-This time on "Heritage Rescue," a Devon castle that's been a family home for 28 generations.

Wow, this is proper medieval-looking.

It's full of wonderful surprises.

-There you go.

-[ Laughs ] That's amazing.

But also endless problems.

-Water has been absolutely pouring in for ages.

Ceiling collapsing.

Just completely shot.

-The roof is falling to pieces... -You've got to not look down.

That's the key.

-...its priceless ceilings are falling apart... -We think that quite a lot of this may be papier-mâché.

-So that's not going to go very well with water.

-Just go into mush really.

-And that's only the beginning of what they're facing.

That beam is in half.

-This beam is holding up four stories above us.

-That's quite scary.

-We try not to think about that.

-From castles to stately homes, Britain boasts some of the world's most glorious buildings.

Well, I think it's magnificent.

Nuts but magnificent.

With hundreds of years of history.

-Why was it hidden under a floorboard?

How did it get there?

-But our heritage is under threat.

-Some of the 300-plus rooms are completely derelict.

-Come with me to see some extraordinary buildings being saved... Look at the scale of this.

It's vast.

...meeting the craftspeople dedicated to their rescue... -59 1/2 minutes of preparation, 30 seconds of glory.

-...and witnessing the skills and passion needed to keep these incredible places alive... -I'm leaving something behind that's going to last longer than I am.

It's a good way to make a mark on the world.

-...for us all to visit and enjoy.

♪♪ When your home has been in the family for more than 600 years, you understand that there's an expectation that you will hand on that home to the next generation reasonably intact.

You're not so much the owner as the custodian of the property.

But what do you do if your home is a castle and it's crumbling away?

This is no fairy tale.

It's real life.

Because on the River Exe in the rolling Devon countryside, one of our oldest aristocratic families, the Courtenays, has their medieval seat.

Powderham Castle -- Absolutely stunning, isn't it?

Nestled in 200 acres of parkland, Powderham Castle was built in 1390, with bits being added on right up until Victorian times, making a maze of interlocking halls and towers.

Wow, this is proper medieval-looking, quite imposing, quite intimidating, especially for the likes of me.

I hope they don't drop the portcullis on me.

Brace yourselves.

These fortifications were put to the test during the War of the Roses and the English Civil War.

The enemy now is the British weather, and the castle is losing the battle.

Leaking rooves and crumbling castellations have forced it to shut down for urgent repairs.

[ Laughs ] Well, someone's in because the flag is flying.

Charles Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon.

You're supposed to call him Your Lordship.

Although I'm reliably informed he likes to be called Charles.

♪♪ Charlie.

Hello.

-Evening.

Come on in.

-Thank you.

I was feeling slightly intimidated by the grandness of the driveway and then coming under that portcullis.

-It's quite a grand baronial entrance, designed that way.

Make you realize you're coming to a family of old, ancient lineage.

-Incredibly, Charlie is the 28th generation of Courtenays to live at Powderham Castle.

-It's been in the -- in our family since we built it, 1390, and every generation has changed it, expanded it, modernized it, and effectively taken an old medieval great hall and made what you see today, which is an amazing combination of Gothic bits and bobs.

-I can't help feeling like I've stepped back in time, but I haven't got a clue as to when.

-So, Nick, this is the state dining room.

-Wow!

Hugely medieval-looking, which probably means it isn't.

-Yeah.

This is the modern extension.

It's the newest room in the house, built in the 1840s.

The coats of arms down the wall tell effectively a family tree, and tells the story of every sort of husband and wife since a thousand years ago.

-And these big ones over the fire, is one of those yours?

-That is the Earl of Devon's coat of arms.

So that's my coat of arms.

Same as the flag on top of the castle.

-Charlie grew up at Powderham Castle and it's always played a huge part in his life.

Six years ago he took over the running of the estate with his two children and his wife, American actress A.J.

Langer, who left her Hollywood days behind to become the Countess of Devon.

