Welcome to Powis, a castle of the Welsh princes set in beautiful gardens.
It has been occupied since medieval times and now enjoys its view
over beautiful 17th Century terrace gardens.
Whilst we continue to reopen our places and welcome people back
we know that there are still many people that are unable to visit
so we want to bring you this behind-the-scenes look at the amazing property
for everyone to enjoy from wherever you are
and hopefully we'll see you here at Powis before too long.
So we've come to a part of the castle which isn't normally open to visitors.
It hasn't been open at all.
We're going to go through this door and right up to the top of the castle onto the roofs
so we can look over the gardens from there.
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You join us on top of the castle an exclusive view which no visitors have seen before.
We're overlooking the Severn Valley and
the English border over to our left and it just gives you a really good idea
why the castle was built in such a strategic site.
Here we've got an amazing view of the formal garden
there was a kitchen garden there but after a tree fell down it opened up the view
and you can see why they moved the nursery out of the way
to create this fantastic formal garden in its place
but the working nursery is still there and that's where we're going to go next.
So we've come down to the nurseries now which is another area not normally open to visitors.
I'm going to hand over to my colleague Ben
who's going to tell you all about his work
This is the Victorian glass house, they were originally started in the 1850s
but these glass houses were moved down here from the garden in about 1910
and they've been here ever since
They're a critical part of the garden as you can see.
There's lots of plants around and at the moment these plants should really be in the borders
but because of the restrictions we've had we've we haven't had enough staff to go around and plant everything.
Now that we've got a few more people back in, we're starting to get them out into the borders
so it's a lot fuller than it would be at this time of the year.
So we're here at the bank above the nursery to have a look at our solar panels
and we've got 10 kilowatts here and a further 40 kilowatts in the field behind us
and this makes up our 50 kilowatt system and that helps offset
our carbon usage down in the nursery so this is really taking us
to the the next step of being greener and reducing our impact on the environment.
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The present Clive Museum occupies the old billiard room
and was opened in 1987.
it remains a symbol of Britain's colonial past and represents the ongoing impacts
of colonial and imperial legacies in the 21st century.
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The collection was amassed during British colonisation of India
and it's associated with two generations of the Clive family
Robert Clive who was known as Clive of India, his son Edward who was governor of Madras
and Edward's wife Henrietta Herbert who was heiress to the Powis estate.
So today we've taken away the covers from one or two really special objects
in the collection for you to have a closer look at
and the first of these is this golden tiger head finial from the throne of Tipu Sultan.
Tipu Sultan also known as The Tiger of Mysore
adopted the tiger as his personal emblem
and tigers decorate many of his possessions.
After he was killed, his throne was broken up with parts variously sold
and distributed as prized trophies or made into parcels to pay troops.
This gold bejeweled tiger head finial was given to Henrietta Clive by Arthur Wellesley,
later the first Duke of Wellington.
Its importance in conveying Tipu Sultan's personal status
compounded the cultural as well as physical colonization undertaken by the Clives.
We're now in the magnificent state tent
of Tipu Sultan which is made of painted cotton chintz
and it's one of the treasures seized by Edward Clive from Syringapatam.
It was a symbol of Tipu Sultan's power and prestige
and used by him as he toured his territories in southern India.
Thank you for your patience as we reopen our houses and gardens,
it's only thanks to our members and supporters that we're able to continue
looking after special places like Powis.