' care.

I had a very sad experience
with one of my patients,

a four-month-old baby which
I operated for a groin hernia,

and post-operatively, the
anaesthetist told me that

the child aspirated
in the recovery room.

My anaesthetist called
doctor Andre esterhuizen,

and he looked after the child.

Unfortunately he extubated
the baby at the wrong time,

and she stopped breathing
and unfortunately died.

Alarmingly, this
wasn't the only child

to have died under
suspicious circumstances.

Then in 1991, came an official
complaint from a mother about

her son, gareth, who had died
under dr esterhuizen's care,

and it's at that point
that hospital staff

started to make more
specific investigations

into esterhuizen, his
diagnoses and his treatment.

Dr wolmarans was at the forefront
of the investigation, and what

he discovered shook the
hospital and its staff to the core.

When I phoned the medical
council, they told me that

there is no such a person
or doctor in their doctors files

and he never
qualified as a doctor.

He only had a high
school diploma,

and he had been masquerading
as a physician for all of these years.

Eventually dr esterhuizen was
arrested, charged and put on trial.

Apparently some of
the testimonies during

the trial were just horrendous.

One mother told the court of

her baby ending up with cerebral
palsy after esterhuizen had done

four lumber punctures on her child
when she was just four months old.

He was ultimately charged
with culpable homicide,

impersonating a doctor
and defrauding his patients,

and he was sentenced to 18 years
in prison. However, nothing can

bring back any of the children
that he lost due to his negligence.

The big question is how
did the hospital never check

his credentials when they hired
him? It makes you think, was this huge

scandal part of the reason that
the hospital closed so suddenly?

I climbed these stairs
every day going up to theatre

and to the wards...
And unbeknown to me,

they closed this
hospital within weeks.

At the time, the local
health department blamed it

on staff shortages
and under-utilisation,

but this just didn't add up.

Reports from staff working
there at the time denied

any staff shortages, and they said
that working conditions were good.

Closing a public hospital next
to one of the biggest townships

in the country seems an odd
move, especially when other hospitals

in the region were reported
as being close to capacity.

It seems the reason
this hospital really closed

will remain a mystery to both
the staff and the general public.

Nothing was said.

Even up to today after 25
years, you know, we do not know

why the government wouldn't keep
a magnificent asset like this going.

Today the hospital
sits abandoned,

but it's not as quiet
as it might initially look.

People still come, drawn
by the terrible stories

of what took place here.

The site has become infamous
for the spectres that wander

the hospital at night, and given
what happened here, it's perhaps

no surprise that it's rumoured
to be full of the ghosts of children.

And the hopes
that it might one day

be bought back to life now
seem to be a distant dream.

It was very painful to see a
magnificent structure like this

so dilapidated and
almost totally destroyed

is really a big heartache.

Off the south-east
coast of Georgia, usa,

is a breath-taking
island wilderness.

It's just a sort of lush, green
place with sawgrass, palm trees,

marshes, and then it opens
up in to this sort of great estate,

and you see the remains of what
looks to be a massive stately home.

You can see that the grounds
of this place were extensive,

and I bet in their day they were
quite impressive. You can still see

ornamental lawns, and amongst
them there's a few outbuildings as well.

Whoever lived here
was pretty wealthy.

And it doesn't look like a place
that's just sort of garden-variety

dilapidated by the years. It
looks like something violent,

something terrible happened
to reduce it to such destruction.

Further in, there are a series
of curious brick buildings.

You can see these strange,
chimney-like structures.

So you're wondering,
what happened here?

Was this a site of manufacture?

Look closer and a very
different picture emerges.

For some of the people
that called this place home,

it wasn't a particularly
pleasant place to be.

Clearly we're standing in
the midst of some important

piece of American history.

Today the national park service is
the custodian of this remote island

and its buildings. The only way to
reach its rugged coast is by boat.

This island has many
fascinating stories.

You could spend a lifetime
studying the history of this island

and not fully be able to understand
everything that happened.

Park ranger Robinson barker
has spent many years investigating

the island's secrets.

The family that lived here most
recently is the carnegie family

of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Originally the carnegies emigrated
over to america from Scotland

in the 1840s, and the young brothers
Thomas and Andrew carnegie worked

their way up until they amassed
a large wealth in the steel industry.

The story goes that Thomas's
wife Lucy was so enthralled by

the island's beauty, she
insisted it be bought at any price.

In 1884, the carnegies built this
mansion and called it dungeness.