-So, we met in a bar in Las Vegas and she had no idea about Powderham, and I made sure she had no idea about Powderham until I drove her up the drive, and it was something I'd always wanted to do to meet someone, fall in love with someone, but not it be about Powderham and the earldom and all the rest but it be about me and -- And so when she first showed up here, she had no idea what was -- what was happening.

-What'd she say?

-She was a bit horrified and I think she still is to this day.

[ Both laugh ] -That's amazing.

You can understand her surprise.

Walking through Powderham Castle is a tour through six centuries of our finest craftsmanship.

Take the Georgian staircase with its beautiful and intricate plasterwork.

-It's an amazing space and it was all done by local craftsmen as well.

-Was it really?

-Yes.

-Each molding was hand-shaped from a mix of lime and cow dung, and it took three men three years to do.

Great place to hold a party, though.

You can imagine, you know, the Countess in her grand finery, sweeping down everybody.

-Yeah.

You see all the grand paintings of the ladies in their fine silk ball gowns.

And this staircase was almost a fashion runway for them.

-Everything about Powderham was designed to wow.

And each room is more surprising than the last.

-So this is the anteroom.

-Very lovely it is too.

A bit dark in the middle of the day.

-It's a bit dark, but then if you want some light, you can just open the window.

[ Squeaking ] -[ Laughs ] That's amazing.

It seems the Courtenays have always loved surprises as much as grandeur.

Oh, and there's a little bronze... -There you go.

-[ Laughs ] Well, look at that.

-Takes you through to the servants quarters, and so you keep it all nice and discreet and put it behind the bookcases.

-Nice.

Powderham Castle is a treasure trove of playful touches, stunning architecture, and exquisite craftsmanship.

-So this is the music room.

-Wow!

And Charlie is passionate about sharing it all.

-I think there's a misconception about these private family homes as being only for the family.

They are public spaces.

You don't build a house like Powderham in order to hide away and not see people.

It's a space for other people to come and enjoy.

And we're really fortunate to be able to share it with people.

-So what's the greatest danger to the future of this room and, in fact, all the other beautiful rooms that we've seen?

-So the house here suffers terribly from bad rooves.

There are some pretty leaky patches, and there are rooms upstairs that you just can't use because they're so damp.

The risk to the interior of a catastrophic failure on the roof is immense.

And that's what you're always looking out for.

[ Thunder rumbles ] -Charlie's not kidding.

30 years of leaks from the roof have caused horrific damage in the rooms on the top floor.

You can see where the water's coming in and blowing the plaster as well.

-You absolutely can.

-Not to mention the black mold on the ceiling.

Now, a team led by architect Philip Hughes are trying to save this building.

-This whole area has been devastated really.

Ceiling collapsing.

The main structural timbers are decayed at the base, and the gutter above here is just completely shot.

-It's coming down.

All of the plaster is sodden.

It's bursting, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's a mess.

-It is.

If you want to look at the next space, it gets worse.

-It's devastating to think that unless the leaks are stopped for good, the same thing will happen to the magnificent rooms downstairs.

This is rotten, isn't it?

-It is.

This is desperate.

So this water has been absolutely pouring in for ages over this window, and the lintels have completely gone.

-The water damage on this floor is considerable and very easy to see.

Now, in a modern building and using modern techniques, you just rip all the plaster off, all the ceiling off, new plasterboard and new plaster, and you'd have it done in a few days.

But of course, this is a listed building, which means that you can't do that kind of thing.

You have to work with the original materials and try and save as much as possible.

But it takes time, and in building, time is money, and it's not an inexhaustible supply of money to do this.

Powderham Castle is so important that it's been given a government grant of a quarter of a million quid.

That'll be topped up by visitors fees and wedding hires, but the cash has to stretch a long way.

Take the kitchen, where a 600-year-old ceiling beam has split and is threatening to bring down the building, or the huge task of making the towers watertight.

Andy.

-Hi.

-How you doing?

Andy Delgano's roofing team have started stripping the old coverings back.

