The Country House Revealed (2011) s01e06 Episode Script
Episode 6
DAN CRUIKSHANK: Our great country houses, the most familiar and yet intriguing sights Britain has to offer, standing like sentinels in the landscape.
Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are open to the public.
I have been granted the privileged opportunity to pass through the portals of six of our greatest country houses normally hidden from public view.
They've seen five centuries of British history, up close and personal.
The families who built these houses played their part in great affairs of state.
Central to their dreams, the great house, the ultimate status symbol.
But all too often, also the ultimate money drainer.
Few of these families went the distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact.
This is their story, but it's also our story, for these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history.
I'm on my way to see a house that represents a dramatic break with 500 years of country house tradition.
It was designed by one of Britain's greatest ever architects for a man who embodied the spirit of the new age, the new money, the new elite.
Together they created a masterpiece as a summary of a golden age.
The last hurrah for life in the English country house.
It's an Edwardian gem buried away in the depths of the Hampshire countryside.
In fact, this twisting private driveway was specially created to build up the suspense of finding it.
But at last, here it is, the gleaming apparition in white.
This is Marsh Court.
A country house like no other before or since.
Dreamed up by the visionary architect, Edwin Lutyens.
Wow.
Extraordinary.
Instantly magical.
Marsh Court seems the very embodiment of the optimism of Edwardian Britain.
It's an early 20th century masterpiece and its sleek white walls make it look so modern.
It's a building for now, looking to the future.
When it was completed in 1904, it was just about the most up-to-the-minute country house of the age.
The very height of modernity.
But Lutyens packed it with witty references to older architectural styles - Tudor brick chimneys, a Mediterranean pergola, a secret sunken garden with an Indian-style fishpond.
There are surprises at every turn.
For in keeping with the buoyant spirit of Edwardian Britain, this was a house designed first and foremost, for fun.
The man who commissioned this house was, like his architect, a wayward and playful character.
And something of the flamboyance of his nature is enshrined in most explicit manner in the very fabric of the house in this splendid porch.
Because above the door, written in Latin, is a motto that proclaims happiness on all who enter.
Let's see.
Straightaway, it feels joyful and uplifting.
A temple to indulgence.
My word, these are rich and lavish spaces.
Look at these granite columns, the carved frieze, the wonderful joinery.
But this is no ordinary or conventional country house.
Traditionally, Britain's country homes were also businesses.
Their upkeep was financed by profits made from the land they stood on from rent or farming.
This place turned that idea on its head.
The money used to build Marsh Court was amassed in a very modern manner, in the City of London through the stock market.
So, it was a house that was built and sustained from money made off-site.
It wasn't a working house, wasn't part of the local economy, it wasn't a generator of money.
It was an escape from work, a place where you could come to, kick back, relax.
A place of pleasure.
The man who commissioned this decadent weekend getaway was a wildly successful high-flying bachelor named Herbert Johnson, "Johnnie" to his chums.
(HONKING) Johnnie's life was emblematic of the social mobility of the age, for like many Edwardian gentlemen, he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
His wealth was self-made through determination and risk-taking.
In 1873, aged 17, he arrived in London, hell-bent on making a fortune.
As luck would have it, he possessed an almost superhuman facility with numbers.
The stock exchange beckoned.
He started low, filling brokers' ink stands for £50 a year.
But he quickly rose to become a stock jobber.
It was a case of right place, right time.
The City was a gateway to prestige and prosperity, as historian Ranald Michie knows.
It was the world's most important stock exchange, bigger than Paris, bigger than New York.
It had about five times more members than the New York Stock Exchange.
- It grew from about 800 members - Yes.
in about mid-1850s to about 5,500 by the First World War.
Your man Herbert Johnson was the type of person who really came to the fore in the City.
There was no establishment in the City.
If you could make money you rose to the top because people respected you.
The City operated with its own moral code, and that moral code was money.
And, of course, Johnnie was a stock jobber.
Can you tell me what a stock jobber did and what status did they enjoy? They were men on the make.
A stock broker was a slightly, slightly more respectable person than a stock jobber.
A stock jobber was referred to, say at the time of the South Sea Bubble, as vermin.
- Vermin? - Vermin.
Poor old Johnnie.
They were dealers.
They were intermediaries.
They dealt between one broker and another and they just stood there.
At the end of the day, they'd either made money or they'd lost money.
But Johnnie was no ordinary stock jobber.
He had a secret weapon up his sleeve that made him rich, not just quick but super-quick.
By the age of 21, Johnnie was already a City high-flyer.
It was partly because he'd invented investment tables, a sort of ready reckoner, that helped him calculate losses and gains in the value of shares by volume of stock.
This gave him an edge in a marketplace where speed of decision-making, knowing when to buy and sell shares, was of the essence.
(STOCK BROKERS NEGOTIATING) In a way, he was the human version of the people that program computers today and do algorithmic trading.
The foreign exchange market in London turns over four trillion dollars a day doing this today.
He was doing that equivalent a hundred years ago using his ready reckoner in his hand.
Johnnie was on a roll.
Year after year the money piled up.
By 1900, his relentless wheeling and dealing had earned him an unbelievable fortune, the equivalent in today's value of £29 million.
His escape from the mayhem of City trading was fishing.
When a large estate close to Britain's finest trout river, the Test, came up for auction, Johnnie hooked it straightaway.
Now in his 40s, like so many nouveau riche Edwardians, he needed that ultimate status symbol, a brand-new country house.
And where better for a city slicker to find the hottest architect in town, than in the pages of the new Edwardian style bible, Country Life.
- It was founded by a man called Hudson.
- Yeah.
Edward Hudson, and he was not a countryman, he was really a townie.
He had a magazine called Racing Illustrated, which was a bit of a flop, and he rolled that into his new idea which was Country Life Illustrated.
The illustrated part was quite important because there was this new technology for printing photographs and that's really what it was all about.
So, in a sense it was always about showing people who aspire to, to country living, what country living was about.
ASLET: Yes.
And if you took Country Life, then you would know everything about the country and you could adopt this way of life which everybody thought was rather desirable.
In Country Life there was, of course, one architect promoted above all other architects of the era and that was Lutyens.
And Lutyens' houses appear on a regular basis in the magazine and also, of course, Hudson used him as his own architect what, three times, three houses? - Yes, he did.
- He had three houses.
ASLET: And the offices of Country Life.
And he thought, well, he was right of course, he thought he was a genius and so he would boom in the language of the day.
Boom! Lutyens in the magazine.
- Booming.
- Boom was the word he used.
So, that was, that was the PR of the day.
And certainly one or two clients came directly from the pages of Country Life.
- They'd say, "I want one like that.
" - Do you reckon that Herbert Johnson could have been flicking through Country Life about 1900 and seen Lutyens' house? I think it's entirely possible - that he encountered - Yeah.
Lutyens through Country Life.
Herbert Johnson was a fisherman.
He would have loved the world of Country Life.
That would have been his world, or certainly the world that he wanted to be part of.
But also, of course, Marsh Court was something different.
Marsh Court has this strong flavour of romance, this white house shimmering on a hill above the Test.
Genius.
But the romantic nature of Marsh Court is no happy accident.
The inspiration for Lutyens'greatest creation so far was, indeed, love.
For Johnnie's ideal home was commissioned hot on the tails of Lutyens' marriage in 1897 to Emily Lytton.
To find out how their complicated relationship influenced this building, I'm meeting Lutyens' great-granddaughter, Jane Ridley.
His father was a painter.
Ned was the 11 th of 14 and he was terribly ashamed of his background and embarrassed by all his relations.
And on the other hand, Emily was the daughter of the viceroy of India and all that, so her family, at first, were unhappy about the idea that she was marrying a, you know, a young architect.
And this drove him to really work and to get as much money as he could to prove himself.
When she agreed to marry him, he gave her this casket which he'd designed.
And on it, it says here, E-L, Edwin Lutyens and RIDLEY: And Emily Lytton.
So they shared initials.
And can I open it, this - Yes.
Yes, of course.
- Oh.
Now, it's full of things.
This is a mini cabinet of curiosity, isn't it? So There are all these objects that he designed, put in these little compartments to symbolise various things of, about their life together.
So we've got there an anchor, which is a symbol of hope.
And then there's this tiny little book.
- He wrote a poem that nobody can read.
- Oh, Lord! How fantastic! It's sort of handwritten in a scrawl and tiny! Isn't that charming? - And then right at the bottom - Ah.
of these, of these drawers, these compartments, there was rolled up two scrolls of plans.
And this was the plan for what he called the "little white house".
The house that they were going to build together and that they were going to live in and be happily ever after.
- When he had the money and all that.
- When he had the money.
But, of course, the sort of tragedy is that they never built this house, and that they never lived in a house that he built, in fact.
It's amazing, of course, 'cause it looks instantly like Marsh Court.
I mean - It's extraordinary, isn't it? - Yeah.
And so, in 1901,just a few years into a marriage already under strain, Lutyens started to build the house of his dreams, not for Emily but for Johnnie.
The fairytale white house with the red roof became Marsh Court.
RIDLEY: Emily was a very unconventional person, but the trouble was that Ned wanted a conventional marriage.
