The restoration of King Charles

Jay Blades and team get the royal seal of approval as they visit Dumfries House in a vintage edition of The Repair Shop

PICK OF THE WEEK THE REPAIR SHOP: A ROYAL VISIT

For decades as Prince of Wales, he vocally championed the cause of conservation, so who better than King Charles III to be the latest and surely the most distinguished guest on The Repair Shop?

Presenter Jay Blades – now a veritable national treasure himself – and his team of restoration experts have been invited for a visit to the elegant surroundings of the Dumfries House estate in Scotland, which is run by the Prince’s Foundation.

A very special episode of the BBC1 show (part of the centenary celebrations of the Corporation’s creation) provides a chance for us to learn about the brilliant work being done by Charles’s charity, in particular a scheme to train a new generation in the ancient skills needed to make and repair historic artefacts, from blacksmithery and stonemasonry to woodcarving.

But it’s also a true meeting of minds. Although they come from backgrounds as far removed from one another as could be in the same country, the King and Blades share the same aesthetic goals and passionate beliefs.

‘You’ve got someone from a council estate and someone from a Royal estate that have the same interests about apprenticeships and heritage crafts,’ says Blades.

With The Repair Shop’s ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay, horologist Steve Fletcher and furniture restorer Will Kirk also on hand at Dumfries, there’s a chance to overhaul some historic treasures.

The items selected by Charles for the show’s experts to repair are a classic 18th Century portable table clock, and a ceramic piece from the Wemyss Ware line, which was made for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897.

Meanwhile, a graduate from the Foundation’s Building Craft Programme gets the chance to work alongside The Repair

Shop’s metalwork expert Dom China, to repair a set of tools (crafted in the shape of a soldier) used to tend an open fire.

This unmissable episode – made when His Majesty was still an HRH – is a wonderful reminder of the historic craft skills that Britain has inherited.

It is also an inspirational reason to believe that those traditions can and will be maintained throughout the King’s reign and beyond, far into the future.