And it's revealing some unwelcome surprises.

So you see some of the rotted beams.

I guess that's the thing.

With these jobs as well as you work on them, you find stuff.

-Exactly.

As we uncovers the slates here, you find rafters that are rotten, purlins that are rotten.

The roofs are in a very poor state.

-As if that wasn't enough, the stonework needs fixing too.

I say stonework.

In fact, these coping stones were a Victorian experiment with cement.

And now they're crumbling away.

Removing the cracked stones requires special skills, a steady hand, and a head for heights.

Have you just disappeared over the edge?

I was hanging -- You were hanging over the edge.

-Yeah.

[ Laughs ] -I was worried you'd thrown yourself over there.

On a building like this, there are some areas you simply can't scaffold.

That's where rope experts Will Gandhi and Paul Smith come in.

What's it like working on a castle?

Because to all intents and purposes, a lot of the jobs are quite similar to the original trades.

But you swinging out on a rope over the edge is almost certainly how, when they were building this place, people were hanging out on... -They were actually doing it anyway, without any health and safety, just on a rope.

-Are you used to this, or do you still get a little buzz of sort of excitement and fear as you go over the edge?

-Yeah, well, you do, but hopefully, you know, you just don't look down and then... -You just look down.

-Yeah.

Don't look down.

[ Both laugh ] -As the future of the roof and castle below hangs in the balance, it's good to know there are specialists at work.

This is a very, very big roof.

It's not like a Victorian semi-detached where you're going to put a few slates on.

There's all kinds of copper and lead and complications with stone, and it is big.

♪♪ Powderham Castle in Devon started life as a modest medieval manor house, but the Courtenay family's knack for marrying rich heiresses meant their wealth and standing grew and the castle did too.

With over 100 exquisitely decorated rooms and a 200-acre deer park, this is not your average family home, but home is what it's been to the Courtenays for 28 generations, and every room tells a piece of their history.

Whilst the front is very sort of baronial and masculine, this is very beautiful and arty.

The room was created in 1789 by William, the 3rd Viscount, or "Kitty" to the family.

It's known as the Music Room, but could easily be called the Matchmakers Room.

-So, he grew up with 13 sisters.

His parents died when he was young, and his role in life was to introduce his sisters to suitable men to get married to.

And so he needed a room in which to entertain and show some hospitality.

And this is what this room does.

-Kitty was handsome, vivacious, and had an eye for style.

He commissioned the world's largest Axminster carpet for this room, which so impressed the Prince Regent that he immediately ordered his own.

But one inch bigger.

So I imagine then, being that sort of creative, and he would have been well-respected and well-loved.

-Well, no, he was a gay man.

-Homosexuality was not only illegal in 1811, it was punishable by death.

When Kitty was caught with another man, he fled the country, exiled for the rest of his life.

The following generations of the family tried to hush the whole affair up.

-William's story was buried.

He was always just referred to as the flamboyant, profligate third viscount who ran away from his debtors.

When A.J.

and I came in, we found some amazing letters that he was writing from exile back to Powderham, managing the estate in minute detail, and you suddenly discover that far from being the profligate exile, he was a devoted keeper and carer of the castle who only wanted to be back here but couldn't just because he was gay.

-And you feel that same sense of love for this place?

-I have passion for the stories.

One issue that gay people have is that there aren't examples of previous gay lives.

And here suddenly we have one that's very rarely seen in English culture and English heritage.

-It makes the job of saving Powderham even more important to Charlie.

And thanks to a £250,000 grant, work starts stripping the leaking roof.

But as is so often the case on these sorts of jobs, the more you do, the more problems you reveal.

-They're all built up with brick inside and with cement render on the top, which is all cracked.

And then so the water's all come in and destroyed the bricks underneath.

This is the brick that's just crumbled to pieces.

You know, you have lots of bits of plant root that grow out of all of this because of the cracks in the render, which then push all of it out.

-Another issue is if things like this, you get iron inside the masonry, and it starts to rot.