She had quite a strong Bohemian streak and Ned couldn't bear this.
In a way it's rather sad.
I mean, you know, the dream house for Emily is - in the box.
- Yes.
Doesn't come out of the box, in the casket.
And yet he's able to project this dream into a completely different relationship - for a very different character.
- Yes.
You know, very red-blooded, alpha male, sort of outdoors person.
- Yes, yes.
- Quite different from the intellectual, slightly difficult Emily.
And to make this amazing house.
Right from the start, Lutyens and Johnnie clicked.
They were kindred spirits.
Two restless, high-achieving men's men, full of ambition, egging each other on.
In Johnson, Lutyens met the perfect client.
A modern man, bold, a risk-taker with money.
And Johnson's choice of site also played a key role in the creation of Marsh Court because the house is built on what is essentially a mound of chalk.
And Lutyens' determination to use material from the ground in the construction of the house means that the famous white walls of Marsh Court are, in fact, blocks of chalk.
If I rub my fingers along them I get covered in chalk dust.
Incredible.
This makes visiting Marsh Court, oh dear, a rather dirty business.
Chalk is, quite literally, the bedrock of Marsh Court, as its current estate manager, Neil Simpson, is hopefully going to prove.
Now we're getting That's a nice bit of chalk coming up, isn't it? - And it's pure white.
- There's eight inches of topsoil, some flint, and then you hit - A chalk layer.
- Chalk layer.
And how far are we, from your experience, working round here, - how deep is that chalk strata? - I've never got to the end of it.
- Right.
- I've done many holes and moving of soil and I've never got beyond the chalk layer.
Could we dig a little bit more? Just interested to see what if that's not too hard work.
So, what do you think of chalk - as a building material? - As a building material? I wouldn't build my house out of it.
- Soft.
- Yes.
- Prone to damp.
- And corrosive.
There you go, yeah.
And that's the chalk from which the house is built.
Break it.
Startlingly white.
I mean, I'd have thought when this was being discussed, you know, Lutyens comes up with this kind of outlandish idea of building a house of chalk, you'd say, you'd think the client would say, "Great idea, but come on, you know, it won't last!" That's everyone's reaction.
How has it lasted? - Yeah.
- Why has it lasted? But it, it's still there.
It's still standing.
Lutyens' unique sea of chalk announced, at first sight, this was a house like no other.
And that's exactly what Johnnie wanted.
Marsh Court needed to be the talk of the town.
For, like so many new moneyed Edwardians, his house wasn't just about flashing his cash, it was an arena for social climbing and gaining stature, as historian Juliet Gardiner explains.
GARDINER: Herbert Johnson absolutely typifies a new Edwardian breed, a new elite.
There's the phrase, isn't it? They made their millions in town and they spent them in the country.
If you were new money and you were really breaking in to society, the plutocrats, those who got power through having money, through having wealth, they wanted to be country gentlemen.
And that's where the money was being spent, it was being spent on houses.
Edward VII really set the pattern, set the model, for the plutocracy, because, of course, up to then, on the whole, the royal family had mixed among their own.
Now, Edward VII, who was always in need of money, of course, made friends among new money.
Somehow money would be able to buy you position, status, respectability.
And if you had a house, a beautiful house, then that was the container for all that, for that social status.
Marsh Court became a magnet for lords, ladies and indeed even royalty.
Johnnie wanted their visits to be unforgettable experiences from the very moment they arrived.
So, the ever-inventive Lutyens teamed up with his favourite garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, to make his friend's wish come true.
Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll created a theatrical architectural promenade around the house.
They used the fall of the land to form terraces and sunken courtyards that offer unexpected views of the house and dramatic vistas over the landscape.
And in a most wonderful way they created different textures on the path, like here - there's brick, there's stone, there's grass, adding an extra sensation to the journey around the house.
And what a sensation.
Taking Johnnie's guests on a magical mystery tour into the unknown, twisting and turning through walls and hedges.
And so, of course, the perfect place for a party with revellers spilling from the house.
I can imagine the Prince of Wales nestling down somewhere here with a cocktail.
Finally, they would arrive at the visitors entrance.
A sunlit paradise, one of the most arresting sights in the English landscape.
In keeping with the inventive originality of Marsh Court, indeed as a monument to Lutyens' endless quest for architectural surprise, the rear, or garden elevation, is more dramatic and arresting than the apparently main entrance elevation.
I love this composition, with the great bay windows on my left tottering as if on the edge of a precipice.
It is really a wonderful design.
Certainly no king or prince could fail to be impressed.
Indeed, be overwhelmed by a series of rooms that are the absolute height of turn-of-the-century flamboyance.
Here's the dining room.
Strange! It feels like I'm in a grand cabin of a ship.
Which I suppose is not that surprising, since the early 1900s was the golden age of Britain's ocean liners as opulent travel palaces for the super-rich, and Lutyens picked up on that nautical style.
I must say this room would have been an ornament to even the grandest of the great liners.
The walls are fully panelled and the ceiling is partly, too, with a dome in the centre.
Huh! But then there's another quality not, I suppose, intended, although, knowing Lutyens, perhaps.
I feel like I'm in a giant cigar box! And the architecture just gets better and bigger.
Straight into a room almost double the height of its neighbour.
A feast for the eye from floor to ceiling.
Again, extraordinarily lavish, but also mischievous.
It's symptomatic of Lutyens' delight in juxtaposing styles.
This truly modern house is adorned with classical carving in wood and chalk, nods to Christopher Wren in a fashion that was called at the time Renaissance.
The pick and mix approach to detailing in this room is typical of the playful spirit of the Edwardian age.
This is Marsh Court's great hall, but, in its wit and irony, like no great hall from the Middle Ages or the Tudor age.
And that really is just the point.
Here, Lutyens mixed historical styles.
In front of me is a wonderful Tudor-style bay window and then Jacobean panelling.
But he mixed these not to fool anybody into thinking this was a genuine ancient house, but really in the spirit of, I suppose, a sort of tailor, you know, taking brilliant fabric, old fabric, and making something entirely new.
And at Marsh Court the old and the new were very happy bedfellows.
Lutyens went to town not just with classical detailing, but also packed the house with most modern conveniences.
Ingenious air vent central heating, luxury tiled bathrooms and his own specially designed electric lighting throughout.
It all added up to a domestic paradise, where Johnnie could offer the most lavish hospitality to the most beautiful people.
RIDLEY: It was a very, very glamorous life.
Herbert Johnson liked to have weekend parties, only of course they weren't called weekend parties 'cause that was rather vulgar.
That suggested you had to go to work on a Monday.
He invited guests.
The smarter the guest, the better.
Obviously, there would have been financiers, people from the City.
I think there would have been an impetus to import some sort of social butterflies, as it were, you know some rather beautiful women, and some people with some artistic pretensions or literary pretensions to keep things amused.
And, of course, you know, see how high up the ladder you could go.
You know, you rather were on display.
You were expected to do a wide range of things.
To entertain.
Absolutely.
RIDLEY: You were expected to be amusing at dinner, you were expected to be extremely well dressed, you were expected to be something of a sportsman.
And then, of course, we mustn't ever forget the bed hopping The bed hopping? (LAUGHS) which probably also went on.
Whether bed hopping went on at Marsh Court or not, I don't know.
CRUIKSHANK: Johnnie was now firmly established as the lord of his manor, entertaining on a royal scale.
But, at heart, he was still a man's man through and through.
With a special den to prove it.
I sense I'm entering a male preserve, the main, if not only masculine playroom in any Edwardian country house was the billiard room.
Johnnie would have spent hours here.
Indeed, in many ways, this would have been the centre of his life while at Marsh Court, would have been a lot of heavy drinking.
Indeed, there was a story.
The Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, got so drunk, he passed out on this billiard table! Oh dear, what was to be done? Well, servants were summoned and the unconscious Prince was carried up the stairs over there into the nearest bedroom which, of course, has ever since been called the Prince of Wales Room.
Being Marsh Court, this is no ordinary billiard table.
The plinth is made out of chalk, emblematic material of the house.
Which is very convenient because if I need to chalk the end of my cue, all I do is run it along here.
Naughty, but it does the job.
Like all of Marsh Court's great rooms, this space is fantastically theatrical.
And perhaps it's no mere coincidence that in 1904, as Johnnie's playground was taking shape, Lutyens was also designing the stage sets for his friend J.
M.
Barrie's new play, Peter Pan! Johnnie and Ned, as they affectionately called each other, had a close relationship.
As in Peter Pan, they were, I suppose, rather like the lost boys who simply didn't want to grow up.
Two chaps of like mind.
And, indeed, I have here a poem written by Lutyens, Ned, to his good friend Johnnie.
It's a lovely little poem inspired by drink, no doubt.
Lutyens writes, "I friend - drink to thee friend "and my friend drink to me" At which point I am sure they would have charged each other's glasses and drunk.
Mmm! And then Lutyens says, "And the more we drink together "the merrier we shall be!" That's the sort of friend you need to have.
And so, for Johnnie and Ned, this house was a boy's own fantasy made real.
