Also this week
Hidden Treasures of the National
Trust, BBC Two, Friday, 9pm
Episode two goes behind the scenes at two historic homes in the south of England, where writers Rudyard Kipling and Vita Sackville-West came to create some of their best-known work.
Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, a rambling manor now world-renowned for its stunning garden, was in a dilapidated state when writer Vita Sackville-West and her diplomat and author husband Harold Nicolson bought it in 1930.
The couple spent the 30s transforming the buildings and grounds into a family home and writers’ haven; both had same-sex relationships outside of the marriage, yet were open and supportive of each other’s relationships - Vita was immortalised by her most famous lover, Virginia Woolf, in the novel Orlando.
Today the National Trust works to preserve the gardens in the same spirit in which Vita created them. Many of the plants and trees that survive today were planted in her time, but one, a clematis, is concerning Head Gardener Troy Scott Smith. It’s planted in a large terracotta pot which is damaging its roots, and to make matters worse, the pot - itself a treasured original feature of Vita’s garden - is in danger of collapse.
Meanwhile in the Tudor tower disaster has struck in Sissinghurst’s centrepiece: Vita’s writing room. Water damage has caused the ceiling to collapse, and 4,000 books and objects have had to be removed by hand before House manager Eleanor Black and Building Surveyor James Kenton can begin the mammoth task of restoring the room. Can they preserve a collection of phone numbers handwritten by Vita on the crumbling wall?
Twelve miles across the Weald of Kent and Sussex lies the former home of another literary legend.
Rudyard Kipling made a Jacobean manor called Bateman’s his home and sanctuary in 1902, living there with his wife Carrie and family until his death in 1936. House manager Gary Enstone is preparing to give Kipling’s writing desk a deep clean, including checking for every curator’s worst nightmare woodworm.
Finally at Bateman’s, conservator Siobhan Barratt cleans a set of maps which are at risk of being damaged by mildew. The maps – of France - show faint handmade marks made by Kipling that tell a deeply personal story of loss. Rudyard’s and Carrie’s only son John went missing during the Battle of Loos in the First World War, and his body was never found. Gary believes that the marks are a poignant record of the couple’s search in vain for their missing son - and for closure.
Forensics: The Real CSI, BBC Two,
Wednesday, 9pm
The acclaimed series, returns with four new episodes.
A young woman arrives at a police station to report that she has been raped. She was attacked by a stranger at a derelict house in the early hours of the morning.
The forensics team must identify and arrest the stranger rapist through information provided by the victim and digital evidence recovered from the crime scene.