It creates a phenomenon known as jacking, which essentially means as it expands, it's pushing the masonry above apart and breaking it up.

-All the render on this tower has to come off too so the brickwork can be repaired.

In the meantime, 200 miles away in Derbyshire, the new coping stones are being cast, overseen by Joe Wheatcroft.

-So, for the project, I think there's around 130 stones required and all stones are different.

There's not -- I don't think there's two the same.

-The stones are made by wet concrete being poured into a bespoke mold.

So 130 different stones means 130 different molds.

-The mold makers are really hard to find.

It's something in there, the mentality.

They've got to almost imagine a negative and manufacture the negative as a mold before we can then cast that stone as the positive.

I couldn't do that.

It's a difficult thing to get your head around.

-The mold makers use birch ply and wood filler to build the inverse of the shape they need.

It's got to be exact, or the finished stones won't line up on the building.

-We've got to make sure every face is perfect, and without a good mold, you're never going to have a perfect stone.

It takes a lot of practice and a lot of time.

-Next is a plywood partition to set the length, silicone sealant to make the edge nice and neat, and oil to stop the concrete sticking to the mold.

Then they're filled with concrete and left to set overnight.

The next morning, the molds are broken open to reveal the new stone.

-That's about unit number 48, I think.

Satisfying.

-The last stage is a hosedown with an acid wash to clean the stone and give a textured finish.

-It brings all your aggregates out, makes it gleam, sparkle.

-To see something come to life from a mix of products that gives you that look of natural stone.

It's fantastic.

I go around cities and touching stone and feeling stone.

I get told off quite a lot by my wife for doing that.

Once it's in you, you just love it.

-After 250 man-hours, the stones are ready to begin their journey to Powderham Castle.

All 20 tons of them.

At the height of its Georgian splendor, Powderham was listed as having 42 domestic servants.

And let's be honest, if someone like me was going to come in a room like this, I would have been one of those either setting a fire or changing a bedpan.

I certainly wouldn't have been in the bed as the lord of the manor.

My ancestors knew their place.

Small army to keep the place running, though, isn't it?

♪♪ The castle kitchens don't have any servants in today, but there is a heritage manager, Derry Tydeman, who's taking me to see another of the castle's major problems.

Oh, I see what you mean about the ceiling.

Oh, my word, that beam is in half.

Literally it's split in the middle.

That's a lot of weight and a lot of damage over a lot of time to break a beam that's that big and strong.

-This beam is holding up four stories above us that are now relying on these scaffolds.

-That's quite scary.

-We try not to think about that.

-Thankfully, the split was discovered before giving way and bringing four stories of masonry with it.

The challenge now is to create a 30-foot-long, bespoke steel support that will curve with the beam, taking the weight of everything above and stopping it dropping any further.

Is there enough money in this current grant to be able to do all these things that you want to do?

-No.

Uh, never.

-[ Laughs ] -But we will find a way.

We will get this room finished this year.

-I'm going to hold you to that.

Me and Charlie are having a scone and a cup of tea in here.

Baked in this range.

But there's a lot of work to be done before then.

Including up on the roof, where there's some pretty fancy copper work going on, which requires specialists like Nathan Prince.

-As far as hard metals go, copper is the nicest to work with.

You can actually dress it and type it around more.

It's -- It looks nicer, generally handles better, and it's easier to work with.

-Nathan and the team shape the copper inside a timber frame so that super-straight folds can be made at the edges.

Of course, it won't always be this shiny.

-It'll go to a very dull brown, and that happens quite quickly.

And then after a long period of time, decades, it ends up going faded green.

-After platinum, gold, and silver, copper is the least reactive metal, perfect for withstanding the elements.

-This could be here for easily 150, 200 years.

[ Thunder crashing ] -Then, on the night of January the 20th, disaster strikes.

A section of the north-wing roof, where work's yet to begin, is overwhelmed by heavy rain and floods the library below.

-The books on the -- on the lower bookcases have been quite badly affected.