Despite a bevy of staff - a butler, housekeeper, cook, two footmen and seven maids - Marsh Court was essentially Johnnie's bachelor pad.
Until, that is, he fell in love.
Now retired from the stock market, in December 1912, aged 56, the confirmed bachelor finally married.
The woman of his choice was named Violet Charlotte Meeking.
And she, with her two teenage daughters, Viola and Finola, moved in to Marsh Court.
Violet was a society lady with ancestry right back to Edward III.
But she knew how to live it up like the best of them.
And so she was Johnnie's dream catch, sporty and exuberant.
They both believed in having a good time, all the time.
But only 18 months into their marriage, the party came to a dramatic halt, as the countryside at play gave way to a nation at war.
All over Britain, casualties were returning from the front.
Many country homes became places of refuge and recuperation.
But Johnnie didn't just have a big house, he had a big heart.
As did Violet.
Together, they transformed the Marsh Court estate into a troop hospital.
To find out just how much the Johnsons contributed to the war effort, I'm meeting local historian Mary Pollock.
I think they had caring natures.
Both Herbert and Violet are what I would have called in the old term, God, King and country people.
And Violet, of course, her first husband had been a soldier, he died in service, and so I think perhaps she had a special relationship with soldiers, she could understand them.
Johnnie met all the expenses and Violet, of course, became involved in the running of the hospital.
- She had no medical training as such.
- As far as I know she hadn't.
But she was a very competent woman and a brilliant organiser and I think the Red Cross felt very lucky to have her.
Violet believed that part of the recovery programme was to be active, - take part in sports and games.
- That's right, sport, and of course, loving care.
- Oh, very much so.
- These men had been through terrible experiences, hadn't they? I mean, the soldiers thought she was wonderful, as she must have had a great gift for talking and listening to people.
They called her the War Mother.
And Violet did, you know, receive the MBE from the King.
I have always been rather surprised that Johnnie didn't receive anything, but maybe he didn't want anything.
You know, maybe he just wanted to do it quietly.
- Interesting that, isn't it? - Yes.
Maybe he was offered it and said, "Give it to my wife.
" - Yes.
Yes.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
The Great War was shattering.
By the time the last soldier left Marsh Court, close to 900,000 Britons had lost their lives.
It had cost the country over £9 billion.
The economy was in dire straits and Johnnie was one of its many victims.
His investments tumbled.
Financing a hospital had seriously depleted his coffers.
Dark days at Marsh Court.
But there was even worse to come.
In October 1921, after only nine years of marriage, his beloved Violet died suddenly of encephalitis lethargica, "sleepy sickness'", a devastating illness that swept through the world in the '20s.
An obituary in the Hampshire Chronicle.
It's very long, two full columns.
"The announcement of the death of Mrs Herbert Johnson of Marsh Court, "Stockbridge, awakened the most profound sympathy "throughout the county for Mr Herbert Johnson.
" It talks here of her "ceaseless activity "in many good causes and above all her cheerful and lovable disposition.
" There's a great list of people offering condolences.
And they include the King, the Queen and Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal.
In his darkest hour, who else would Johnnie turn to but his great friend, Ned.
Lutyens designed a memorial cross for Violet, rising proud in this humble village cemetery.
There was a bitter twist to this sorry tale.
When, two years earlier, Johnson gave his land to the town for use as a cemetery, little did he realise his wife's body would be the first to be buried here.
Marriage to Violet, and the war, had changed Johnnie.
The former party animal had become a philanthropist and respected member of Britain's new moneyed ruling class, a county councillor, the sheriff of Hampshire, and high sheriff of the county of Southampton.
Like so many of the newly wealthy who wanted to root themselves firmly in society, become part of the firmament of the British establishment, Johnson, in 1920, acquired a coat of arms.
Here it is, a rather wonderful thing.
It shows a cockerel covered in what looks like golden guineas.
Most appropriate.
On the shield is an image of the sun.
And below there is a motto, "Come on".
The sentiment may be more appropriate to a football pitch than the Hampshire countryside, yet it does capture, of course, Johnson's energy and enthusiasm.
"Come on" became a rallying cry for Johnnie, who was determined to show that you couldn't keep a good chap down.
Now in his 60s, a widower with little more to lose, he set out to rebuild his fortune by taking high-risk gambles on the global shares market.
And it worked! He was back in the game.
The generous big-spender had oodles more cash and he lavished it on his greatest passion, sport.
Countless thousands went on cricket tournaments, shooting trips to Scotland, and that ultimate upper-class sport, foxhunting.
Indeed, Johnnie had risen so high in Hampshire society, he'd become master of the Hursley Hunt.
To get a sense of those bygone days, I'm joining in an actual Hursley Hunt.
It's still very much active, if somewhat less bloodthirsty today.
- The Hursley was founded in 1836.
- Yes.
And it really relied very much on very generous landowners or owners of big houses, for instance Marsh Court where you're - Yeah.
Yeah.
dealing with Mr Johnson.
In fact, Herbert Johnson was unbelievably generous.
He did three short Masterships between - I think 1916, I think, and 1930.
- Yes.
He often picked up the cost of the Hunt.
All he took back was the subscriptions - that were paid by the members.
- That's fascinating.
Maybe in those days, of course, it perhaps was almost expected of you.
Probably if you did own a fairly large establishment or a fairly large piece of country, it was looked upon that you might take on the Hunt.
- Yah! - Yes! - (SPURRING ON HORSE) - CRUIKSHANK: And off they go! Since foxhunting was banned, what now happens is that the hounds chase a specially laid trail that mimics the animal's scent.
I'm waiting at a designated spot where the hunt will pass - with all the thrill of the chase.
- (HORNS BLOWING) Except it doesn't quite work out that way.
Hold on! With an irony that japester Johnnie would have found hilarious, an actual fox manages to have the last laugh.
The Hursley Hunt has to be diverted, Thwarted! It's not very wet there.
But I've got my sights on a bigger catch.
In the '20s, the romance of big game hunting in far-flung corners of the empire prompted the super-rich to set off on adventures of a lifetime.
Going on safari was the ultimate badge of aristocratic privilege.
Naturally, Johnnie was in there, if you'll pardon the pun, like a shot.
The British colonial government profited from big game hunting by selling intrepid adventurers a licence to kill.
For example, a £50 licence in British East Africa allowed the huntsman to kill a whole variety of animals, including two hippos, two buffalos, 22 zebra and an unlimited number of lions and leopards.
I've come to Eastnor castle in Worcestershire to see evidence of Johnnie's enormous hunting prowess, part of a treasure trove of Marsh Court memorabilia kept by his step-daughter Finola and now preserved by her grandson James Hervey-Bathurst.
What do we have? Obviously I can see photograph albums, individual photographs.
But first, though, is this an album of kills, obviously Africa.
Yeah, this is an African elephant.
Presumably in the '20s, I'm just guessing.
- I think, I think so, yeah.
- Gosh! Nowadays, these things people don't like to do it.
- But this was - (LAUGHS) No.
I'm afraid in those days, of course, that's what people did, you know.
It's funny, indeed, those days are so recent - and the world has changed so much.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is of course - BOTH: A treasure chest.
- Yeah.
Absolutely.
- And here it is on the look out.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
What's very nice is that he's actually got all the names of the people.
Yes, he has.
And we have got a few spears but I'm not sure if it's from that expedition or not.
(LAUGHS) It's "a lion shot by H.
Johnson lying on the road.
" And here it says it's "a charging rhino shot by H.
Johnson.
" Oh, look, here's something which is wonderful, these terrific drawings of Marsh Court by Lutyens.
They are wonderful things and this is, of course, when he's contemplating adding the ballroom - Yes.
in the mid 1920s.
That's a couple of views looking up.
This is an interesting one, isn't it? "Play hall", as Lutyens playfully called the ballroom.
Very sketchy.
I suppose just little things he would have produced for Johnnie.
They'd be talking over a drink I suppose and kind of imagining it.
The fantastic one is this, isn't it? This is wonderful! - They're the animals for decoration.
- There they are.
You see they've been shot over there, and it says, "Interior proposed play hall.
E.
Lutyens.
" And here is the interior of the ballroom with a couple here in evening dress.
They look quite cheerful, they seem to be smiling, don't they? Sort of enjoying the fun.
They are happy to be shot by Johnnie Johnson and they're very, even happier to be hanging on the wall of his playroom! The playroom.
It just gives you such a little insight into his relationship with Johnnie, you know, they should perceive all of life as play, really, you know? The ballroom at Marsh Court was built in the mid 1920s as a huge extension to the main house.
It was the ultimate expression of Johnnie's hard-won second fortune.
And the final extravagant flourish of his spend, spend, spend years.
What a magnificent space! Seems almost too big to be part of a private house.
Most surprising.
More like a public building.
A town hall, perhaps.
I must say, I'm feeling rather dwarfed by it.
This room is completely steeped in grandeur.
Dominated by a monumental fireplace carved from, what else, chalk.
Along the walls, Johnnie mounted the heads of rhino and buffalo brought back from Africa.
And to crown it all, Lutyens' designed these exquisite electric light chandeliers! Johnnie held a lavish party to celebrate the completion of this room.
It was, perhaps, one of the last great parties of the roaring '20s.
