All language subtitles for Building Mania- The British Regency Era (Age) (2 of 3). Dr Lucy Worsley. Subtitles- ENG

Imagine Britain,
in the middle of the Napoleonic wars.

We've been fighting
the French for years!

Napoleon tightens
his grip on Europe,…

…closing us in,
locking us down!

But the Brits fight on!

Across Europe,
more than 3 million people die!

And then, in 1815,…!

…the final struggle!

The battle of Waterloo
was a decisive victory over Napoleon,…!

…and the start of a new era!

I'm at the top of a memorial…

…to the Commander–in–Chief
of Britain's triumphant army.

The darkness and destruction
of the Napoleonic wars were over!

In 1815, Britain emerged victorious,
as the most powerful nation on Earth.

Britannia really
did rule the waves.

Almost by accident,
we'd acquired 17 new colonies.

Our leaders and statesmen looked around them,
asked themselves the question: …

"Who are we?
Who should we be?"

"What should
a modern Britain look like?

And all this…!

…would be transformed,
demolished, and rebuilt,…!

…in some of the most ambitious
metropolitan improvements ever attempted!

Central London would be reborn,
with Regent Street sliced through the heart of the city!

This was an age
of confidence, exuberance!

And, above all,
experimentation!

It was a decade
of design as wild as the 60s!

With ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt, China,
France, and India, all thrown into the mix.

There was glorious light
and garish colour!

New technology,
mixed up with ancient art!

In the decade of the Regency,
between 1811 and 1820,…

…there was
an explosion of design.

British style was lavish,
theatrical, outrageous, and brilliant.

And at the heart of it all
was George, the Prince Regent.

His obsession with building
left an indelible stamp on Britain.

I'm Lucy Worsley,
and I'm a historian.

I'm Chief Curator
at historic royal palaces,…

…and I love poking around
in royal buildings.

I'm fascinated by the way palaces always reflect
the character of the person who built them.

The biggest builder of them all
was the Prince Regent.

He had something like an addiction
for architecture and interior design.

He was constantly building and rebuilding his houses.
He was always hungry for change.

In 1815, he appointed
the architect John Nash…

…to rebuild
his seaside retreat,…

…the Marine Pavilion, at Brighton.

Nash took it from being
an elegant neo–classical villa,…

…and turned it into
this Indian fantasy palace.

George started this place
as soon as Waterloo was won.

He'd defeated Napoleon,
the Emperor of Europe,…

…and now, here he was, building a holiday home
for himself, as Emperor of the World!

This book was commissioned by John Nash
to celebrate his finished building.

And the amazing exuberance here…

… – Indian on the outside,
Chinese on the inside –,…

…was achieved with the help
of some new technology.

These domes are sealed
with what Nash called his patent mastic.

And they're supported
by an iron framework.

The building is all
about illusion and theatricality.

It's by one showman for another:
by John Nash for the Prince Regent,…

…both of them willing
to break the rules of architecture.

Building was George's biggest passion, his main creative outlet.

Walking through
these exotic rooms,…

…you get the sense that they were designed
for the naughty, "no–rules" lifestyle that George longed for,…

…with a room
for each pleasure.

And for his greatest pleasure…

…– eating –…

…the most luxurious
rooms of all!

Trapped indoors by his gout,
and hardly able to climb upstairs,…

…the Regent planned his palace
around his consolation: …

…a love of grub!

A quarter of the building
is devoted to food!

He was so pleased with his new kitchen,
he even used it as a dining room!

The cartoonists showed him
gnawing on a greasy drumstick,…

…but his taste was actually
a lot more sophisticated.

Is that enough wax?

I'm in George's marvellous kitchen,
with the food historian Ivan Day.

So, what you're doing is,
you're pressing it into…

– …this little impression…
– I'm making an urn!
– …of a classical urn.

That'll be good.

Shall I start
kneading my stuff?

Yeah, if you get
some of that out of there…

What's it called again?

This is called
"gumpaste", or "pastillage".

And it's a mixture of sugar and a gum called
"gum tragacanth", which makes it very elastic.

It's like plasticine!
It's like edible plasticine!

– Is it what I put on my Christmas cake?
– Not at all!

It was used at very, very
high status, regal banquets.

Usually to make…

…edible table ornaments.
Originally, it was made for making…

…cups and plates
that you could actually eat off, and…

…once you'd finished eating
you could then eat the plate if you wanted!

– It saved the washing up!
– Heh, heh, heh!

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze it on!

Right!

– You'd better start, because it's drying out.
– Aahh!

Quick, quick, quick, quick!

Let it touch the wood first.
So push it down,…

…push it down hard,…

…really hard.

Are you going to hold still while I…?

I'm going
to hold it for you.

And then just squeeze it
backwards and forwards.

Don't break the neck.

– That's perfect!
– Oohh! Very good!
– Perfectly!

Now, I'm going to get the little pointy thing,
and start pulling it out.

Work your way
around the sides.

Come out, little urn!

This is going to be…
a masterpiece!

It… you've done it!
It's fine, it'll come off!

And just let it drop,
that side down, onto the wood.

Just flick it over,
and it will just drop out.

Ooohhh!