A few of them are definitely damaged.

-The teams scramble to save what they can.

-There's a collection of Bibles, some of which are dating 1640s.

There's another set from the 1780s.

-Everywhere they turn, more priceless items are being damaged.

-These are the coronation robes that were worn by the 17th Earl of Devon, Charlie's grandfather, to the coronation.

They are truly one of a kind, and the trail of their cloaks have been in the puddle.

-But the real worry is the damage the rainwater is doing to the soaked walls and ceiling.

Powderham Castle in Devon makes an imposing impression.

With its towers, battlements, and defensive walls, they weren't messing about.

It was built to withstand any attack.

In the First English Civil War, it held out during a month-long siege, and in the Wars of the Roses, it withstood a major assault by an army of 1,000 men.

But these days it has a far more lethal enemy -- the British weather.

The roofers have been working flat out to try and get it watertight, but unfortunately not quite fast enough.

A few days ago there was a massive deluge of rain, big storm with terrible consequences for the castle.

On the north-wing roof, where repairs hadn't yet begun, pooling water cascaded inside and down through all three floors.

Derry and his team are only just getting a handle on how bad the damage is.

-We definitely lost a fair few things from the collection.

Some of our books and manuscripts have been pretty severely damaged.

We're yet to really find out the extent of the damage to the structure as well.

-The water's reached the ground-floor library, where an 18th-century ceiling covered in ornate decoration is now in danger of collapse.

Just assessing the damage is a huge job and involves removing the floor in the room above.

What's happening here?

-We've had to take it apart.

We've got to make room for the floorboards, which we've had to rip up from next door.

-Oh, I see.

Look, it's all ripped up in here.

-Yeah.

And gradually, very slowly, you have to dry it out.

So we have the dehumidifiers, we have the fans blowing, and it's a long job.

You got to take five, six weeks I think, to dry it out.

If you dry it out too quick, it'll crack and collapse.

We've got a big scaffold in the libraries now just to catch the library ceiling if it falls out.

-It's so easily lost, isn't it?

You think about hundreds of years of being here and it being here for all this time.

In a single weekend of horrific weather, you could -- you could lose a room.

-They're so vulnerable, so fragile, these buildings.

You know, look, it's a castle, right?

It looks like a really tough building.

But if you don't get the roofing right, it can all collapse in a very short period of time.

-Not only do they need to prevent the ceiling falling down... -This is all quite moist in here.

-...they also have to try and save the Georgian decoration.

So architectural conservator Berenice Humphreys has been assessing the damage.

Looking at the ceiling, it doesn't look in bad nick, to be honest.

I mean, normally if it was going to fall in, it would be bowing or cracking, wouldn't it?

-Well, it doesn't look like that from down here, but when you get up on the scaffold, it makes you feel a bit seasick, to be honest.

There's a massive bow just above my head, actually.

-So that's plaster, is it?

-It's probably a mix -- fibrous plaster, which is gypsum plaster.

But we also think that quite a lot of this may be papier-mâché.

-Really?

-So... -So that's not going to go very well with water.

-That doesn't like water at all, no.

Water gets into papier-mâché.

It affects the glue that's holding the paper together.

It disintegrates.

The paper itself will start to just go into mush really.

-It's a papier-mushing really.

-Basically yes.

Yeah, yeah.

It also starts to curl.

It shrinks basically.

So it starts pulling away from the ceiling.

-Does that mean you have to replace it with new papier-mâché, or are you going to -- do you try and rescue what's gone a bit mushy?

-We'll try and rescue it.

-Whilst that heritage rescue begins, another is underway in the kitchen, creating a unique steel support curved to run alongside the original 30-foot-beam that split.

Measurements taken, the steel beam is going to be bent at Barnshaws in the West Midlands with the mother of all machines.

-It's the largest bending machine in the UK.

It actually weighs 97 ton.

So from the sections that you can see, there's at least twice underneath the ground.

So it's a big hydraulic machine.