He erected a vast marquee in the entrance court and all down one side was an oyster bar and waiters served champagne to the 200 guests who, in this very room, danced until dawn.
Marsh Court became, once more, the house of fun.
This was the hotspot for swinging hunt balls and lavish feasts, with Johnnie's lust for life undimmed, even though he'd recently lost an eye in a hunting accident.
To get a sense of those sun-kissed years, I'm meeting a man who actually knew Johnnie, Frank James.
I was brought up with all the stories about Johnnie's life, so I felt I knew him before I even met him.
The stories from my mother about the terrors of coming to lunch up here, going into the dining room and having a flunky, a uniformed flunky, behind every chair.
Spaghetti was served, which she'd never seen before - and didn't know how to eat.
- So, every guest had their personal sort of servant behind every chair? There was somebody behind every chair.
You were young, of course, but what personal memories do you have of him? (CHUCKLES) He had a very strong presence, as you would expect.
He gave off the idea that he wouldn't suffer fools gladly.
He didn't say a great deal, but what he did say was worth listening to.
Apart from that, he was kind.
His glass-eye was a bit off-putting to a young boy, 'cause it didn't look at you while the other eye did.
CRUIKSHANK: Obviously a man with a heart, a big heart, and philanthropy was part of his life, certainly in the First World War.
But then also juxtaposed with that is the gambling nature of his job.
Yes, I suppose to that extent he's more of a Bill Gates than he is a perhaps a traditional speculator.
Because whatever he made he put back.
- Yeah.
- I suppose that's perhaps part of his outlook, that he had been very, very fortunate and he wished to share it in as fair a way as possible - Yeah.
- Hence the philanthropy.
CRUIKSHANK: All through the '20s, Johnnie had been high on life, spending money like there was no tomorrow.
Sadly, there was.
In October 1929, the Wall Street crash shattered the global economy.
Stock prices plummeted at an unprecedented rate and once again Johnnie fell victim to uncontrollable world events.
Huge chunks of his wealth were wiped out in minutes.
He never really recovered.
In August 1931, the now enormously successful Lutyens dropped by to catch up with his old friend over dinner at Marsh Court.
The whole rather sorry-sounding evening is commemorated in one of Lutyens' most poignant letters.
He writes, here we are, "Johnnie very cordial with a glass eye.
"Not an improvement.
"Persuaded to stay the night, so I had a good go around the house.
"Johnson is in bad economic luck.
Spends no money.
"We dined in the ballroom.
"The banker Johnnie was discovered telling a footman "to lay dinner without light to save electricity.
" The costs of maintaining Marsh Court had become impossible for Johnnie to bear.
In one last desperate high-risk gamble, he borrowed money from his bank and invested it overseas in Greek bonds.
My father advised him, before the Second World War, not to try and remake his fortune with Greek bonds.
- That was his downfall, was it? - Yes.
That was his, that was his second or third downfall.
In the end he did get it wrong in a rather terminal way.
The Greeks, I think, had already defaulted two or three times by the beginning of the Second World War.
But it was a high-interest and he needed good return on what little capital he had so, seemed a good bet.
But it wasn't.
Johnnie's lucky touch was gone.
His scheme backfired disastrously.
The bonds were worthless yet he owed the bank big time.
There was no way his ready reckoner could get him out of this one.
Bankruptcy was looming when, in 1933, Lutyens visited his chum for the last time.
"The house here is shut up.
"No one but Johnnie.
This place will have to be sold.
"Johnnie said last night at dinner, 'It doesn't matter what happens to a man, 'but what does matter is how he takes it.
"' That's the true spirit of an Edwardian gentleman.
But, in the worst financial slump of the century, no one was buying country houses.
The footmen and servants were long gone.
Johnnie had no choice but to move out.
His elegant chalk palace lay empty, neglected.
By World War II, he was so broke that virtually the entire contents of Marsh Court were sold off, right down to the curtains.
JAMES: There was no bitterness about him at all, ever.
He wasn't that sort of a person.
He took misfortune and fortune with equal resolve, really.
Well, he was old, he was ill, wasn't he? - Yes, he was and blind and - Yeah.
increasingly deaf.
But my mother could still remember him taking her down into the water meadows even when he was completely blind, you know, and finding his way across a single plank bridge over the Test.
Terrified her.
(LAUGHS) But he walked across it with complete confidence.
Johnnie died on April the 2nd, 1949.
His stature as a pillar of the establishment sealed forever with a touching obituary in The Times.
"Hampshire society of the last 50 years "will feel a void by the death of Herbert Johnson, "Johnnie to his intimates.
"The great flint and chalk mansion designed by Lutyens was "the very symbol of himself "and every stone of which he loved.
" Amazing.
"Johnnie's charm was not in what he did but in what he was.
"He possessed a hatred of all that was mean, base, "or ill-natured.
"In short, as one of his servants said, 'We shall never see a Mr Johnson again, "'but we are glad we have seen him.
"' For much of his life, Johnnie had been a survivor.
So, too, was Marsh Court, but only just.
Through the course of the 20th century, a staggering 1,200 country houses were demolished in England, many of them victims of crippling taxation designed to pay for two world wars.
Marsh Court was very nearly one of them.
In 1946, only a last minute bid stopped it falling into the hands of a demolition contractor.
Its saviour was typical of the new breed of country house buyer.
They weren't looking for luxurious homes, but to turn them into schools.
In many ways, becoming a school kept the house alive.
Maintained it, kept it lived in, essentially saved it.
And also it's odd, isn't it, the arrival of a battalion of young boys into Johnnie's playboy mansion ensured that it finally became a genuine boys' own never-never land.
Marsh Court ran as a bustling boys prep school for over 40 years.
Angus Broadbent and his younger brother, Graham, are coming back to relive those heady days of sherbet and short trousers.
So, you lived here as a family, but also were pupils here - because your father was the headmaster? - That's right.
So you had an interesting two existences.
Tell me, but the atmosphere of the school in relationship to the Lutyens' building, - what was it like? - I think it was, it was joyful.
It was the most, and it is the most, remarkable building.
And when you have 120 or 150 children running around the place, it's the most amazing atmosphere.
It was a very special place.
What happened here, for example, where we're standing now? Well, this place, this was very much the nexus point because this was the tuck shop.
- The tuck shop! - This was where we kept all the sweets and twice a week, I think, on Sundays and Wednesdays Yes.
dormitory by dormitory we'd be invited to come and spend our sixpence a week or whatever it was on the sweets that we kept behind this door.
- Well, hang on, let's - What is in there? - Let's go through the - What is it now? - And the cupboard is bare.
- The cupboard is bare.
It's very bare! (LAUGHS) What we had was, we had like a trough arrangement.
And you'd lift it up over this lintel here, - you'd lift it up and pull it out.
- Right.
So it would be like a sort of market stall kind of thing.
- Of course, yeah.
- So, as you cross over that divide, it's God, it's (SNIFFING) I can still smell the sherbet in this.
(BOTH LAUGH) It's amazingly quiet.
That's the one thing you really notice now, - it's totally silent.
- Yes.
- Right.
- This would have been - Piccadilly Circus of an evening.
- Yes.
You could do a great thing, you'd run down the stairs, jump onto your dressing gown and slide as far as you could down this corridor.
- 'Course! - And it was happening many times over.
One of the joyful things about being here in the holidays was the freedom that you had to break all the school rules.
So you could go roller-skating round the entire house.
You were confined during term time to the ballroom, to the playroom, as we called it.
CRUIKSHANK: What about football and games? Football and games, we used to play football, roller-skate and play cricket.
All of that stuff happened in that room except in the holidays when we could actually sneak out and roller-skate around the whole building.
This building's unique magic was presented to children fresh.
I think in a funny kind of way the children got the full benefit of Lutyens' ambition and scope and language and light and freshness.
Coming back today is extraordinary, because we're halfway through looking around what is now, looks like a very comfortable, - a very happy private home.
- Mmm.
I'd be very happy to live here now.
It's a testament to the remarkable bond between Ned and Johnnie that somehow the house they created together has touched everyone who crossed its threshold, be they schoolboys, socialites, soldiers or the people who have lived here since it once again became a private family home.
Moving from one room to another, it just lifts you.
And the whole building, to me, leads you upwards.
CRUIKSHANK: And one thinks of it as being some kind of magical building, magical in its atmosphere.
JAMES: Certainly, personally, from the first moment I walked through the front door in 1949, Marsh Court always uplifted me every time I visited it.
It was so far removed from the ordinary world.
Marsh Court was something else again and it always will be.
Although it's little more than a hundred years old, Marsh Court is an important part of Britain's history, largely because it's such an evocative emblem of the Edwardian age.
Also, it's a vivid reminder that the riches of the Edwardian economy made possible for the wealthy to do in England what the wealthy had done here for over 500 years, make their mark in the landscape through the creation of memorable country house architecture.
The last golden age of country house building came to an end with World War I.
Marsh Court was one of the final masterpieces of a dying breed.
And, like many of the five centuries' worth of country houses that survive in Britain, remains stately, historically important and is still someone's much loved country home.
Country houses are memorials to the way we've all lived in the past.
