This excellent series on BBC Two and the BBC HD channel, presented by the admirable Dan Cruikshank, features Clandeboye in County Down this week. It is shown at 9pm on Tuesday (except NI (analogue); Wales (analogue)).
I have written about Clandeboye.
The Most Honourable Sheridan Frederick Terence Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood was the 5th and last Marquess of Dufferin and Ava. The Marquessate became extinct in 1988 on his death.
The late Lord Dufferin's widow Lindy, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, has been châtelaine of Clandeboye since 1988.
There are few other houses in Britain like Clandeboye - a monument to a man (1st Marquess) whose life was like a Victorian fairy tale of adventure, and a monument to the golden age of the largest and most far flung empire the world has ever seen.
Clandeboye House and estate was, like the empire itself, an epic creation - but unlike the empire, it still endures, a vignette of a now almost forgotten age and surprisingly little altered since the 1st Marquess died in 1902.
The house is overflowing with relics from the empire and Dufferin's aristocratic adventures - stuffed baby bears, Egyptian monuments, tiger skins and weaponry from India, Canada and Burma to mention just a few, with extraordinary photographic albums that document the collecting of these unique 'souvenirs'.
Clandeboye is a genuine treasure trove and remains one of Northern Ireland's greatest private homes.
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