– Look how finely decorated it is!
– It's superb!

And then you make another one,
and you join the two together, with a bit of adhesive.

– And then I could put it on the top of a building, like that one.
– Exactly! Yeah!

– There we are!
– Brilliant!

My urn is a tiny bit
of the most spectacular part of a Regency banquet: …

…the sugar sculpture!

The undisputed master of this art
was Antonin Carème,…

…the Regency's
most celebrated chef.

He'd cooked for Napoleon,
which instantly attracted George.

And in 1816 he managed
to lure Carème over from France.

It turns out that the Regent and his new cook
had a common interest.

Tell me a bit
about Antonin Carème.

The interesting about Carème was,
he studied architecture.

He… he… he went to libraries,
and looked at…

…– you know –, Vitruvius, and people like that,
so he could understand the classical orders.

And he defined confectionery
as being an art form, because…

…it was architecture in miniature.

So, even the Regent's cook
considered himself an architect!

His best-selling books
were filled with diagrams of edible buildings,…

…reflecting all the latest
architectural trends.

His style is very eclectic,…

…and on the one table you might get
an Egyptian Colossus and a Greek temple,…

…but you must… also might get a Swiss cottage,
or a Russian Orthodox church,…

…made out of nougat,
and sugar, and almonds!

And it became very much based
on a really early 19th century aesthetic of…

…pinching…

…forms from all kinds
of architectural and artistic genres.

So, when you look at his designs, they are caprices!
They,… They are… It's a fantasy…!

…kind of work!
Rather like this building!

Ah!

In fact, this building is
like a big sugar Carème dessert, right really!

Sadly, the perfect match
between George and Carème wasn't to last.

He didn't stay for very long
because, I think,…

…he,… he saw the Prince Regent as being
a little bit on the boorish side, and…

…not really appreciative
of some of the finer qualities…

…of French "cuisine classique",
and he moved on.

Carème wasn't the only person
to fall out of love with George.

The world at large
thought his Pavilion looked ridiculous,…!

…a shoddy version
of an opium smoker's dream!

Satirists painted the Regent
as a fat debauched addict,…!

…ensconced
in an outrageous oriental tent!

And George, oblivious, carried on
building away, living the high life.

But his Government was taking
a much more cautious approach to honoring Waterloo.

How do you celebrate
the glorious ending of 20 years of warfare?

Well, you'd expect the Government
to put up a whole lot of monuments: …

…triumphal arches, columns,
that sort of thing.

But, two years after the battle of Waterloo,
they'd only finished one monument!

And it wasn't even
a proper monument at all.

It was a bridge!

Of course, the original Waterloo Bridge
wasn't made of concrete.

Or even of sugar!

The Regency version
was a granite affair, with many arches.

And on the second anniversary
of the battle of Waterloo…

…it was the scene
of a huge party!

The bridge was opened
on the 18th of June, 1817.

For the occasion,
there were lots of flags flying.

The bridge was packed with veterans
from the battlefield of Waterloo,…

…and the houses all around were described
as looking as if they were "roofed with people".

This feat of engineering was proclaimed
as a fitting and practical monument…

…to the brilliant victory of Waterloo.

And it was described
as one of the wonders of the age!

Waterloo's victorious general,
the Duke of Wellington, crossed over the bridge.

Smoke filled the air
as cannon fired,…

…one shot for each of the 202 guns
captured at Waterloo.

In amongst this crowd was the painter
John Constable, and for him…

…the occasion would turn out
to become a bit of an obsession.

Constable set out to paint
his grandest canvas yet.

A patriotic tour de force,
recording this great moment in the life of the nation.

He slaved away
at his painting for 15 years.

Finally, in 1832, it was ready to be exhibited
at the Royal Academy, here at Somerset House.

In the finished canvas,
we see the Prince Regent…

…getting into a barge, up at Whitehall,
with the bridge in the distance.

I think this picture
meant a lot for Constable.

This was his chance
to paint a historic moment,…

…the opening of the monument
to the greatest victory in military history.

But poor old Constable
was completely upstaged by Turner,…

…in the same exhibition.

This is Turner's effort,
it's a seascape.

It's full of movement, although apparently
it's a much simpler picture.

And when Turner saw
what Constable had done,…

…he played a rather naughty trick.
He saw how bright and busy this work was,…

…and he came back, and he added in
just one little red buoy, on the surface of his waves there.

When Constable saw
what Turner had done,…

…he knew that Turner
was playing a trick on him.

And he said in a rage:
"Turner's been here, and he's fired a gun!"

Even without Turner's mocking,
Constable's painting was a total flop.

15 years on, critics couldn't remember
the event that he'd painted,…

…or why Waterloo Bridge
was supposed to be so important.

So, why did the Government make all this fuss about a bridge?

The real reason that a bridge ended up being
the official monument to the battle of Waterloo…

…was that the Government
was broke!

And the amazing thing about Waterloo Bridge
is that it was funded entirely by private investment!

It may have cost members of the public
a penny, to cross over the bridge,…

…but, to the Government,
it was free!

Something free was very desirable
in a post–war recession with a huge national debt.

The Tory Government
needed to slash spending by a quarter,…!

…rather than
spewing away public funds!

