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00:01Britain's history is recorded in its monuments.
00:05Even before the Normans came and built their castles across the country,
00:08successive generations have left their mark on the landscape,
00:12in the landmarks they've left behind.
00:15But now those landmarks are crumbling.
00:18There's a section there which is quite bad.
00:20Centuries of wear and tear have taken their toll on these precious buildings.
00:24More of the structural members were suffering from corrosion than we expected.
00:28It's moss growing inside, so then the water backs up, then falls internally.
00:33They need constant care and maintenance in all kinds of conditions.
00:39You can see dust coming up. A hundred years old dust.
00:42Revealing treasures that have been hidden for centuries.
00:45We're unearthing the original bridge.
00:47All over the country, teams of highly skilled people are dedicating their lives
00:52to keeping our heritage standing.
00:54We need to be aware that we are part of a cycle that's been going on for centuries.
00:59These are Britain's landmark fixers. And this is not just their story.
01:04They took nearly 6,000 holes to drill. How marvellous.
01:08But the story of the buildings they look after.
01:22The Royal Albert Hall.
01:24This world-renowned building has been at the centre of London's cultural life since 1871.
01:34It's quite possibly the most astounding and impressive performance venue on the planet.
01:39But its story began 20 years earlier, with the grand opening of something even more spectacular.
01:47The Great Exhibition.
01:49The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the brainchild of Prince Albert.
01:54Staged in the famous Crystal Palace at Hyde Park in London,
01:58the Great Exhibition was a showcase of British craft and industry.
02:02Over six million people came to visit. It raised over £186,000.
02:08With the profits, Prince Albert planned to build a great central hall for arts and sciences
02:13at the heart of Albertopolis, his own personal city of culture.
02:18They've made it a cultural quarter of London where they were going to have gardens and museums and a concert hall.
02:25But in 1861, Prince Albert died tragically, aged just 42.
02:33The Royal Albert Hall was opened in his honour just ten years later.
02:38It's incredible what it was originally intended for, and it's still doing that same thing 150 years on.
02:44But the hall is now in urgent need of repair, with leaking roofs.
02:52On a historic building like this, you can't really have buckets lying around capturing water.
02:56Flaky fittings.
02:58It's very important to get a really good finish, because this is Royal Albert Hall.
03:03Once you've finished one, the door is always another one to do.
03:06And an overheating auditorium.
03:09We've had to install over 600 supply grills underneath the seats.
03:13All under an enormous glass dome.
03:17This is going to be a big challenge for us.
03:19We've got a vast array of works to be rolled out across the whole of the hall.
03:23The scale of it's obviously massive.
03:24There won't be one area that won't be touched.
03:26Shut during the pandemic for more than 12 months, this dedicated team are working hard to restore the hall in time for its grand reopening on its 150th year.
03:38Hidden within the labyrinth of corridors is the guardian of the hall's history.
03:54Liz Harper is the head archivist for the Royal Albert Hall.
03:59And she has recently made an amazing discovery.
04:02We found this model in pieces under a staircase in a cupboard, just forgotten about.
04:08It dates back to the Victorian era, to the 1860s, 70s, when the hall was being constructed.
04:13And we can see the working processes of the early designers from it.
04:18So, on this model, they've already decided that there'll be a dome roof.
04:22And they've also decided that there'll be a gallery.
04:25And also the tiers of boxes are shown here.
04:29It's really, really wonderful to think of the Royal Engineers, who are our architects.
04:34And Henry Cole, our founder, they would have actually had their hands on this item.
04:40And they would have been painting it and cutting bits away.
04:43And things like this are just incredible, tangible objects.
04:47It's just a fantastic thing to have in our collection.
04:50And I can't believe it survived this long.
04:53The hall is based upon a Roman amphitheatre.
04:59The reason being is, wherever you're sitting, you actually see what's going on,
05:02as opposed to some of the larger venues, such as the O2,
05:05where you're getting pinpoint straight flat.
05:08This actually drags and draws you into the actual show itself.
05:12The auditorium's central arena is surrounded by raised seating in step tiers.
05:19These are ringed by access corridors.
05:22Beneath the hall is a network of tunnels that are hidden from the public.
05:27But the pièce de résistance is at the top of the hall.
05:32A colossal glass dome.
05:35Spanning 20,000 square feet with a staggering 7,000 panes of glass.
05:41The dome roof still stands as one of the largest unsupported domes in the world.