They're a fundamentally important part of our culture.
I hope that Marsh Court and houses like this continue to endure through the ages.
Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are open to the public.
I have been granted the privileged opportunity to pass through the portals of six of our greatest country houses normally hidden from public view.
They've seen five centuries of British history, up close and personal.
The families who built these houses played their part in great affairs of state.
Central to their dreams, the great house, the ultimate status symbol.
But all too often, also the ultimate money drainer.
Few of these families went the distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact.
This is their story, but it's also our story, for these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history.
I'm on my way to see a house that represents a dramatic break with 500 years of country house tradition.
It was designed by one of Britain's greatest ever architects for a man who embodied the spirit of the new age, the new money, the new elite.
Together they created a masterpiece as a summary of a golden age.
The last hurrah for life in the English country house.
It's an Edwardian gem buried away in the depths of the Hampshire countryside.
In fact, this twisting private driveway was specially created to build up the suspense of finding it.
But at last, here it is, the gleaming apparition in white.
This is Marsh Court.
A country house like no other before or since.
Dreamed up by the visionary architect, Edwin Lutyens.
Wow.
Extraordinary.
Instantly magical.
Marsh Court seems the very embodiment of the optimism of Edwardian Britain.
It's an early 20th century masterpiece and its sleek white walls make it look so modern.
It's a building for now, looking to the future.
When it was completed in 1904, it was just about the most up-to-the-minute country house of the age.
The very height of modernity.
But Lutyens packed it with witty references to older architectural styles - Tudor brick chimneys, a Mediterranean pergola, a secret sunken garden with an Indian-style fishpond.
There are surprises at every turn.
For in keeping with the buoyant spirit of Edwardian Britain, this was a house designed first and foremost, for fun.
The man who commissioned this house was, like his architect, a wayward and playful character.
And something of the flamboyance of his nature is enshrined in most explicit manner in the very fabric of the house in this splendid porch.
Because above the door, written in Latin, is a motto that proclaims happiness on all who enter.
Let's see.
Straightaway, it feels joyful and uplifting.
A temple to indulgence.
My word, these are rich and lavish spaces.
Look at these granite columns, the carved frieze, the wonderful joinery.
But this is no ordinary or conventional country house.
Traditionally, Britain's country homes were also businesses.
Their upkeep was financed by profits made from the land they stood on from rent or farming.
This place turned that idea on its head.
The money used to build Marsh Court was amassed in a very modern manner, in the City of London through the stock market.
So, it was a house that was built and sustained from money made off-site.
It wasn't a working house, wasn't part of the local economy, it wasn't a generator of money.
It was an escape from work, a place where you could come to, kick back, relax.
A place of pleasure.
The man who commissioned this decadent weekend getaway was a wildly successful high-flying bachelor named Herbert Johnson, "Johnnie" to his chums.
(HONKING) Johnnie's life was emblematic of the social mobility of the age, for like many Edwardian gentlemen, he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
His wealth was self-made through determination and risk-taking.
In 1873, aged 17, he arrived in London, hell-bent on making a fortune.
As luck would have it, he possessed an almost superhuman facility with numbers.
The stock exchange beckoned.
He started low, filling brokers' ink stands for £50 a year.
But he quickly rose to become a stock jobber.
It was a case of right place, right time.
The City was a gateway to prestige and prosperity, as historian Ranald Michie knows.
It was the world's most important stock exchange, bigger than Paris, bigger than New York.
It had about five times more members than the New York Stock Exchange.
- It grew from about 800 members - Yes.
in about mid-1850s to about 5,500 by the First World War.
Your man Herbert Johnson was the type of person who really came to the fore in the City.
There was no establishment in the City.
If you could make money you rose to the top because people respected you.
The City operated with its own moral code, and that moral code was money.
And, of course, Johnnie was a stock jobber.
Can you tell me what a stock jobber did and what status did they enjoy? They were men on the make.
A stock broker was a slightly, slightly more respectable person than a stock jobber.
A stock jobber was referred to, say at the time of the South Sea Bubble, as vermin.
- Vermin? - Vermin.
Poor old Johnnie.
They were dealers.
They were intermediaries.
They dealt between one broker and another and they just stood there.
At the end of the day, they'd either made money or they'd lost money.
But Johnnie was no ordinary stock jobber.
He had a secret weapon up his sleeve that made him rich, not just quick but super-quick.
By the age of 21, Johnnie was already a City high-flyer.
It was partly because he'd invented investment tables, a sort of ready reckoner, that helped him calculate losses and gains in the value of shares by volume of stock.
This gave him an edge in a marketplace where speed of decision-making, knowing when to buy and sell shares, was of the essence.
(STOCK BROKERS NEGOTIATING) In a way, he was the human version of the people that program computers today and do algorithmic trading.
The foreign exchange market in London turns over four trillion dollars a day doing this today.
He was doing that equivalent a hundred years ago using his ready reckoner in his hand.
Johnnie was on a roll.
Year after year the money piled up.
By 1900, his relentless wheeling and dealing had earned him an unbelievable fortune, the equivalent in today's value of £29 million.
His escape from the mayhem of City trading was fishing.
When a large estate close to Britain's finest trout river, the Test, came up for auction, Johnnie hooked it straightaway.
Now in his 40s, like so many nouveau riche Edwardians, he needed that ultimate status symbol, a brand-new country house.
And where better for a city slicker to find the hottest architect in town, than in the pages of the new Edwardian style bible, Country Life.
- It was founded by a man called Hudson.
- Yeah.
Edward Hudson, and he was not a countryman, he was really a townie.
He had a magazine called Racing Illustrated, which was a bit of a flop, and he rolled that into his new idea which was Country Life Illustrated.
The illustrated part was quite important because there was this new technology for printing photographs and that's really what it was all about.
So, in a sense it was always about showing people who aspire to, to country living, what country living was about.
ASLET: Yes.
And if you took Country Life, then you would know everything about the country and you could adopt this way of life which everybody thought was rather desirable.
In Country Life there was, of course, one architect promoted above all other architects of the era and that was Lutyens.
And Lutyens' houses appear on a regular basis in the magazine and also, of course, Hudson used him as his own architect what, three times, three houses? - Yes, he did.
- He had three houses.
ASLET: And the offices of Country Life.
And he thought, well, he was right of course, he thought he was a genius and so he would boom in the language of the day.
Boom! Lutyens in the magazine.
- Booming.
- Boom was the word he used.
So, that was, that was the PR of the day.
And certainly one or two clients came directly from the pages of Country Life.
- They'd say, "I want one like that.
" - Do you reckon that Herbert Johnson could have been flicking through Country Life about 1900 and seen Lutyens' house? I think it's entirely possible - that he encountered - Yeah.
Lutyens through Country Life.
Herbert Johnson was a fisherman.
He would have loved the world of Country Life.
That would have been his world, or certainly the world that he wanted to be part of.
But also, of course, Marsh Court was something different.
Marsh Court has this strong flavour of romance, this white house shimmering on a hill above the Test.
Genius.
But the romantic nature of Marsh Court is no happy accident.
The inspiration for Lutyens'greatest creation so far was, indeed, love.
For Johnnie's ideal home was commissioned hot on the tails of Lutyens' marriage in 1897 to Emily Lytton.
To find out how their complicated relationship influenced this building, I'm meeting Lutyens' great-granddaughter, Jane Ridley.
His father was a painter.
Ned was the 11 th of 14 and he was terribly ashamed of his background and embarrassed by all his relations.
And on the other hand, Emily was the daughter of the viceroy of India and all that, so her family, at first, were unhappy about the idea that she was marrying a, you know, a young architect.
And this drove him to really work and to get as much money as he could to prove himself.
When she agreed to marry him, he gave her this casket which he'd designed.
And on it, it says here, E-L, Edwin Lutyens and RIDLEY: And Emily Lytton.
So they shared initials.
And can I open it, this - Yes.
Yes, of course.
- Oh.
Now, it's full of things.
This is a mini cabinet of curiosity, isn't it? So There are all these objects that he designed, put in these little compartments to symbolise various things of, about their life together.
So we've got there an anchor, which is a symbol of hope.
And then there's this tiny little book.
- He wrote a poem that nobody can read.
- Oh, Lord! How fantastic! It's sort of handwritten in a scrawl and tiny! Isn't that charming? - And then right at the bottom - Ah.
of these, of these drawers, these compartments, there was rolled up two scrolls of plans.
And this was the plan for what he called the "little white house".
The house that they were going to build together and that they were going to live in and be happily ever after.
- When he had the money and all that.
- When he had the money.
But, of course, the sort of tragedy is that they never built this house, and that they never lived in a house that he built, in fact.
It's amazing, of course, 'cause it looks instantly like Marsh Court.
I mean - It's extraordinary, isn't it? - Yeah.
And so, in 1901,just a few years into a marriage already under strain, Lutyens started to build the house of his dreams, not for Emily but for Johnnie.
The fairytale white house with the red roof became Marsh Court.
RIDLEY: Emily was a very unconventional person, but the trouble was that Ned wanted a conventional marriage.
She had quite a strong Bohemian streak and Ned couldn't bear this.
In a way it's rather sad.