The gout–ridden Regent stands by his expensive
projects, propped up with the people's cash!

It was time for cuts,…

…not for squandering money
on public monuments and art.

Which is where
some broken old Greek statues come in.

These are
the Elgin Marbles,…

…taken by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in Athens
at the start of the 19th century.

These bits of somebody else's monuments would turn out
to be a real emblem for a triumphant Britain.

But when they first arrived,
not everybody was convinced.

Their curator, Ian Jenkins,
can tell me more.

So, Ian, what was new about the Elgin Marbles?
Why were people excited?

Well, when they first came to Britain, and went on show
in Lord Elgin's temporary museum, in London,…

…people had never
seen the like before.

They were immediately
uh,… shocked,…

…by the…

…almost brutal naturalism
of these great colossal figures.

These were
ancient Greek originals,…

…and they weren't
what people expected!

People liked their sculpture
complete, white, restored, domestic.

These were not domestic,
they were not tamed.

They were broken, they were stained,
they were often headless.

Uh,… they were unrestored,
and Lord Elgin…

…uh,… entertained for a long time
the possibility that they should be restored,…

…and consulted
with the great sculptor Canova,…

…who said
that they were real meat!

– Real meat?
– Real flesh!

Real flesh!

I love it!

They were avant–garde, they represented
the shock of the new, a new wave!

Were these frightening objects
the sort of thing we really wanted in Britain?

In 1816,
Parliament held an inquiry,…

…to decide whether or not
to buy them for the nation.

It came down
to two things: …

Were they any good?

And what did they stand for?

It's a defining moment,…

…when all the cognoscenti,
the artists, the connoisseurs,…

…were brought in,
each interrogated in turn,…

…and each giving, uh,…
his own account of the Marbles,…

…and how
they should be evaluated.

The answer came back,
from most of them,…

…that these were the greatest
works of art ever seen in Britain!

And yes, the inquiry concluded, it was entirely appropriate
for a triumphant Britain to own them.

Greece was seen by Britain,
in the 19th century,…

…as somehow pure,…

…an untainted society.

To have the Elgin Marbles in Britain
was to have transplanted Old Greece to London.

Even though
the Government was broke,…

…it found 35,000 pounds
to buy the Elgin Marbles for the British Museum.

We were
the inheritors of the Greeks.

Plucky little Britain,
defender of freedom!

This was powerful stuff!

And it changed
the way Britain looks.

Within a few years, the home of the Marbles itself
was being rebuilt as a Greek temple.

The most modern buildings after 1815
drew upon ancient Greek originals,…

…like Saint Pancras church
in London,…

…achingly cool, and built
for the North London intelligentsia.

These urbanites
aspired to "greekness".

Like the Athenians, they hoped
to change the world with ideas and art.

But a city with a greater claim
to this Greek inheritance lay north of the border: …

…Edinburgh.

Now, London didn't have a monopoly
on the idea of ancient Greece,…

…and Edinburgh too
wanted to be the new Athens.

I'm sitting on Britain's first monument
to the dead of the Napoleonic wars.

And clearly, there's
a bit of competition going on here.

Down in London,
they have the real Elgin Marbles.

But up here in Scotland,…!

…they were hoping to build
a complete recreation of the Parthenon!

In 1820, someone suggested
reconstructing the Greek ruin…

…as a massive memorial,…

…complete with 46 giant columns.

The Scottish people
gave generously – at least at first –,…

…and building began.

But it didn't last long.

Sadly, the money ran out,
and it never got finished.

Construction ground to a halt
after just 12 columns!

And the monument became known
as Scotland's chain!

Not that this put Edinburgh
off the Greek theme.

The city had been the home
of the big brains of the Enlightenment,…

…like Adam Smith and David Hume,…

…the modern heirs
of ancient Greek thought.

After Waterloo, the new town's architects
turned these ideas into bricks and mortar,…

…earning Edinburgh its title
of the "Athens of the North".

But this cold Greek purity
wasn't for everybody.

This is Sir John Soane.

He was one of the most important
architects of the age.

A man with a very different
architectural mission.

And this is
his house, in London.

Soane shared the Prince Regent's belief that you should
express your personality through architecture.

As we're about to see,
Soane was a pretty unusual man!

Jerzy J. Kierkuć-Bieliński
is a curator here.

This is John Soane!

Yes!

And what sort
of a man was he?

He was a ???? of a man,…

…because he was driven, I think,
he could also be slightly difficult.

He's not short
of self-confidence, is he?

– No!
– Placing a bust of himself, heh, heh!

– …so prominently!
No. Well,…

…I think it's also a comment that he's making,
about architecture and the role of the architect.

Because, if you notice, there are two small figures,
two statuettes, beneath the bust.

You have Michelangelo,
representing sculpture,…

…and Raphael,
with his artist's palette,…

…representing painting.

And what Soane
is saying here,…

…is that architecture
– as personified by himself, of course –,…

…is greater than the two…
those two arts, because…

…painting and sculpture
ornament architecture.

So it's sort
of a comment about…

…the union of painting, architecture,
and sculpture, within this house as well.

So he's making
a wider point, then.

– "I am the greatest", he's saying, "Architecture is the greatest art".
– Yeah!