-The dimensions of the curve are entered into a computer, which runs the machine's giant rollers, and a 30-foot steel girder is fed through.

-As the rolls pass through, we're making sure that the travel is correct and there's no twist or no rising of the section.

-After each pass, the steel beam is carefully checked to get the curve exactly right.

-Just taking a little bit more out because it's still about 30 mil oversize, so we'll just roll it through another couple of times just to take a little bit more out.

-When people were at school, obviously math was not the most exciting of subjects, but in the world of bending, Pi and Pythagoras and things like that is quite important.

We need to know angles, chords, rises, everything like that.

-Later, the steel will be cut into six pieces to make it easier to fit.

But for now, it has to be bent in one long piece.

-Now we try it on a flat surface just to check, make sure it's flat and not twisted.

That's all done.

[ Birds chirping ] -Back at Powderham Castle, the new coping stones have arrived and are being winched up onto the roof.

They're over 130 kilograms each.

But with ye old block and tackle, they're lowered into place and lime-mortared in.

-Hold it, hold it.

-The more of the roof that goes on, the safer the rooms below become.

In the library, the storm-leak damaged ceiling has been drying out, and the job of saving the intricate papier-mâché decoration is underway.

-So this process has been on for 72 hours, and in some areas it's just started to dry out a little.

-First, the cracked paint has to come off.

Chloe Stewart is applying a poultice of newspaper soaked in a gentle paint stripper.

-Of course, the papier-mâché is particularly vulnerable because it easily softened, and so we have to take a lot of care working around that.

-While Chloe scrapes the paint off inch by inch, Andrea Walker is tasked with giving the soft paper back its strength.

-The water ingress has caused the papier-mâché to break away from the ceiling and kind of flop and become loose.

When it gets damp, it can swell.

If it stays damp for too long, it can get moldy, or if it just dries out too quickly, it can crack.

I've got my Japanese tissue paper that we're using.

We're cutting it into strips, and this is the glue that we're going to be using.

And so what I'll do... ...is I'll get some of this.

I'm going to dampen down the surface first.

I'm trying to not get it to wrinkle, but also I'm trying to get it to go into that bit of a curve across the top so that I keep the contours that are there without creating new ones.

-Downstairs, work's about to begin on another ceiling because the new steel beam for the kitchen has arrived.

Even though it's now been cut into six pieces... -One, two, three.

-...each still weighs about 100 kilograms.

-A bit more.

Yeah.

-No picnic to maneuver through Powderham's halls.

-Watch the wall.

-But once they're in place, they'll sandwich the old oak beam and prevent it moving any further.

-What are we going to do now is we're gonna get an end one up there, get it sat on the lintel and temporarily fixed to the beam.

-They'll do that by cutting a hole where the end of the beam will sit.

-Basically, we've got some rocks up here that just need chipping out because our base plates got to go quite far in on top of that lintel there.

-Then all they've got to do is lift the first 100-kilo piece into place.

-You kind of need to go wiggle up and in as you're going, but... There you go.

-With the first beam secure in place, the team fit the second steel to the opposite wall.

-Look at that.

-Then if they've got things just right, the middle section will slide in effortlessly.

You never have a hammer to hand when you need one.

-Hang on because we're stuck against the side of the beam now.

-You need to be able to put a bolt in quick or it will drop.

-Now they've got it all to do again on the other side to create the beam sandwich.

Five hours later, the job is done.

-It is a nice feeling to know that something's going to stay around long after we're not.

-It also feels as though Powderham may be turning a corner.

Even clearing up after the flood seems to have brought some good.

Charlie, I got a message that you had a potentially exciting find.

-Well, we've been clearing this room to prepare for the roof to be fixed.

This is the last trunk that's a bit too large to get out the door, and I opened it and discovered all of these amazing fabrics, boxes, clothes.

-The storage trunk is filled with family heirlooms from the 1800s, around the time Kitty, the 3rd Viscount, was forced into exile because he was gay.

-So this is a purse.

