Welcome to Mount Stewart, the ancestral home of the Londonderry family here in Northern Ireland.
Let's go in.
After a three year restoration project costing eight million pounds
the house now reflects the era of the 1920s to the 1950s
when Charles, the seventh marquis of Londonderry and his wife Edith, Lady Londonderry, made it their home.
Edith wrote to her husband Charles 'This is the most divine house, why do we live anywhere else'.
As part of the restoration project the original Scrabo Sandstone floor was uncovered.
The earlier colour scheme was recreated, and the original colour of the scagliola columns and pilasters was revealed.
Within the spaces displayed a collection of sculpture including Venus and Eurydice, wife of Orpheus.
Both were commissioned by the fourth Marquis in the 1850s from the Scottish sculptor Lawrence Macdonald.
It's really tempting to lean on this inlaid mahogany banister, so I'm going to keep my hands in my pockets.
This is an imperial staircase. What that means is it has one central flight that leads to a landing,
and then divides into two further flights.
It was a really efficient way of moving large numbers of people in a small space very quickly.
But it's not the staircase I want to show you. It's the enormous portrait on the landing.
It was painted by George Stubbs, an English painter best known for his portraits of horses.
He painted this at the age of 76, at the end of a long career. And it demonstrates his detailed understanding of horse anatomy.
Interestingly Stubbs's portraits were often painted, as here, in the landscape layout as opposed to portrait.
Sir Henry Vane-Tempest owned Hambletonian, the horse portrayed here.
Hambletonian was believed to be the fastest horse in the north of England.
And if we look closely we can see that things don't quite look right.
The hand of the stable boy, for instance, cannot be correct. He must have an exceedingly long arm.
Stubbs had to take Vane-Tempest to court for non-payment of the 300 guineas he was owed for this painting.
The painting was inherited by Vane-Tempest's daughter Frances Anne.
She went on to marry into the Stewart family and became the Marchioness of Londonderry.
Here we are before Frances Anne Vane-Tempest, later Marchioness of Londonderry.
And it was through her that the Hambletonian portrait by Stubbs came into the family.
This amazing portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was the leading portrait painter of society in the early 19th century.
Frances Anne is the focus here in the centre of this image.
Looking out and engaging with us, the viewer. Her son George leads her, and us
through the entrance of her ancestral home which is in the northeast of England.
In August 1828 Frances Anne's husband wrote to the artist, 'Your picture has safely arrived and
is today placed above the fireplace in the dining room. Everybody is enchanted by it'.
Moving on up through the house we pass all these doors. They lead to bedrooms and bathrooms.
And during the early decades of the 20th century they hosted a range of amazing people.
This included writers, W.B. Yeats. Artists, Edmund Brock. Politicians: Churchill, Baldwin, MacDonald.
In fact Churchill's grandmother was a Londonderry. But that's not where I want us to go. I want to show you this room up here.
This former guest bathroom is a temporary storeroom for a collection of glass plate negatives.
Approximately 500 glass plates survive and they were all images photographed by Theresa, Lady Londonderry and her son Reginald.
And they have been loaned to us by the present 10th Marquis of Londonderry.
We've started to work on displaying them but for now they remain in safe storage here.
Moving further on up into the house we come to the roof and I'm really excited because one day
I would love to be able to bring visitors up here. But for today it's just me.
This is one of the few places from the estate that you can actually see the sea over there in Strangford Lough.
And it's ironic because the lough itself is so important to the microclimate here at Mount Stewart.
Without your support we couldn't look after amazing places like Mount Stewart. So thank you.