Victoria stayed at Chatsworth House for four days in October 1832. Her host was the 6th Duke of Devonshire, one of the richest men in the land. Princess Victoria was 13 years old and visited with her mother Duchess of Kent, just a year after finding out she was to inherit the throne. This shows how her host improved the house before she arrived and brought in servants from his London home.
Rosemary Shrager and Tim Wonnacott visit Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, following in the footsteps of Queen Victoria and her royal visits. They discover what life was like for the 13-year-old Victoria when she visited the Earl of Lichfield with her mother in 1832.
Victoria's visit to Harewood House in Yorkshire was made in 1835, two years before she became Queen, having learnt she would inherit the throne four years earlier. And it appears our teenage Victoria was becoming quite used to the royal highlife, and becoming pretty hard to please. She records in her diary that she played the piano here before going to bed and we know she was learning the piano from one Mr Sale who, we hear, was finding it hard to teach her. When he told her that if she wished to succeed she must practice more, she slammed shut the lid of her piano and shouted, 'There is no must about it!'.
Tim and Rosemary visit Holkham Hall in North Norfolk, as they retrace the steps of 16-year-old Victoria on a two day visit there, in 1835, two years before she became Queen. It was part of a PR drive by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, who was keen to show Victoria off to her future subjects. And it was obviously working. Tim reveals how, in nearby Kings Lynn, the townspeople insisted on pulling her carriage around the town in celebration of her visit, and he also discovers the young princess's love of music and how on this visit she was involved karaoke, Victorian style.
Chef Rosemary Shrager and antiques expert Tim Wonnacott visit the Royal Pavilion in Brighton to reveal the story behind 19-year-old Queen Victoria's visit during the Christmas Holidays in 1838 - the year she became queen.
At the time of this visit to Scone in Scotland, Victoria had been married to Albert for two years and had given birth to her first two children Princess Victoria and Prince Albert Edward.
Tim Wonnacott and Rosemary Shrager are at Walmer Castle in Kent, following in the footsteps of Queen Victoria, who was 23 years old and had been queen for five years when she visited in November of 1842 with Albert and their two children Edward and Victoria, both under two.
Victoria visited Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire with Prince Albert in 1843. She was just 24 years old but had already been queen for six years. Albert had just received an honorary degree from Trinity College Cambridge, which greatly pleased Victoria as a sign that he was starting to be accepted by her subjects. But she wasn't pleased by the crowds who fought to get a glimpse of the celebrity couple.
Antiques expert Tim Wonnacott and chef Rosemary Shrager visit Belvoir Castle in Rutland following in the footsteps of Queen Victoria, who visited here in 1843. She was 24, had been married for nearly four years and already had three children.
At the time of this visit, Victoria had been on the throne for seven years. She was only 25 years old but had already had four children in four years. Prince Albert thought it would be the ideal place for the queen to recover from the arrival of Alfred, their fourth child, born just a few weeks earlier. They stayed for three weeks and it cemented a lifelong love affair for the royal couple with the highlands.
Victoria and Albert were guests at the stunning Burghley House, Lincolnshire, in 1844. Victoria had been here before when she was 18, and wrote in her diary, 'I remembered its beautiful exterior and splendid situation but was even more struck when I arrived this time.' In 1844, the pair came to Burghley for a christening where Albert was the godfather and, for once, the centre of attention - although the baby was still called Victoria. As Tim discovers, the christening didn't quite go to plan.
Presenters Rosemary Shrager and Tim Wonnacott visit Hatfield House in Hertfordshire to reveal the story of Queen Victoria's visit there in 1846. Victoria was 27 years old and had been on the throne for nine years. Renowned as a great political and social centre, Hatfield also had a very special connection to royalty: it had been the home of Elizabeth I. Tim reveals the story of a tree on the estate that links the two monarchs.
Presenters Rosemary Shrager and Tim Wonnacott visit Castle Howard in Yorkshire to follow in the footsteps of Queen Victoria and her tour of the country visiting the great and the good. Tim talks to the current Earl of Carlisle, Simon Howard, who reveals the lengths his ancestors went to host the queen, and just what happened when 2,000 vistors turned up to see where her majesty had slept. Rosemary is below stairs creating a famous 19th-century dish that would have been served to Victoria and Albert.
Chef Rosemary Shrager and antiques expert Tim Wonnacott visit Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire revealing just what happened when Queen Victoria visited the Leigh family in 1858. Victoria was 39 years old and had been queen for 21 years. She was with Albert but without any of her nine children. The royal train took her from London to Coventry, then she travelled on to Stoneleigh by horse and carriage for this three-day visit.
Victoria, who had been on the throne for 21 years, visited Warwick Castle with Albert in 1858 for just three hours. They were tourists just like the other ten thousand visitors to the castle, which had been open to the public for at least 30 years before the queen popped in. The royal couple used the visit to learn more about the history of their country from one of the finest castles in England, built some 500 years earlier.
Victoria and Albert visited Penrhyn Castle in Bangor, North Wales, in 1859 for three days. Victoria had been on the throne for 22 years at the time. The castle had only been completed in 1845, just 14 years before the queen's visit, and the whole place is built in a sham medieval style.
Queen Victoria visited Floors Castle on the River Tweed, Scotland, for three days in 1867. It was the first official visit that Victoria made after the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert, and Tim discovers in her diary that, despite the passage of six years, she still felt Albert's loss keenly. She wrote in her account that the 'feeling of loneliness when I saw no room for my darling, and felt I was indeed alone and a widow, overcame me very sadly! I thought so much of all dearest Albert would have done and said, and how he would have wandered about everywhere, admired everything, looked at everything - and now! Oh! Must it ever, ever be so?'
At the time of the visit to Hughenden, Queen Victoria was a 58-year-old widow and had been on the throne for a hefty 40 years. This was her first ever trip to the home of Benjamin Disraeli, who was in his third year as prime minister; she came to discuss an international crisis. Russia was at war with Turkey, putting vital trade routes to India at risk, and Victoria wanted the prime minister to declare war on Russia in order to quash the threat.
At the time of her visit to Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, in 1890, an elderly Queen Victoria was approaching her 71st birthday. She'd been on the throne for over half a century and was still in mourning for her beloved Albert more than 30 years after his death.
Antiques expert Tim Wonnacott and chef Rosemary Shrager have been travelling in the footsteps of Queen Victoria, looking at the houses, castles and stately homes she visited throughout her life and discovering the amazing preparations that went on for each royal visit, upstairs and downstairs. At every stop along the way, they've delved into Victoria's diaries and other first-hand accounts to discover what was really going on behind closed doors. The result has been a revealing picture of Britain's longest reigning monarch. In this final programme, they look back at what they've found out about Victoria and how she changed. They look at her life from childhood to teenage queen, becoming wife to Albert and mother to nine children, and finally in her years as a widow - learning about her through the visits she made, and choosing some of their favourite stories that helped them get to know that thoroughly modern monarch.