Soane, a self–made man, won social status
through his skill as an architect.

And he wanted to be sure that people
would see architecture as a proper art.

Here he made the world's
first architectural museum,…

…a temple to architecture,
with himself as high priest.

He hoarded Roman, Greek,
Egyptian, and Gothic fragments,…

…all the stylistic influences
on Regency taste.

And what Soane
has done here…

…is that he's created a type
of dictionary of architecture, if you like.

He's taken casts, or actual fragments,
of the great buildings,…

…and he's brought them
into this London town house,…

…sort of telescoping the classical past
into this incredible interior.

So there is…
"method behind the madness", if you like.

But Soane didn't take the rules
and follow them to the letter.

He likes to experiment!

I think that one of the reasons
that modern architects…

…are so obsessed
with Soane is because…

…he "broke the box",
if you like.

If you think of a room
as having four walls, a ceiling, and a floor,…

– …Soane bursts through those constraints.
– Absolutely!

And this space, here,…

…in an ideal world, it would be just…
just a little square in the middle, here.

But he's dissolved the walls,
and all the energy is taking place…

…beyond the boundaries
of the traditional room, isn't it?

Absolutely! he's punctured the space
through the use of plate glass,…

…and he's illuminated it…

…with this amazing skylight,
this huge ceiling rose,…

…that seems almost about
to sort of crush us!

There's a lot
of spatial ambiguity here.

A lot of playfulness, I think,
because of that.

– He's a real conjurer, isn't he?
– Yes, definitely! Definitely! Light and space!

He's a magician of…
of light and space, really.

Soane liked to talk
about the poetry of architecture!

He thought
it should stimulate the imagination!

So, Soane treated his house
as a kind of…

…laboratory for trying out
different architectural…

…ideas, and this room is full
of what he called fanciful effects!

Let's start
with this weirdly truncated dome.

You would expect it to land
in the four corners of the room,…

…but it doesn't !

Beyond the dome,
there are these slots,…

…with light coming down.
And it's not normal light.

It's yellow–coloured, because of
the coloured glass that he's put into the skylights.

We've also got
more than 100 mirrors…

…in here,
so everywhere you look…

…there's a disconcerting
reflection of yourself.

We're really in the hands, here,
of an architectural wizard.

And he didn't stop at innovating
with light and reflection.

Soane is also
what you might call an "early adopter".

Now, although he loved antiquity,…

…Soane also loved all "mod cons",
and this is his own little dressing room,…

…where we've got all the latest gadgets.
Firstly, we've got a nice fitted desk, and drawers.

Just outside the window here, we've got gas lighting!
This is a great novelty!

The first gas company
is only set up in 1812.

This square was the first in London
to have a gas supply,…

…and just as soon
as it was available,…

…Soane installed it
in his courtyard.

Down here, we've got
a hot–air central heating system.

Over here, we've got
a plumbed–in wash basin.

And over here,…

…best of all,…

…we've got a flushing toilet!

But Soane didn't just
rethink interiors.

He was
after big commissions!

By the start of the Regency, he'd already rebuilt
the Bank of England in Roman style.

Loaded with the profits of lending money in the
Napoleonic wars, the Bank needed a giant new building.

He created the pioneering
Dulwich Picture Gallery,…

…the first national art museum.

And he also left us
a funny little surprise.

This is the monument he designed
for his wife, Eliza, when she died in 1815.

He eventually
joined her there.

It has
a very distinctive shape,…

…which might remind you
of something else.

In 1924, Giles Gilbert Scott…

…entered a competition
to design the new phone box.

This is his winning entry,
inspired by the mausoleum of Sir John Soane.

It must be one of the strangest
architectural legacies of the Regency period.

If he'd had his way,
Soane would have left us with much more.

This is London's Soane style,
crammed with triumphal arches,…

…a Senate's house,
new royal palaces…

…oh!… and mountains!

Actually, it's all a fantasy!

These are all the buildings
Soane never got to build.

Because the biggest patron
of them all always eluded him.

An important architect like Soane might have expected
to get a big job at the royal palaces.

But it wasn't to be.

Soane had a reputation
for being a bit difficult…

…for bossing
his clients around,…

…and only for doing
his own very distinctive style.

This isn't what the Prince Regent
was after, at all.

He wanted an architect
to help him realise his own vision.

As he put it:
"Someone suited to his mind".

That's why
he chose John Nash.

Nash wasn't the most original
designer of his day,…

…but he was a much
easier going guy than Soane,…

…and happy to design in any style
that took the Regent's fancy.

As well as Brighton Pavilion, Nash worked on the Regent's
official home in the heart of London, Carlton House.

This place had already had
several facelifts.

But when he
became Regent, in 1811,…

…George spent a fortune
beautifying it even more,…

…to make it
into a palace fit for, um,…

…well, a Regent!

This is a book published in 1819, showing
the interiors of the different royal residences.

These pages show Carlton House,
and you can see…

…how it had now become
the most amazingly lavish and opulent interior.

Regretfully,
Carlton House is long gone,…

…but you can get the Carlton House experience
at another royal palace: …

…Windsor.

In these rooms, at Windsor Castle, you get a real sense
of what Carlton House was actually like.