05:47In 1865, Francis Folk, who was the chief architect of the Royal Albert Hall, died tragically.
05:54And everybody thought, well, this could have been a tragedy.
05:56I mean, we've lost the chief architect.
05:58Will the building still be able to go ahead in the way that it was initially designed?
06:02But in fact, it serendipitously turned out to be good because Henry Scott took over and he had a very ambitious vision.
06:13The flat roof that Francis Folk had conceived of was replaced by a wonderful glass dome.
06:21But this incredible feat of engineering is now in need of repair.
06:30Today, glass specialist Gavin Downs is on site to meet the hall's project manager, Stuart Edwards, and assess the work that needs to be done.
06:39We've got a roof here, 150 years old in design, 279 tonnes of glass, and it's leaking.
06:47I can see you've got quite a lot of buckets around, Stuart.
06:49This is a proven way of catching leaks.
06:52The reason they're yellow is that, one, people don't trip over them, and two, it reminds people our roof is leaking.
06:58The idea is that we started off with 70, 80 buckets. We're going to get down to none.
07:04The leaking roof is a constant source of worry.
07:07As we've walked around, I've noticed lumps of moss internally on the glazing bar, so obviously there's a build-up of water there, and it's not draining.
07:16There is damage to the auditorium below, albeit in most areas relatively minor, but you don't want rain while you're watching a performance.
07:24It's going to take quite a lot of work, you know, to strip it all out.
07:28Then when we build it up, we'll put a couple of extra lines of defence in.
07:32The job now is to work on that fix, make sure that this place is dry, and that's obviously down to you to assist us with.
07:38On a historic building like this, you can't really have buckets laying around capturing water.
07:43So it's down for us to make this right.
07:47The idea of a dome came from 2,000 years ago from the Roman civilisation, where they came up with the 2D version of a dome, which is an arch.
07:57They realised that the materials that they were using, which was stone, brick and concrete, are materials that are really, really strong when they are being compressed.
08:05So you can basically span big areas.
08:08So what the Romans did was then to take that two-dimensional arch and spin it around in 3D to create the dome.
08:14So what the Albert Hall does is to exceed every dome that's ever been built before.
08:20It exceeds the Pantheon, which had been the largest dome.
08:23And it does so not using traditional materials, but using iron and plate glass.
08:30This dome is, for decades afterwards, the single largest dome in the world.
08:37This is really one of the wonders of the world.
08:40But this architectural wonder needs fixing.
08:44So a complicated scaffold structure has been erected around the dome for the specialist team of glaziers to begin work.
08:51I've got cover cap number two and number one out.
08:55Galin Zetchev is site manager.
08:57Okay, let's go.
08:58We're removing the cover caps.
09:04They're protecting the retaining angle, which keeps the glass in place.
09:10Each cover cap gets numbered, because we would like them to go back in the same way, which makes our job easier.
09:18The powder-coated aluminium cover caps cover the long strips of aluminium underneath, called retaining angles,
09:25which hold the glass panes in place on the roof.
09:29These all rest on an aluminium frame beneath, which sits atop the original Victorian wrought-iron frame.
09:37Each pair of metal retaining angles holds a pane of glass, and there are 12 overlapping panes in each column.
09:45A total of 15 columns make up the slower section of the roof, which the team are working on today.
09:52The original plate glass panes were replaced in the 20th century by a new type of safety glass.
10:06Today, the glass is what's rather oddly known as Georgian wire glass.
10:12It's a way of trying to strengthen glass.
10:15So what you do is you take one sheet of glass, you put a sheet of wire in between,
10:21and then another sheet of glass, creating a form of double glazing,
10:24but a form of double glazing that then has the additional strength that comes from the wire throughout it.
10:30But despite all its modern strength, the roof still needs fixing.
10:34What I'm doing at the moment is just reducing the amount of rubbish that can get inside the building.
10:40And see, they've tried to attempt a silicon job to stop the water from getting in,
10:46which is not the way to do it properly.
10:50There is one broken unit as well, which we have to be careful with.
10:55There is a set of retaining angles missing here.
10:58Any missing fittings and broken panes will have to be replaced,
11:02whilst everything else will be cleaned and restored.
11:05Weather is always a factor in our works, working on roofs, rain and water.
11:12It's not welcome inside.
11:14There is a lot of stage equipment, electrical equipment,
11:19which can get damaged and create all sorts of hazards.
11:25But today the weather is making working conditions increasingly difficult.