I mean, you know, the dream house for Emily is - in the box.
- Yes.
Doesn't come out of the box, in the casket.
And yet he's able to project this dream into a completely different relationship - for a very different character.
- Yes.
You know, very red-blooded, alpha male, sort of outdoors person.
- Yes, yes.
- Quite different from the intellectual, slightly difficult Emily.
And to make this amazing house.
Right from the start, Lutyens and Johnnie clicked.
They were kindred spirits.
Two restless, high-achieving men's men, full of ambition, egging each other on.
In Johnson, Lutyens met the perfect client.
A modern man, bold, a risk-taker with money.
And Johnson's choice of site also played a key role in the creation of Marsh Court because the house is built on what is essentially a mound of chalk.
And Lutyens' determination to use material from the ground in the construction of the house means that the famous white walls of Marsh Court are, in fact, blocks of chalk.
If I rub my fingers along them I get covered in chalk dust.
Incredible.
This makes visiting Marsh Court, oh dear, a rather dirty business.
Chalk is, quite literally, the bedrock of Marsh Court, as its current estate manager, Neil Simpson, is hopefully going to prove.
Now we're getting That's a nice bit of chalk coming up, isn't it? - And it's pure white.
- There's eight inches of topsoil, some flint, and then you hit - A chalk layer.
- Chalk layer.
And how far are we, from your experience, working round here, - how deep is that chalk strata? - I've never got to the end of it.
- Right.
- I've done many holes and moving of soil and I've never got beyond the chalk layer.
Could we dig a little bit more? Just interested to see what if that's not too hard work.
So, what do you think of chalk - as a building material? - As a building material? I wouldn't build my house out of it.
- Soft.
- Yes.
- Prone to damp.
- And corrosive.
There you go, yeah.
And that's the chalk from which the house is built.
Break it.
Startlingly white.
I mean, I'd have thought when this was being discussed, you know, Lutyens comes up with this kind of outlandish idea of building a house of chalk, you'd say, you'd think the client would say, "Great idea, but come on, you know, it won't last!" That's everyone's reaction.
How has it lasted? - Yeah.
- Why has it lasted? But it, it's still there.
It's still standing.
Lutyens' unique sea of chalk announced, at first sight, this was a house like no other.
And that's exactly what Johnnie wanted.
Marsh Court needed to be the talk of the town.
For, like so many new moneyed Edwardians, his house wasn't just about flashing his cash, it was an arena for social climbing and gaining stature, as historian Juliet Gardiner explains.
GARDINER: Herbert Johnson absolutely typifies a new Edwardian breed, a new elite.
There's the phrase, isn't it? They made their millions in town and they spent them in the country.
If you were new money and you were really breaking in to society, the plutocrats, those who got power through having money, through having wealth, they wanted to be country gentlemen.
And that's where the money was being spent, it was being spent on houses.
Edward VII really set the pattern, set the model, for the plutocracy, because, of course, up to then, on the whole, the royal family had mixed among their own.
Now, Edward VII, who was always in need of money, of course, made friends among new money.
Somehow money would be able to buy you position, status, respectability.
And if you had a house, a beautiful house, then that was the container for all that, for that social status.
Marsh Court became a magnet for lords, ladies and indeed even royalty.
Johnnie wanted their visits to be unforgettable experiences from the very moment they arrived.
So, the ever-inventive Lutyens teamed up with his favourite garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, to make his friend's wish come true.
Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll created a theatrical architectural promenade around the house.
They used the fall of the land to form terraces and sunken courtyards that offer unexpected views of the house and dramatic vistas over the landscape.
And in a most wonderful way they created different textures on the path, like here - there's brick, there's stone, there's grass, adding an extra sensation to the journey around the house.
And what a sensation.
Taking Johnnie's guests on a magical mystery tour into the unknown, twisting and turning through walls and hedges.
And so, of course, the perfect place for a party with revellers spilling from the house.
I can imagine the Prince of Wales nestling down somewhere here with a cocktail.
Finally, they would arrive at the visitors entrance.
A sunlit paradise, one of the most arresting sights in the English landscape.
In keeping with the inventive originality of Marsh Court, indeed as a monument to Lutyens' endless quest for architectural surprise, the rear, or garden elevation, is more dramatic and arresting than the apparently main entrance elevation.
I love this composition, with the great bay windows on my left tottering as if on the edge of a precipice.
It is really a wonderful design.
Certainly no king or prince could fail to be impressed.
Indeed, be overwhelmed by a series of rooms that are the absolute height of turn-of-the-century flamboyance.
Here's the dining room.
Strange! It feels like I'm in a grand cabin of a ship.
Which I suppose is not that surprising, since the early 1900s was the golden age of Britain's ocean liners as opulent travel palaces for the super-rich, and Lutyens picked up on that nautical style.
I must say this room would have been an ornament to even the grandest of the great liners.
The walls are fully panelled and the ceiling is partly, too, with a dome in the centre.
Huh! But then there's another quality not, I suppose, intended, although, knowing Lutyens, perhaps.
I feel like I'm in a giant cigar box! And the architecture just gets better and bigger.
Straight into a room almost double the height of its neighbour.
A feast for the eye from floor to ceiling.
Again, extraordinarily lavish, but also mischievous.
It's symptomatic of Lutyens' delight in juxtaposing styles.
This truly modern house is adorned with classical carving in wood and chalk, nods to Christopher Wren in a fashion that was called at the time Renaissance.
The pick and mix approach to detailing in this room is typical of the playful spirit of the Edwardian age.
This is Marsh Court's great hall, but, in its wit and irony, like no great hall from the Middle Ages or the Tudor age.
And that really is just the point.
Here, Lutyens mixed historical styles.
In front of me is a wonderful Tudor-style bay window and then Jacobean panelling.
But he mixed these not to fool anybody into thinking this was a genuine ancient house, but really in the spirit of, I suppose, a sort of tailor, you know, taking brilliant fabric, old fabric, and making something entirely new.
And at Marsh Court the old and the new were very happy bedfellows.
Lutyens went to town not just with classical detailing, but also packed the house with most modern conveniences.
Ingenious air vent central heating, luxury tiled bathrooms and his own specially designed electric lighting throughout.
It all added up to a domestic paradise, where Johnnie could offer the most lavish hospitality to the most beautiful people.
RIDLEY: It was a very, very glamorous life.
Herbert Johnson liked to have weekend parties, only of course they weren't called weekend parties 'cause that was rather vulgar.
That suggested you had to go to work on a Monday.
He invited guests.
The smarter the guest, the better.
Obviously, there would have been financiers, people from the City.
I think there would have been an impetus to import some sort of social butterflies, as it were, you know some rather beautiful women, and some people with some artistic pretensions or literary pretensions to keep things amused.
And, of course, you know, see how high up the ladder you could go.
You know, you rather were on display.
You were expected to do a wide range of things.
To entertain.
Absolutely.
RIDLEY: You were expected to be amusing at dinner, you were expected to be extremely well dressed, you were expected to be something of a sportsman.
And then, of course, we mustn't ever forget the bed hopping The bed hopping? (LAUGHS) which probably also went on.
Whether bed hopping went on at Marsh Court or not, I don't know.
CRUIKSHANK: Johnnie was now firmly established as the lord of his manor, entertaining on a royal scale.
But, at heart, he was still a man's man through and through.
With a special den to prove it.
I sense I'm entering a male preserve, the main, if not only masculine playroom in any Edwardian country house was the billiard room.
Johnnie would have spent hours here.
Indeed, in many ways, this would have been the centre of his life while at Marsh Court, would have been a lot of heavy drinking.
Indeed, there was a story.
The Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, got so drunk, he passed out on this billiard table! Oh dear, what was to be done? Well, servants were summoned and the unconscious Prince was carried up the stairs over there into the nearest bedroom which, of course, has ever since been called the Prince of Wales Room.
Being Marsh Court, this is no ordinary billiard table.
The plinth is made out of chalk, emblematic material of the house.
Which is very convenient because if I need to chalk the end of my cue, all I do is run it along here.
Naughty, but it does the job.
Like all of Marsh Court's great rooms, this space is fantastically theatrical.
And perhaps it's no mere coincidence that in 1904, as Johnnie's playground was taking shape, Lutyens was also designing the stage sets for his friend J.
M.
Barrie's new play, Peter Pan! Johnnie and Ned, as they affectionately called each other, had a close relationship.
As in Peter Pan, they were, I suppose, rather like the lost boys who simply didn't want to grow up.
Two chaps of like mind.
And, indeed, I have here a poem written by Lutyens, Ned, to his good friend Johnnie.
It's a lovely little poem inspired by drink, no doubt.
Lutyens writes, "I friend - drink to thee friend "and my friend drink to me" At which point I am sure they would have charged each other's glasses and drunk.
Mmm! And then Lutyens says, "And the more we drink together "the merrier we shall be!" That's the sort of friend you need to have.
And so, for Johnnie and Ned, this house was a boy's own fantasy made real.
Despite a bevy of staff - a butler, housekeeper, cook, two footmen and seven maids - Marsh Court was essentially Johnnie's bachelor pad.
Until, that is, he fell in love.