In the 1820s,
George remodeled this suite,…

…and he reused several of the fittings
from Carlton House.

So here you can see
tantalizing traces of the Prince's lost palace.

Fireplaces, doors, even whole floors
from Carlton House ended up here.

George treated his palaces
like doll's houses…!

…to be constantly rearranged,…!

…and filled with an ever stranger
assortment of stuff!

I've come to meet the Deputy Surveyor
of the Queen's Works of Art, Rufus Bird.

Paint me a picture of what it was actually like
to walk into Carlton House, perhaps the Crimson Room.

You would have walked into…
a room of…

…almost unimaginable opulence!

With incredible gilded ceilings,…!

…fantastically rich…
silk velvet on the walls!

Amazing combinations of…

…of English contemporary…

…giltwood furniture with…

…French decorative works of art.

Uh,… Amazing chandeliers,
he was obsessed with lighting!

Huge quantities of…

…of lights; very bright,
very, very impressive rooms.

The 20 or so showy rooms
in Carlton House…

…were designed to project
George's royal magnificence to the world.

In styles that ranged from the fashionable
Grecian decor of the old Throne Room…

…to Nash's
Gothic Dining Room,…

…completely gilded, and perfect
for George's intimate dinners of 30.

There was
a real sense of exoticism.

The combinations that he…
he chose, were quite adventurous.

We've got a pretty good example
of exactly what you're talking about, just here.

– Tell us what this one is.
– Well, this is a Chinese vase.

And, uh,… it's, um,…
a very plain, blue, 18th century vase.

And then, it has been
completely transformed…

…by these magnificent mounts!
And here you see a satyr's head,…

…and then, between the satyr's heads,
are these swags of vine,…

…and the… the horns scroll up,
and twist around, onto the rim of the bowl.

And it stood
on a griffin stand.

Three griffins,
which support the… the top.

And they are derived
from Roman fragments.

So, we've got a mid–18th century Chinese vase,
we've got late 18th century French decorations,…

…standing on a British Regency
– but Roman inspired – stand.

Absolutely!

And that's exactly
the sort of confection…

…that creates this wonderful kind
of mixing of styles, mixing of eras,…

…and… and shows
the eclecticism and exoticism…

…that… that the Regency
is really all about.

This place may look
about as grand as it gets,…

…but in fact, for their time,
George's rooms are shockingly informal.

It's all about the furniture.

A generation before, it would have been
lined up against the walls.

But now, chairs and tables
are scattered about, willy-nilly.

And it wasn't just the furniture
that was informal.

George was shaking up
behaviour too!

In 1816, a scandalous new dance
was seen at Court for the first time:…

…the waltz!

Waltzing,…

…scandalous?
How could this be?

Well, before the Regency,
people danced in big groups,…

…only occasionally
touching each other.

The waltz
was a very different matter.

As the dance historian
Robin Beanie shows me.

So, this is quite a nice
and romantic movement too!

– It is, but it's not as good as waltz.
– But it's not as good as walzing.

– And it's only for a few seconds!
– Yes!

In the waltz, when I take you,
I have YOU…

– For the whole dance!
– For the whole dance, just you!

When this German waltz arrived,
it broke all social rules.

And it's the arms
that go around!

Don't be fooled by the plinky–plonky music!
This is dirty dancing!

And we've got this wonderful
close proximity.

This is one of the reasons
that people thought the waltz was a bit…

Yeah…

…iffy!

– I was just thinking…
– Don't think!

…of the arrangements
that I could be whispering to you!

Well, you could be telling me
all sorts of things,…

…but unfortunately there's a camera,
just six inches away!

– I advise you not to tell me now!
– [Laughter]

For polite society, this was
the Regency version of a swingers' party.

The cartoonist, Cruikshank,
made this print in 1816.

He called it,
"Waltzing, or a Peep into the Royal Brothel".

The Times called the waltz "an indecent foreign dance",…

…and drew attention to its
"voluptuous intertwining of the limbs".

Led by the Regent's Court, though,
the waltz's close embrace was gaining acceptance,…

…and such scandalous behaviour even began to penetrate
the peaceful country homes of the aristocracy!

Take this place,
Attingham Park.

A beautiful,
18th century mansion in Shropshire,…

…that got a decadent
Regency makeover.

It's a bit
of a cautionary tale,…

…about a man who indulged
a lascivious taste for luxury.

We're talking about shocking pinks,
and garish colours, and gilding aplenty!

This fan of soft furnishings was Thomas Hill, Lord Berwick,…

…a true follower
of Regency fashion.

Thomas, the 2nd Lord Berwick,
was a typical Regency "rake".

He went on the Grand Tour
in the 1790s,…

…came back with a lot of these paintings
and pieces of furniture,…

…and then he took this house,
that he'd inherited,…

…and ripped
the middle out of it.

He carried out
a major, major remodeling.

And he gave the job of making over his house
to the defining architect of the Regency.

His architect was John Nash,
and here in the picture gallery…

…you can see Nash at his most extraordinarily
inventive, its really rich, bold interior.

There's quite a few novelties here:
the glass roof, for example.

The glazing's held in place
with iron glazing bars, instead of wood.