11:32Now we have to stop because obviously the weather is not good enough for us to carry our work.
11:39It's not safe. We just have to have a break.
11:43The glass dome roof doesn't just cause water leaks.
11:47When the sun beats through it, the auditorium turns into a greenhouse.
11:52Inside the hall, they are working hard to fix this.
11:55The dome roof on top of the Royal Albert Hall weighs over 600 tonnes and is completely freestanding.
12:10The glass roof, the dome, is an amazing piece of engineering because it's essentially a prefab.
12:16They made it up in Manchester and then they had to get it all the way down to London
12:21and put it back together up on the top of the roof.
12:24So people like the Lucas Brothers were brought in because of their expertise and their experience
12:30in constructing these great wooden scaffolds without which the building would have been impossible.
12:37We know this because Stuart's made some fascinating finds, which he's taking to the Hall's archives.
12:43I'm just going to see Liz in our archive department with a box of some of the things that we've found,
12:49mainly from the contractors who have worked on the building over the last hundred years.
12:54Hello.
12:55Hiya, Liz.
12:56What have you brought me?
12:58I've got a few things that we've found during the course of the building work over the last few months.
13:02Thought you might be interested in them.
13:03Oh, wow. What have we got in the box?
13:05Have a look. Most of it's from the original building.
13:07Wow.
13:08So we've got one of the caps from the original building.
13:10It's quite a small size, so I imagine it's possibly from a child. You never know.
13:14And I've got this.
13:15Wow.
13:16This is part of the original scaffolding, so it's got the initials of the original builders,
13:19the Lucas Brothers on the side there.
13:21That's amazing because I've seen the photographs of the scaffolding when the Hall was being constructed,
13:26but I never actually thought any would still exist.
13:29There's not really much else left from the Lucas Brothers.
13:32I think that's probably actually my new favourite thing in the collection
13:36because it's stuff that I never thought that we'd see.
13:40It tells the story about the men that built this hall.
13:43It's just brilliant.
13:45For the Victorian scaffolder, it was a dangerous occupation.
13:50Imagining what it was like to help put the dome in place on the Albert Hall really makes your hair stand on end.
13:59It was very, very dangerous indeed.
14:02On the 11th of May, 1869, it was time to remove the scaffolding props from the dome.
14:08At this point, the entire thing could have just basically collapsed into the concert hall.
14:12And they knock away the props that have been supporting this great iron structure.
14:17And as they do it, it settles.
14:20It stayed in place and only dropped by under a centimetre of movement.
14:27It's incredible.
14:29Today, it's down to the specialist glazing team to fix the glass dome roof.
14:35With all the broken fittings and paint accounted for, the remaining pieces can now be cleaned and repaired.
14:42New rubber gaskets need to go inside the retaining angles.
14:47Just taking the old gasket out, clean the bars up, thread the new gasket through.
14:52The gasket actually seals onto the glass.
14:56Any dirt or moss must be removed from the glass.
14:59It's really important to get this spotless all taken off.
15:04And then some methylated spirits.
15:07And we're going to give it a good old clean.
15:09The idea is to clear all the grime off so that when the glass goes back, the tape can stick.
15:15So the rain won't go inside the building.
15:18A lot of elbow greases.
15:20There's thousands, aren't there?
15:22Absolutely a lot.
15:23We've done quite a few already, haven't we?
15:25Once the glass is ready, it's site manager Gallen's job to carefully put back each piece.
15:34All the glasses have been numbered as well.
15:38It goes exactly in the same place.
15:41Okay.
15:42Can you get the tape ready?
15:45Yep.
15:46Once the glass is back in, a waterproof sealing tape is applied.
15:51The beautiful tape goes on.
15:54Obviously we're bridging this gap here with the tape which will stop water getting in.
16:01The tape seals onto the aluminium frame and the glass.
16:05We've got a tool which we're going to use now.
16:10The roller, please.
16:11To roll the tape.
16:13We're applying pressure and making sure that it's completely stuck to both glass and metal.
16:24Once the tape is applied and the retaining angles and cover caps are fitted, the team must leave it to settle.
16:30They'll come back at a later date to put it under an all-important water test.
16:35But it's not just leaks caused by the glass dome they have to worry about.
16:40One of the biggest problems the halls had since it was pretty much built because of the greenhouse effect of the glass roof
16:45is that there is a build-up of heat in the summer months.
16:48As you can imagine with 5,000 plus people here, it's particularly uncomfortable.