Now retired from the stock market, in December 1912, aged 56, the confirmed bachelor finally married.
The woman of his choice was named Violet Charlotte Meeking.
And she, with her two teenage daughters, Viola and Finola, moved in to Marsh Court.
Violet was a society lady with ancestry right back to Edward III.
But she knew how to live it up like the best of them.
And so she was Johnnie's dream catch, sporty and exuberant.
They both believed in having a good time, all the time.
But only 18 months into their marriage, the party came to a dramatic halt, as the countryside at play gave way to a nation at war.
All over Britain, casualties were returning from the front.
Many country homes became places of refuge and recuperation.
But Johnnie didn't just have a big house, he had a big heart.
As did Violet.
Together, they transformed the Marsh Court estate into a troop hospital.
To find out just how much the Johnsons contributed to the war effort, I'm meeting local historian Mary Pollock.
I think they had caring natures.
Both Herbert and Violet are what I would have called in the old term, God, King and country people.
And Violet, of course, her first husband had been a soldier, he died in service, and so I think perhaps she had a special relationship with soldiers, she could understand them.
Johnnie met all the expenses and Violet, of course, became involved in the running of the hospital.
- She had no medical training as such.
- As far as I know she hadn't.
But she was a very competent woman and a brilliant organiser and I think the Red Cross felt very lucky to have her.
Violet believed that part of the recovery programme was to be active, - take part in sports and games.
- That's right, sport, and of course, loving care.
- Oh, very much so.
- These men had been through terrible experiences, hadn't they? I mean, the soldiers thought she was wonderful, as she must have had a great gift for talking and listening to people.
They called her the War Mother.
And Violet did, you know, receive the MBE from the King.
I have always been rather surprised that Johnnie didn't receive anything, but maybe he didn't want anything.
You know, maybe he just wanted to do it quietly.
- Interesting that, isn't it? - Yes.
Maybe he was offered it and said, "Give it to my wife.
" - Yes.
Yes.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
The Great War was shattering.
By the time the last soldier left Marsh Court, close to 900,000 Britons had lost their lives.
It had cost the country over £9 billion.
The economy was in dire straits and Johnnie was one of its many victims.
His investments tumbled.
Financing a hospital had seriously depleted his coffers.
Dark days at Marsh Court.
But there was even worse to come.
In October 1921, after only nine years of marriage, his beloved Violet died suddenly of encephalitis lethargica, "sleepy sickness'", a devastating illness that swept through the world in the '20s.
An obituary in the Hampshire Chronicle.
It's very long, two full columns.
"The announcement of the death of Mrs Herbert Johnson of Marsh Court, "Stockbridge, awakened the most profound sympathy "throughout the county for Mr Herbert Johnson.
" It talks here of her "ceaseless activity "in many good causes and above all her cheerful and lovable disposition.
" There's a great list of people offering condolences.
And they include the King, the Queen and Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal.
In his darkest hour, who else would Johnnie turn to but his great friend, Ned.
Lutyens designed a memorial cross for Violet, rising proud in this humble village cemetery.
There was a bitter twist to this sorry tale.
When, two years earlier, Johnson gave his land to the town for use as a cemetery, little did he realise his wife's body would be the first to be buried here.
Marriage to Violet, and the war, had changed Johnnie.
The former party animal had become a philanthropist and respected member of Britain's new moneyed ruling class, a county councillor, the sheriff of Hampshire, and high sheriff of the county of Southampton.
Like so many of the newly wealthy who wanted to root themselves firmly in society, become part of the firmament of the British establishment, Johnson, in 1920, acquired a coat of arms.
Here it is, a rather wonderful thing.
It shows a cockerel covered in what looks like golden guineas.
Most appropriate.
On the shield is an image of the sun.
And below there is a motto, "Come on".
The sentiment may be more appropriate to a football pitch than the Hampshire countryside, yet it does capture, of course, Johnson's energy and enthusiasm.
"Come on" became a rallying cry for Johnnie, who was determined to show that you couldn't keep a good chap down.
Now in his 60s, a widower with little more to lose, he set out to rebuild his fortune by taking high-risk gambles on the global shares market.
And it worked! He was back in the game.
The generous big-spender had oodles more cash and he lavished it on his greatest passion, sport.
Countless thousands went on cricket tournaments, shooting trips to Scotland, and that ultimate upper-class sport, foxhunting.
Indeed, Johnnie had risen so high in Hampshire society, he'd become master of the Hursley Hunt.
To get a sense of those bygone days, I'm joining in an actual Hursley Hunt.
It's still very much active, if somewhat less bloodthirsty today.
- The Hursley was founded in 1836.
- Yes.
And it really relied very much on very generous landowners or owners of big houses, for instance Marsh Court where you're - Yeah.
Yeah.
dealing with Mr Johnson.
In fact, Herbert Johnson was unbelievably generous.
He did three short Masterships between - I think 1916, I think, and 1930.
- Yes.
He often picked up the cost of the Hunt.
All he took back was the subscriptions - that were paid by the members.
- That's fascinating.
Maybe in those days, of course, it perhaps was almost expected of you.
Probably if you did own a fairly large establishment or a fairly large piece of country, it was looked upon that you might take on the Hunt.
- Yah! - Yes! - (SPURRING ON HORSE) - CRUIKSHANK: And off they go! Since foxhunting was banned, what now happens is that the hounds chase a specially laid trail that mimics the animal's scent.
I'm waiting at a designated spot where the hunt will pass - with all the thrill of the chase.
- (HORNS BLOWING) Except it doesn't quite work out that way.
Hold on! With an irony that japester Johnnie would have found hilarious, an actual fox manages to have the last laugh.
The Hursley Hunt has to be diverted, Thwarted! It's not very wet there.
But I've got my sights on a bigger catch.
In the '20s, the romance of big game hunting in far-flung corners of the empire prompted the super-rich to set off on adventures of a lifetime.
Going on safari was the ultimate badge of aristocratic privilege.
Naturally, Johnnie was in there, if you'll pardon the pun, like a shot.
The British colonial government profited from big game hunting by selling intrepid adventurers a licence to kill.
For example, a £50 licence in British East Africa allowed the huntsman to kill a whole variety of animals, including two hippos, two buffalos, 22 zebra and an unlimited number of lions and leopards.
I've come to Eastnor castle in Worcestershire to see evidence of Johnnie's enormous hunting prowess, part of a treasure trove of Marsh Court memorabilia kept by his step-daughter Finola and now preserved by her grandson James Hervey-Bathurst.
What do we have? Obviously I can see photograph albums, individual photographs.
But first, though, is this an album of kills, obviously Africa.
Yeah, this is an African elephant.
Presumably in the '20s, I'm just guessing.
- I think, I think so, yeah.
- Gosh! Nowadays, these things people don't like to do it.
- But this was - (LAUGHS) No.
I'm afraid in those days, of course, that's what people did, you know.
It's funny, indeed, those days are so recent - and the world has changed so much.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is of course - BOTH: A treasure chest.
- Yeah.
Absolutely.
- And here it is on the look out.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
What's very nice is that he's actually got all the names of the people.
Yes, he has.
And we have got a few spears but I'm not sure if it's from that expedition or not.
(LAUGHS) It's "a lion shot by H.
Johnson lying on the road.
" And here it says it's "a charging rhino shot by H.
Johnson.
" Oh, look, here's something which is wonderful, these terrific drawings of Marsh Court by Lutyens.
They are wonderful things and this is, of course, when he's contemplating adding the ballroom - Yes.
in the mid 1920s.
That's a couple of views looking up.
This is an interesting one, isn't it? "Play hall", as Lutyens playfully called the ballroom.
Very sketchy.
I suppose just little things he would have produced for Johnnie.
They'd be talking over a drink I suppose and kind of imagining it.
The fantastic one is this, isn't it? This is wonderful! - They're the animals for decoration.
- There they are.
You see they've been shot over there, and it says, "Interior proposed play hall.
E.
Lutyens.
" And here is the interior of the ballroom with a couple here in evening dress.
They look quite cheerful, they seem to be smiling, don't they? Sort of enjoying the fun.
They are happy to be shot by Johnnie Johnson and they're very, even happier to be hanging on the wall of his playroom! The playroom.
It just gives you such a little insight into his relationship with Johnnie, you know, they should perceive all of life as play, really, you know? The ballroom at Marsh Court was built in the mid 1920s as a huge extension to the main house.
It was the ultimate expression of Johnnie's hard-won second fortune.
And the final extravagant flourish of his spend, spend, spend years.
What a magnificent space! Seems almost too big to be part of a private house.
Most surprising.
More like a public building.
A town hall, perhaps.
I must say, I'm feeling rather dwarfed by it.
This room is completely steeped in grandeur.
Dominated by a monumental fireplace carved from, what else, chalk.
Along the walls, Johnnie mounted the heads of rhino and buffalo brought back from Africa.
And to crown it all, Lutyens' designed these exquisite electric light chandeliers! Johnnie held a lavish party to celebrate the completion of this room.
It was, perhaps, one of the last great parties of the roaring '20s.
He erected a vast marquee in the entrance court and all down one side was an oyster bar and waiters served champagne to the 200 guests who, in this very room, danced until dawn.