This was all very exciting, but, unfortunately,
almost immediately it started to leak.

How very modern!

For Thomas, this house was all about displaying
his personality as a cultured gentleman.

Its curator, Sarah Kay,
has been delving into his decorative secrets.

Now, it strikes me that it's very PINK in here.
Is this normal for a regency MAN's study?

People are not expecting to see pink in here.
We've got, as you can see,…

…sumptuous lavish use
of pink in the curtains.

And we have to explain to people that pink
was not an exclusively feminine color by any means.

It was just another lavish,
opulent statement about yourself.

So, what we're seeing here,
is the room as it was in 1813.

That's right, yes.
With all his…

…– Regency –…

…bright, bold,
lavish, opulent colours.

Do you like it?
Heh, heh!

It's,… it,…
Well, you can see it's making me smile.

I think it's great fun.

I think it's very challenging
for us today.

But I think what it does is…
is really create this…

…impressive, bold, "sock–it–to–you"… impression,
and that is what the second Lord Berwick wanted to do!

Umm,… And he expressed it in the way he furnished
this room, and this room is the heart of his suite…

…of spaces in the house, so he needed
to make a big impression in here.

And he did!

Thomas had another passion,
as well as interior decorating.

He was in love
with a teenaged courtesan named Sophia.

And this amazing monkey music box
is a gift that he got for her!

Sophia was actually
a bit of a luxury commodity in her own right.

Her big sister was
the famous Harriette Wilson,…

…the high–class prostitute patronized
by Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, etc.

And, like her sister,
Sophia was hot property in the Regent's circle.

She needed some persuasion
to give it all up to marry Thomas.

She held out on him for some time,
although he bought her a house in London to live in,…

…while he was
doing up Attingham Park.

He asked her to marry him several times.
Eventually, she said yes in 1812,…

…when he was 43,
and she was… 17!.

This music box is supposed to be
THE gift that swayed her,…

…which is a little bit creepy!

Thomas and Sophia
were shunned by polite society,…

…so they retreated to their beautiful house,
still splurging on paintings and furniture.

Lord Berwick's finances couldn't keep up
with all of this extravagance!

In 1827 he was declared bankrupt,
and he had to retire ignominiously to Italy.

For people outside
the Regent's charmed circle,…

…it must have seemed
that Lord Berwick got what he deserved.

He really did live
in a different world!

One where waltzing, and courtesans,
and fancy furnishings were normal.

The top tier, that included the Regent,
English courtiers, and peers like Lord Berwick,…

…contained, according to one Regency writer,
just 576 families.

In contrast, more than half of the rest
of the population were paupers or vagrants!

But there was a middle way: …

…a small but growing class
of respectable people,…!

…who might have lived
in houses like this!

This isn't the sort of place
where anyone waltzes.

It's the modest home
of a particular heroine of mine!

We think the Regency is all
about colour, and life, and vibrancy,…

…but there's another side
to its style as well.

Simple,…

…country…

…dwelling people,
like Jane Austen.

Stitching away…

…at various sorts of austere garments,
like this nice little shawl,…

…which is said
to have been sewn…

…by Jane Austen herself!

In her novels, Jane Austen
gives us the voice of the middling sort.

Not poor,
but definitely lacking money to burn.

She didn't spend all of her time in the country
doing embroidery, of course.

In fact, she even experienced
the Regent's extravagant world first hand!

In 1815, Jane Austen
visited Carlton House!

She was invited there by the Regent himself,
who was a big fan of her novels.

She didn't actually meet him face to face,
but he did make his mark on her next book.

This is the first edition
of her new novel, "Emma".

And she'd been "invited"
to dedicate it to the Prince Regent.

The first draft of her dedication
is really funny. It says:

"Dedicated by permission
to HRH the Prince Regent."

But Jane's publisher, John Murray – perhaps wisely –
suggested that she pep it up a bit.

So, what was actually printed was: …

"To his Royal Highness,
the Prince Regent."

"This work is, by his Royal Highness's permission,
most respectfully dedicated…"

"…by his Royal Highness's dutiful
and obedient humble servant, the author."

It's ironic that poor Jane
was made to include this,…

…given her well–recorded views
on the Prince Regent!

A couple of years before,…

…she'd written to a friend about her support
of his estranged wife, Princess Caroline.

"Poor woman!",
Jane had written.

"I shall support her
as long as I can!"

"Because she IS a woman,…!"

"…and because
I HATE her husband!"

The Regent's open separation from his wife Caroline,
and his parading of a series of mistresses,…

…made him hugely unpopular
with the more proper middle classes,…

…not least with Jane.

Although we often think of her books
as a bit apolitical, full of romance and nice dresses,…

…her disapproving views about the morals
of upper–class society are very much on show.

The Prince Regent may have been a big fan
of Jane Austen's works, but if he'd read them properly,…

…he might have noticed that she gave
people like him a pretty hard time.

In Mansfield Park,
the villain, Henry Crawford,…

…has quite a lot in common
with the Prince Regent.

"He'd been ruined by bad examples",
said to him.

He had an uncle
who openly kept a mistress.

"He was superficially very charming,
but this disguised a cold-blooded vanity".