Says used by Lady Matilda Locke.

-Matilda was one of Kitty's youngest sisters.

-It's a little sewing kit, and in it you have the needles and little pincushions.

Look at the colors.

You've got purples, orange, blue, all still there as she would have left it 200 years ago.

-One small pincushion has a message from the past.

-"Mizpah" -- It's a Yiddish word, a Jewish word meaning sorrow for those you're separated from, either in death or in distance.

And this in particular, something I've never seen before, which is a dressing gown made... -Pretty flamboyant dressing gown.

-[ Chuckling ] It is, it is, and it sits -- It has this card with it, says dressing gown made about 1780 from a dress of about 1755.

So this would be William, Kitty, the 3rd Viscount.

And this must be a dress that he made, or a dressing gown that he made from his grandmother's dress.

-How amazing.

-Amazing fabric.

-It's almost like he wants you to find him and -- and tell his story, isn't it?

-To have something that actually belonged to him, was worn by him, used by him, and you're always wondering, how did -- How did Kitty walk around the Music Room?

What was he looking like?

We have one written description of him wearing rather grand green pantaloons, but here you get actually what he was wearing in the 1780s.

-It's wonderful.

I mean, it genuinely is.

Like, it's sort of brought -- it's brought Kitty to life for me.

-Lots of people talk about ghosts.

Well, this is a little chest of ghosts effectively.

They're all still here.

♪♪ -Charlie's right.

This place is a treasure trove of memories.

But the recent flood here off the roof has been a bit of a wake-up call for everyone at Powderham.

The objects representing six centuries of family history are all in danger until they can get this roof fixed and watertight.

There's still a lot of work to do here.

♪♪ Powderham Castle in Devon has seen non-stop action for the last six months.

Outside and in, craftsmen and women have been hard at work rescuing the castle.

And now it's time for the final push.

With new steel supports, the kitchen is structurally sound and a new ceiling's going in.

1700s style.

Well, bar the nail gun.

-We've basically just nailed to the bottom of the floor joists.

And then when the plaster comes, it goes through the gaps, and then it will drop and curl over the top of the timber like a hook.

That's what holds all the ceiling up.

-Onto the oak laths goes plaster made of fine sand, lime putty, and horsehair to mesh it all together.

Two coats of that and the kitchen ceiling will be good as new.

Meanwhile, outside, the last batch of coping stones are being lifted to the highest point of the castle.

-Hands on, hands on.

Steady, steady.

-That's pretty good there.

-Simple.

-And inside, the treasures are coming out of storage, ready for the grand opening.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ 600 years ago, the ancestors of the current Earl, Charlie Courtenay, decided this was the perfect spot on which to build their family castle because it overlooks the estuary of the River Exe, and that meant they could control the trade in and out of Exeter.

Unfortunately, it also meant that for 600 years, this beautiful castle has been under constant attack from the weather coming in off the sea.

♪♪ Today I'm back at Powderham Castle to find out if it's won or lost its latest battle with the elements.

Six months ago, the castle was in real danger.

A broken beam threatened to bring down an entire tower.

Literally it's split in the middle.

Its treasures were disintegrating.

-This area here has pulled away from the ceiling.

-And years of leaking rooves had caused horrific damage.

This is rotten, isn't it?

-It is.

This is desperate.

-When I first came to this place, it had been leaky and damp for years.

But then one winter's night, a massive rainstorm overwhelmed the roof here and water came crashing down and through one of the staterooms.

I'm hoping they fixed the roof now so that can never happen again.

What was once a patchwork of cracked old copper, rotten joists, and crumbling stone... ...is now solid and strong for centuries to come.

Wow!

Superb.

Isn't it?

Shiny copper, tough slate, and bright new coping stones are ready to protect the castle and to do it in style.

Inside Powderham Castle are any number of examples of Devonshire craftsmanship for visitors to enjoy.

But if I had my way, this beautiful copper roof would be in the guidebook.