16:53It's something we've been trying to tackle for many years.
16:56Since its opening in 1871, keeping the hall at the right temperature has been an ongoing battle.
17:05The heating and ventilation system was very innovative, but it was trial and error.
17:10There's stories of people wearing their full coats and big hats and people can't see the stage, they can't see the act,
17:17because the big scarves and feather boas are, like, muffling people's views.
17:22When you have concerts which were meant to have maybe 5,000, 6,000 people in, but actually they packed in maybe 10,000, 12,000,
17:30the body heat must have been really bad at times.
17:35Over the last 150 years, various measures have been implemented to cool and heat the hall, as a plan uncovered by Liz shows.
17:45The very first system pumped water up from a ground well beneath the hall.
17:50It's a really interesting plan, because it actually shows you how innovative the early system was.
17:54So down here, there was an engine room, and the steam engines powered two fans, which would blow air all the way around and underneath the arena floor.
18:06And it would also filter through into other tunnels that would filter through to inner rings, and the heat would rise,
18:14and it would go up these internal vents built into the walls, and it would waft up into the corridors,
18:21higher and higher and higher, and into the auditorium.
18:25And then the hot air would escape out of the corona at the top of the hall, which you can still see today.
18:30The heating system is a kind of modern version of the Roman hypercourse.
18:36You are heating steam and then sending it round under the floor.
18:42So, you know, in some ways, once again, this is the Victorians not only being inspired by,
18:49but also seeking to exceed anything the Roman Empire had managed.
18:54But after 150 years of technological progress, the heat is still an issue.
18:59So, at the moment, we're in the process of installing a chilled water system at the hall
19:04that will condition the first floor to the gallery.
19:08We've had to install 800 kilowatts of chilled chilling capacity on the flat roof,
19:13and we're in the process of installing over 600 supply grills underneath the seats in the circle where we are now.
19:20Hello, Maurice. How are you?
19:22Russ is in charge of this part of the process.
19:24All right, we've got the task today.
19:26We need to set up the circle grills under the seats.
19:29But first of all, we need to remove the seats.
19:31So, basically, you need to unscrew the first screw.
19:35You can take the seat down, twist it in one side, and it comes easily out, yeah?
19:43Now you've got access into the under, so we can start to put the grill in, yeah?
19:50The most important thing, you need to make sure there is no gap between the floor and the grill.
19:59Yeah, it is a tough job because we need to remove around 1,000 seats and put the seats back again.
20:06The newly fitted under seat grills are attached to the brand new ventilation system.
20:12Hot air rises and is drawn through under seat grills on the fifth row.
20:17It goes through a cooling process via an elaborate pipe network fed by a plant room on the gallery level,
20:24which is connected to the new roof chillers.
20:27The recycled, cooled air then comes back out on the third row.
20:32This is linked to the third element of the ventilation system, hidden from the public down in the basement.
20:41OK, one, two, three.
20:44Air Handling Unit 1 pumps cool air into the auditorium on the ground floor at the arena level.
20:50But all the equipment needs a major overhaul.
20:54And we've got some new fans turning up for a ventilation project.
20:59And the old fans need to come out pretty quick.
21:02We're under a very tight programme on this one.
21:04Mark Whitton is the project manager for the basement refurbishment.
21:08We've got a team of three or four guys down there, unbolting, cutting, grinding,
21:15whatever they need to do to get these fans and these motors unbolted and stripped out so that they can be taken away.
21:23This obsolete equipment has been in place since 1996 and must be removed so that new, more efficient fans can be installed.
21:32Obviously the fans are very heavy, big motors, steel ductwork.
21:37The hall needs to have ventilation for the various vents they're running.
21:40So we need to make sure that all of the items are up on the gantry ready to be lifted out.
21:45With a crane arriving in six days' time, the pressure is on to get the job done.
21:51How are you doing?
21:52Inside the Royal Albert Hall, resident painter and decorator Frank Borg is on a mission.
22:05This is a paint shop where we just keep all the painting products and they've pretty much got every paint that's in the building in stock.
22:12Some of them, like the corridor paints, we have to stock a lot more of, yeah.
22:16So we'll mix that up.
22:17You can actually have it as dark as you like, so if it's come up a little bit too dark,
22:21you can add more scumble glaze and lighten it up.
22:23That looks OK.
22:24Today, Frank is repainting a door in the lobby.
22:35The technique I'm doing right now is wood graining.