And, just like the Prince Regent, he was addicted
to remodeling perfectly good houses.

He wanted
to knock them about,…

…and alter them in line with fashionable,
but frivolous, ideas of ornament and beauty.

For Jane, people's houses tell you
an awful lot about their attitude to life.

And in her final work,
she fires a kind of parting shot…

…at some Regency trends
in property development.

In 1817, Jane Austen wrote 12 chapters
of quite an unusual book.

She was very ill at the time.
She would die later the same year, and never finish it.

But it's not what you'd expect
a dying woman to write.

It's not about
melancholy, or longing.

It's about the very British folly
of property speculation.

It's the satire of Britain
in the years following the battle of Waterloo,…

…and it's set in the fictional seaside village
called "Sanditon".

We meet the comical Mr. Parker, a man obsessed
with building up his quiet seaside hamlet…

…into a fashionable resort.

He wasn't alone.

New seaside resorts were springing up
all along the coast in the Regency,…

…with houses for middle–class tourists
who wanted to try the health trend of sea bathing.

In Sanditon, Mr. Parker has traded in
his honest old family home…

…for a flimsy fashionable residence,
exposed to the biting sea breezes.

He's called it Trafalgar House, although now he regrets
not calling it after the more up–to–date battle of Waterloo.

His quest for modernity
is, clearly, more than a little bit ridiculous.

Now, you MAY personally agree with Jane that old–fashioned
houses and old–fashioned values are worth preserving,…

…or you might be
a modernizer, like Mr. Parker.

Either way, what you see in the story of Sanditon
are the preoccupations of Regency Britain.

It was a country
intending to transform itself,…

…but also
to chase after a profit.

The years after Waterloo
saw a boom in house building.

Property speculators spread their stucco–clad tentacles
anywhere that people might want to visit.

Not just the seaside!

Spa towns
were another nice little earner.

There's one that really sums up
the Regency building craze.

It's not the long–established spas
of Bath or of Cheltenham.

Now, in the 1810s,
there was a new spa on the rise.

This is a guidebook
to Regency Leamington Spa.

Leamington had been
a little village,…

…but in the Regency period it burst into life
as this new spa town.

Between 1811 and 1820,
its population quadrupled!

The guidebook says
that this terrace of houses behind me…

…looked as if an invisible hand
had picked it up from a smart part of London,…

…and dropped it
here in the fields.

There were all the features you'd expect
from a Regency new build.

Stucco facades,
and big windows!

Lots of classical details: …

…these wrought iron balconies
and plenty of columns!

The private speculators
who built Leamington…

…threw up grand town houses, available to rent,
next door to the village's original cottages.

This was Leamington's very own Parthenon,
not a particularly Greek one.

It housed a library and assembly rooms
where you could pick up an improving book,…

…meet new people,…

…maybe indulge in a bit
of old-fashioned dancing.

Leamington had one of the largest hotels
in Europe: it had a hundred rooms!

But only one bathroom!

Oh, and parking
for 100 carriages!

One of the most spacious, splendid,
and complete hotels in the kingdom!

But, of course, the main attraction
in any aspiring spa town was the water!

The mineral properties of the water
are supposed to be excellent here,…

…much better than those at Cheltenham
– that's very important!

And the diseases which they're supposed
to be particularly good for, include…

…tumours,…

…piles,…

…diseases of the kidneys,…

…ah, ha, ha…!

…intestinal worms,…

…and, above all,…!

…obstinate constipation!

The pump room and baths, where visitors paid
to take the water, opened in 1814.

Now, the lucky Leamington residents
get it for free!

Here we go!

Huh!

That's really quite nasty!

It tastes like…

…Alka–Seltzer, I think.
I don't…

…know if I could
manage half a pint.

And I'm a bit worried now
that it really is going to relax the bowels!

Fortunately, this was JUST
what the Regency tourists were after,…

…and Leamington
did very nicely for a while!

But then, spa towns
went out of fashion,…!

…and when the profits dried up,
Leamington was left with a few oddities!

The Regency property boom
didn't last all that long in Leamington Spa,…

…and when it was over,
some projects got left unfinished.

This… was supposed to be
one of those long and curving Regency terraces.

They did this end that you can see,
and down there…

…they've also put in
the other end!

But they didn't get around
to filling in the middle!

So that's why – later on –,
the gap was filled with these Victorian villas.

Grand schemes for town planning
didn't always work out quite as intended.

In London, another
incredibly ambitious project was underway,…

…which would really capture the taste
and aspirations of the Regent and his country.

It all began
with a farm in Marylebone.

Up until 1811, this whole area
was covered with cowsheds.

But then the lease ended, and the Prince Regent
took the farmland here back into his own management.

And now, his Government started
a really visionary piece of urban planning.

They created
a great new city park here,…

…and they also constructed
a big new grand road, a mile long,…

…right through the heart of London.

The park became
Regent's Park,…

…and the new road,
Regent Street,…!

…London's first grand boulevard,
30 yards wide,…

…slicing through the small,
tangled streets of Soho,…

…and linking the park
straight to the Prince Regent's front door,…

…at Carlton House.

This ceremonial route would allow the Regent
– as he put it – to eclipse Napoleon!