Marsh Court became, once more, the house of fun.
This was the hotspot for swinging hunt balls and lavish feasts, with Johnnie's lust for life undimmed, even though he'd recently lost an eye in a hunting accident.
To get a sense of those sun-kissed years, I'm meeting a man who actually knew Johnnie, Frank James.
I was brought up with all the stories about Johnnie's life, so I felt I knew him before I even met him.
The stories from my mother about the terrors of coming to lunch up here, going into the dining room and having a flunky, a uniformed flunky, behind every chair.
Spaghetti was served, which she'd never seen before - and didn't know how to eat.
- So, every guest had their personal sort of servant behind every chair? There was somebody behind every chair.
You were young, of course, but what personal memories do you have of him? (CHUCKLES) He had a very strong presence, as you would expect.
He gave off the idea that he wouldn't suffer fools gladly.
He didn't say a great deal, but what he did say was worth listening to.
Apart from that, he was kind.
His glass-eye was a bit off-putting to a young boy, 'cause it didn't look at you while the other eye did.
CRUIKSHANK: Obviously a man with a heart, a big heart, and philanthropy was part of his life, certainly in the First World War.
But then also juxtaposed with that is the gambling nature of his job.
Yes, I suppose to that extent he's more of a Bill Gates than he is a perhaps a traditional speculator.
Because whatever he made he put back.
- Yeah.
- I suppose that's perhaps part of his outlook, that he had been very, very fortunate and he wished to share it in as fair a way as possible - Yeah.
- Hence the philanthropy.
CRUIKSHANK: All through the '20s, Johnnie had been high on life, spending money like there was no tomorrow.
Sadly, there was.
In October 1929, the Wall Street crash shattered the global economy.
Stock prices plummeted at an unprecedented rate and once again Johnnie fell victim to uncontrollable world events.
Huge chunks of his wealth were wiped out in minutes.
He never really recovered.
In August 1931, the now enormously successful Lutyens dropped by to catch up with his old friend over dinner at Marsh Court.
The whole rather sorry-sounding evening is commemorated in one of Lutyens' most poignant letters.
He writes, here we are, "Johnnie very cordial with a glass eye.
"Not an improvement.
"Persuaded to stay the night, so I had a good go around the house.
"Johnson is in bad economic luck.
Spends no money.
"We dined in the ballroom.
"The banker Johnnie was discovered telling a footman "to lay dinner without light to save electricity.
" The costs of maintaining Marsh Court had become impossible for Johnnie to bear.
In one last desperate high-risk gamble, he borrowed money from his bank and invested it overseas in Greek bonds.
My father advised him, before the Second World War, not to try and remake his fortune with Greek bonds.
- That was his downfall, was it? - Yes.
That was his, that was his second or third downfall.
In the end he did get it wrong in a rather terminal way.
The Greeks, I think, had already defaulted two or three times by the beginning of the Second World War.
But it was a high-interest and he needed good return on what little capital he had so, seemed a good bet.
But it wasn't.
Johnnie's lucky touch was gone.
His scheme backfired disastrously.
The bonds were worthless yet he owed the bank big time.
There was no way his ready reckoner could get him out of this one.
Bankruptcy was looming when, in 1933, Lutyens visited his chum for the last time.
"The house here is shut up.
"No one but Johnnie.
This place will have to be sold.
"Johnnie said last night at dinner, 'It doesn't matter what happens to a man, 'but what does matter is how he takes it.
"' That's the true spirit of an Edwardian gentleman.
But, in the worst financial slump of the century, no one was buying country houses.
The footmen and servants were long gone.
Johnnie had no choice but to move out.
His elegant chalk palace lay empty, neglected.
By World War II, he was so broke that virtually the entire contents of Marsh Court were sold off, right down to the curtains.
JAMES: There was no bitterness about him at all, ever.
He wasn't that sort of a person.
He took misfortune and fortune with equal resolve, really.
Well, he was old, he was ill, wasn't he? - Yes, he was and blind and - Yeah.
increasingly deaf.
But my mother could still remember him taking her down into the water meadows even when he was completely blind, you know, and finding his way across a single plank bridge over the Test.
Terrified her.
(LAUGHS) But he walked across it with complete confidence.
Johnnie died on April the 2nd, 1949.
His stature as a pillar of the establishment sealed forever with a touching obituary in The Times.
"Hampshire society of the last 50 years "will feel a void by the death of Herbert Johnson, "Johnnie to his intimates.
"The great flint and chalk mansion designed by Lutyens was "the very symbol of himself "and every stone of which he loved.
" Amazing.
"Johnnie's charm was not in what he did but in what he was.
"He possessed a hatred of all that was mean, base, "or ill-natured.
"In short, as one of his servants said, 'We shall never see a Mr Johnson again, "'but we are glad we have seen him.
"' For much of his life, Johnnie had been a survivor.
So, too, was Marsh Court, but only just.
Through the course of the 20th century, a staggering 1,200 country houses were demolished in England, many of them victims of crippling taxation designed to pay for two world wars.
Marsh Court was very nearly one of them.
In 1946, only a last minute bid stopped it falling into the hands of a demolition contractor.
Its saviour was typical of the new breed of country house buyer.
They weren't looking for luxurious homes, but to turn them into schools.
In many ways, becoming a school kept the house alive.
Maintained it, kept it lived in, essentially saved it.
And also it's odd, isn't it, the arrival of a battalion of young boys into Johnnie's playboy mansion ensured that it finally became a genuine boys' own never-never land.
Marsh Court ran as a bustling boys prep school for over 40 years.
Angus Broadbent and his younger brother, Graham, are coming back to relive those heady days of sherbet and short trousers.
So, you lived here as a family, but also were pupils here - because your father was the headmaster? - That's right.
So you had an interesting two existences.
Tell me, but the atmosphere of the school in relationship to the Lutyens' building, - what was it like? - I think it was, it was joyful.
It was the most, and it is the most, remarkable building.
And when you have 120 or 150 children running around the place, it's the most amazing atmosphere.
It was a very special place.
What happened here, for example, where we're standing now? Well, this place, this was very much the nexus point because this was the tuck shop.
- The tuck shop! - This was where we kept all the sweets and twice a week, I think, on Sundays and Wednesdays Yes.
dormitory by dormitory we'd be invited to come and spend our sixpence a week or whatever it was on the sweets that we kept behind this door.
- Well, hang on, let's - What is in there? - Let's go through the - What is it now? - And the cupboard is bare.
- The cupboard is bare.
It's very bare! (LAUGHS) What we had was, we had like a trough arrangement.
And you'd lift it up over this lintel here, - you'd lift it up and pull it out.
- Right.
So it would be like a sort of market stall kind of thing.
- Of course, yeah.
- So, as you cross over that divide, it's God, it's (SNIFFING) I can still smell the sherbet in this.
(BOTH LAUGH) It's amazingly quiet.
That's the one thing you really notice now, - it's totally silent.
- Yes.
- Right.
- This would have been - Piccadilly Circus of an evening.
- Yes.
You could do a great thing, you'd run down the stairs, jump onto your dressing gown and slide as far as you could down this corridor.
- 'Course! - And it was happening many times over.
One of the joyful things about being here in the holidays was the freedom that you had to break all the school rules.
So you could go roller-skating round the entire house.
You were confined during term time to the ballroom, to the playroom, as we called it.
CRUIKSHANK: What about football and games? Football and games, we used to play football, roller-skate and play cricket.
All of that stuff happened in that room except in the holidays when we could actually sneak out and roller-skate around the whole building.
This building's unique magic was presented to children fresh.
I think in a funny kind of way the children got the full benefit of Lutyens' ambition and scope and language and light and freshness.
Coming back today is extraordinary, because we're halfway through looking around what is now, looks like a very comfortable, - a very happy private home.
- Mmm.
I'd be very happy to live here now.
It's a testament to the remarkable bond between Ned and Johnnie that somehow the house they created together has touched everyone who crossed its threshold, be they schoolboys, socialites, soldiers or the people who have lived here since it once again became a private family home.
Moving from one room to another, it just lifts you.
And the whole building, to me, leads you upwards.
CRUIKSHANK: And one thinks of it as being some kind of magical building, magical in its atmosphere.
JAMES: Certainly, personally, from the first moment I walked through the front door in 1949, Marsh Court always uplifted me every time I visited it.
It was so far removed from the ordinary world.
Marsh Court was something else again and it always will be.
Although it's little more than a hundred years old, Marsh Court is an important part of Britain's history, largely because it's such an evocative emblem of the Edwardian age.
Also, it's a vivid reminder that the riches of the Edwardian economy made possible for the wealthy to do in England what the wealthy had done here for over 500 years, make their mark in the landscape through the creation of memorable country house architecture.
The last golden age of country house building came to an end with World War I.
Marsh Court was one of the final masterpieces of a dying breed.
And, like many of the five centuries' worth of country houses that survive in Britain, remains stately, historically important and is still someone's much loved country home.
Country houses are memorials to the way we've all lived in the past.
They're a fundamentally important part of our culture.
I hope that Marsh Court and houses like this continue to endure through the ages.