It was the heart of the estate

that they built for them
and their nine children.

Carnegie spared no expense
in the construction of dungeness.

He not only built this magnificent
main house and its outbuildings,

but he added a heated
swimming pool, squash courts,

and he had 200 servants
that would attend to

his family and any guests
that were on the estate.

This is cumberland
island national seashore,

once the exclusive playground of
one of america's wealthiest families.

For many years, their
life here was idyllic.

But before carnegies' arrival,
it had a very dark and evil past.

What happened here,
what people did here

came at a terrible cost,
a terrible human cost.

The carnegies removed most
of the structures from this time,

but one building remains.

This house was used as
the overseer's home during

the Greene-Miller plantation
here on the island. Over and in front

of me would have been a large
cotton field where enslaved africans

worked throughout the day as
they grew crops here for the market.

The Greene-Miller family took up
residence here in the early 1800s.

They were the first to make use
of the island's natural resources,

ushering in a shameful cycle
that would endure for decades.

But something was coming that
would give hope to the exploited people.

Slave labour made the owners
rich, but a looming conflict

offered a chance of salvation.

Cumberland island has
a really interesting history

during the war of
1812, with the British

trying to clamp a blockade up
and down the American coast.

On January 10 of 1815, rear admiral
cockburn invaded cumberland island

and set up camp down in
the dungeness area using

the Greene-Miller dungeness
house as his officers' headquarters.

British law prohibits
slavery at this point.

He takes advantage of this.

He knows that if he can get
enslaved people on British vessels that

he can spirit them away to freedom,
and this is exactly what happens.

But in 1815, with the
fighting officially over, a treaty

was signed between
the warring nations.

It stated all slaves must
be returned to their owners.

Cockburn says, "to hell with
that." He takes any slaves

he can get and he ships them off
to Canada or the Caribbean. In all,

cockburn ships out 1500 freed
slaves from cumberland island.

Tragically this would prove to
be no more than a short reprieve

for america's enslaved people.

Once again, this island would
become a place where slavery thrived.

And the clues can be
seen in the landscape.

And one man was infamous
for his cruel desire to make profit

from the forced
labour of people.

Born on the island in 1790,
Robert Stafford worked on

the Miller-Greene plantation
and had a really good sense of

just how profitable
cotton enslavery was.

These chimneys, these
structures that are left,

these are the only lasting physical
legacy from this time period.

They're actually the chimneys
that were part of the slave quarters.

So, based on archaeological
investigation of the Stafford

slave cabins, we believe
these cabins were fairly small,

about 16 by 21 feet long, a
single room, a small kitchen area,

sleeping quarters,
and that's just about it.

At the height of his
empire, Stafford owned

most of the island
and 348 slaves.

Stafford had no qualms
about reintroducing slavery

on the island. He was a
died-in-the-wool southerner

with a great belief in the, as
they called it, peculiar institution.

But the slaves who
were forced to toil here

against their will, change
was coming, albeit slowly.

Once again war would
offer a route to freedom.

This time, its legacy
promised to endure.

After union victory
in the war in 1865,

slavery is abolished
in the south.

And that's gonna have a big impact
on cumberland island's economy.

Most of the slaves had escaped
to the mainland, leaving Stafford

with no real means to
run a plantation economy.

Most other owners, they sold
for a pittance and moved on,

but Stafford refused.

Until his dying breath,
Stafford remained a stalwart

of the south and
its racial beliefs.

And Stafford is
proof of the aphorism

that only the good die young.
He lives to a ripe old age of 86,

takes a slave wife, has six
children and leaves them nothing.

For the former slaves
that stayed on the island,

there was a glimmer of hope.

They would work, they would do
menial work, but they also could

create on the north end of
the island a small community

for themselves. They used reclaimed
materials from old buildings to

build their own structures,
and in 1893, very importantly

they erected the
first African church,

which would become an incredibly
important community centre.

After the tragic era of slavery had
passed, the island was transformed

under the stewardship of
the carnegies. But not even

their enormous
wealth could save it

from the descent
into ruin seen today.

The dungeness mansion was
eventually closed down in 1925,

almost ten years after
Lucy carnegie passed away,

and at that point it
started to fall into disrepair

to some degree, and
eventually it did burn in 1959.

The exact origin of the
fire is not 100% certain,

but it's believed
that it was poachers

illegally hunting on the island,
though no-one was ever caught

or convicted, that
is, as the story goes.

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