A sign that London
could equal Paris, or Rome!

The brain behind it all
was the Regent's architect, John Nash.

First, he had to design
the grand urban park,…

…surrounded
by terraces like this one,…

…Cumberland Terrace,
with its monumental Greek theme.

This is John Nash
at his most theatrical!

Some people
have laughed at this terrace, because…

…there's nothing
behind that pointed pediment,…

…and the plaster statues
don't bear the closest of scrutinies.

But, actually, he's done
something quite remarkable here.

He's taken what could be
just a bog???? standard row of terrace houses,…

…and he's turned them
into a gigantic palace!

Nash wanted men of rank
and fortune to live here,…

…creating the sort of exclusive neighbourhood
that would bring in plenty of cash for the Crown.

And these people needed an easy link
to the Court and the Regent.

So, this is where it starts!

The wealthy new tenants stepped
from Park Crescent onto Portland Place,…

…already one of the best addresses in London,
on their way to the wonders of Regent Street.

Actually, before Nash had even properly begun,
he'd already run into problems.

This is John Nash,…

…and I'm not sure
he would have been delighted…

…to end up just here,…

…because this part of Regent Street
gave him terrible trouble.

He wanted to come
in a straight line, down from the park,…

…but the man who lived just there,
called Sir James Langham,…

…he didn't want the new road
going too close to his garden.

So he bought up land,
forcing Nash to divert the line of the road.

He ended up
with this bend,…

…but…!

…Nash made the best of a bad job!

He designed
this church, All Souls,…

…to deal
with the inconvenient bend.

It has a unique round portico,
making the whole church a kind of pivot point.

Characteristically,
Nash completely ignored the rules.

He mixed different sorts of column,
and put a weird pointy tower…

…where by rights
there should have been a dome.

This cartoon
mocks the national taste,…

…and the creator of a church that one MP called
"a deplorable and horrible object".

But Nash was always
better at the big picture than the detail.

Once the spiritual needs of our wealthy
Regent's Park residents was satisfied,…

…it was off across Oxford Circus
to the pleasures of shopping.

There weren't any
grand public buildings here.

The Government
didn't want to waste the cash.

In fact the whole thing is a perfect example
of a public–private partnership.

The Government paid
for the compulsory purchase of the land.

Private builders put up the buildings,
and everybody made money.

Nash was really clever in picking this particular line
for Regent Street, because it marks the boundary…

…between the fashionable area
of Mayfair, over here,…

…where the nobility live,…

…and the mean streets of Soho,
which are inhabited by…

…so–called "mechanics",
and poorer people.

This means that the wealthy residents of Mayfair can get
to the shops without going outside their own zone,…

…and it also meant that the cheap land,
over there, increased massively in value.

So the line of Regent Street
marks the line of maximum profit!

Nash saw this as a place
for the Regency elite to socialise.

He pictured
the leisured classes window shopping,…

…and buying the latest styles
inspired by the Regent.

Here, on the curved quadrant,
there were once colonnades,…!

…so that the rich could shop
even on rainy days!

And above the shops,
there were terraces,…

…where dandy bachelors
renting the upper floors could loiter,…

…and chat to passers–by
in their carriages.

Then, after all the shops,
you'd reach Piccadilly Circus,…

…take a sharp bend, and then
it's about the proud victorious nation again,…!

…with a dramatic straight approach,
down towards the new Waterloo Place!

Regent Street, Britain's grandest road,
taking you to the Regent himself, in Carlton House!

Except it doesn't!

Today, when you reach Waterloo Place,
there's no Carlton House.

Just a square,
full of later monuments and parked cars.

So, what did happen
to Carlton House?

Was it destroyed in a fire?

Was it demolished years later?

Well,… no!

Nash's grand finale
to his grand street,…!

…the obsession of the Prince Regent
for so many years,…!

…was destroyed
by George himself!

And the reason's
just over there.

Buckingham Palace,
George's new obsession!

Typical of George!

They built the grandest street in Europe
to his house, but he was bored with it!

He didn't really like
living on a street.

In 1820, the Regent became
King George IV!

And he commissioned Nash
to create a spectacular new palace.

As usual, though, Nash's design
went a bit over budget.

So, to help pay for it all, they pulled down
Carlton House, and developed the land.

Nash put up gentlemen's clubs
and exclusive new houses…

…where Carlton House had been.

All very nice, but not really what you'd expect
at the end of a ceremonial route.

In the end, though, perhaps it doesn't really matter
that Regent Street is a bit of a road to nowhere.

Regent Street was
a hugely ambitious piece of urban design,…

…and it was built at a time
when London had the self–confidence…

…to try to rival
Paris or Rome.

But Regent Street also sums up
a very Regency sense of britishness.

With unfinished Parthenons
and demolished palaces,…

…Regency architecture can sometimes feel
like a crazy experiment that didn't quite work.

But, because this was a style
that was so ambitious,…

…the surviving buildings
of the Regency…

…have proved to be
the greatest legacy of the age!

Next time: …!

The workers are revolting!

As Regency arrogance and excess
pushes Britain to the very edge of revolution!

And the Regent has to face down
a coalition of radicals, luddites, and angry poets!

Even his own wife
has it in for him!