I mean, flat metal sheets, bent and shaped and folded into this gorgeous display, which only the craftsmen who put it here, the birds, and you and me are ever going to see.

Ain't it lovely?

You're welcome.

The leaks in the library which soaked the ceiling and made the papier-mâché decoration peel are a thing of the past.

Oh, yes.

Look at this ceiling.

Beautiful, isn't it?

It's now safe, dry, and looking magnificent.

The decoration has been stripped, reglued and rebuilt with crisp detailing.

And all the more beautiful for having all the furniture and the books in here and the mirrors and the paintings up as well.

Even the people in the paintings look happier.

Those smiles are all thanks to the efforts of Berenice and her team of restorers.

What do you think, Berenice?

I think it looks beautiful.

-It is, yeah.

Yeah, it's looking good.

I think we've done a good job, actually.

-And you can't see the cracks or the join or where you've repaired it.

-No, no.

-Are you proud of it?

-I am proud of it.

We've worked hard to make it nice and sharp, the detailing.

I think it's very refined.

It's -- It makes it a pleasant place to sit and read.

-How close the coming down was it, do you think, when you got to look at it?

-Uh, I think it was of concern.

We had stains on the ceiling from the water.

We had cracks running along the middle here, and the papier-mâché was peeling back as well.

-And presumably it's in a better condition than before the flood happened.

So actually, you know, kind of roundabout way the water coming through actually did him a favor.

-Sometimes it helps.

You suddenly discover that, oh, actually, this ceiling wasn't in a very good condition, and maybe we should have looked at it.

But nobody looks at a ceiling until something happens.

-That should be up there a while now, shouldn't it?

-It should be.

Hopefully.

-These hundreds of hours of repair work have been driven by the passion of the man of the house, Charlie.

He's at home today.

If I can just find him.

Now, somewhere around here is another one of Powderham's secret doors.

Here we go.

Ah, Charlie, there you are.

My word.

Isn't it beautiful?

Safe from the threat of roof leaks, the Music Room created by Charlie's ancestor, the exiled 3rd Viscount Kitty, is back in all its finery.

It's truly beautiful.

And how it would have been, presumably in Kitty's time.

-Yeah, and this room looks almost exactly like he would have left it.

It's his carpet, his sofas and chairs.

Obviously, his painting's on the wall.

So it's very much his room.

-And there's one more room ready to reopen to the public.

In the kitchen, an enormous beam had split and was threatening to bring down all four stories above it.

But clever engineering means the kitchen is finally fully restored.

Well, this is looking fantastic.

-Yeah, it's come together really well.

It's been years in the repair, this room.

And the fact that we finally got the consents, all the technical know-how in order to brace that beam and repair it and get it back in the shape it is, is absolutely fantastic.

-I said when I came here actually, that the mark of it being done, you know, the progression of this house would be when I could sit down and have a scone and a proper Devonshire cream tea with you.

And here we are.

-Yeah.

-Charlie's achieved a huge amount in the last six months alone.

Cheers.

-It's been nice to meet you and a real pleasure showing you around.

-Thank you.

But as the 28th member of his family to be Powderham Castle's curator, the pressure's always on.

Very obvious to me, Charlie, in chatting to you that you feel a real sense of responsibility with the long history that it's been handed down generation after generation.

-I think there's always that sense, and particularly over the last 50, 60, 70 years -- you know, my grandparents took a decision post-war that they're going to really work on keeping this place open.

My father kept the same thing going.

And for us, it's a question of just doing more of the same, opening up more rooms.

And so long as we can continue to do that, make the space available for as many people as possible, give them a sense of history, a sense of significance, I think the future looks like it might be quite promising.

[ Birds chirping ] -Twice in history, Charlie's ancestors have ridden out with their knights and foot soldiers from here to defend this place.

Now, several centuries on, it's Charlie Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon's turn to call on an army of architects and craftsmen and craftswomen to help him win this latest battle.

And we should cheer their efforts because with its exquisite staterooms and its diverse history, it's a treasure we can all enjoy.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