22:37And the brushes used is a dragging brush.
22:40Once you've made it on, you use the dragging brush to drag down and it creates lines in the glaze effect.
22:46Then you use the flogging brush, which you would tap on after, and it would just break up the lines.
22:52And then we use the badger softener, which has no glaze or anything on it, and it would just soften the effect
22:58and make it look like more natural wood rather than something that's painted on.
23:02And these are sort of old in the world tools, really.
23:05Not a lot of decorating shops would actually stop these.
23:08In Victorian England, wood graining became an art form known as faux bois,
23:13which is French for false wood.
23:15Faux bois is something that's used a lot in Victorian country houses, in schools, in hospitals, in hotels.
23:24It's something that's highly controversial.
23:26The great writer on art, John Ruskin, sees this as just fundamentally dishonest, utterly wrong,
23:33trying to make one material look like another.
23:36But that doesn't stop it being used very widely as an inexpensive way of producing an attractive effect.
23:44I'm just creating these lines so it looks like they'll stand out as different pieces of wood,
23:49rather than one piece of timber.
23:52I'm dragging the dragging brush across the glaze.
23:55It breaks it up and it leaves a stripy type effect in the glaze.
23:59And then I'll use the flogger to break that effect up.
24:06So it looks like it's not just straight lines, it's like a timber type effect.
24:11Yeah, that's looking okay from the first working.
24:14We'll let it dry for at least 24 hours and then tomorrow we'll give it a second coat.
24:21And that should be ready.
24:23On that very first opening day, they actually hadn't finished decorating the hall.
24:29There were people painting and hammering away right up until an hour before the Queen made her entrance here.
24:37The lavish, rich, sumptuous arena that you see today, it would have been a lot plainer.
24:43But the boxes which were owned by private people were actually allowed to be decorated by them individually.
24:51You could have your own curtains, you could have shades long in your box if you wanted to.
24:57Eventually the hall had a redecoration committee in the 1870s
25:01and they decided on the red, sumptuous colour scheme that you see today, the reds and the creams.
25:08This blood red colour scheme is meticulously maintained by upholsterer Alan Hickson.
25:14Well it has to be good quality because people are sitting on it.
25:18In days gone by you had a hessian, which probably wore better, but once it gets dirty it's horrible.
25:25But this lasts quite a while.
25:27It's like a crushed velvet, but this is the basic material on all the seats in the hall.
25:33I've worked in the hall for 20 years and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
25:39I've seen lots of changes and it doesn't seem that long ago when I thought I was the new kid on the block.
25:45Now I'm one of the oldest two in the department.
25:47But I should be retiring this time next year. I hope to carry on for a little bit longer.
25:53Alan works alongside fellow upholsterer Pavel Bartzak.
25:58Pavel's first job today is re-covering a collar on the side of one of the boxes in the auditorium.
26:04We're replacing the fabric which was very damaged.
26:08Using an adhesive on a piece of fabric cut to size.
26:12This glue will help the fabric stick on a profile, which is old Victorian profile.
26:19So...
26:21Pavel has been working at the hall for 15 years.
26:24I'm a cabinet maker actually, yeah.
26:27Quite enjoy the job here, especially when it's rehearsal.
26:31So I can listen to music and do some work, that's perfect.
26:38It's just a quick job, yeah, nice.
26:42You can see dust coming up, a hundred years old dust.
26:46With the collar complete, they can get to work on another box, starting with the more complicated front section.
26:52Now we're going to strip off the braid, which has brass ornamental pins in, about 40mm apart.
27:02We're in a loggia box, otherwise known as a ground floor box.
27:07We're trying to complete the re-upholstering of the book board.
27:12It's called the book board because customers of old used to rest their arms on there and read their programs when they came in for the shows.
27:19Some still do, unfortunately some people put their feet up on them, which doesn't help our side of the story.
27:26There we have the original, and I wouldn't say it's Victoria padding, but it goes back quite a few years.
27:38Whether it's the royal box, which is only used by the royal family, or one of the boxes at the end of the road, which can be used by staff, we try and give every one of them 110%.
27:49In the 1860s, in order to fund the construction of the Royal Albert Hall, they actually sold the seats for £100.
27:56That's nearly £12,500 today.
27:59Queen Victoria was the first ever seat holder, as we call them.
28:03She bought 20 seats on a 999-year lease.
28:08They're still in existence today and form the royal box.
28:11So you've still got people today whose ancestors bought the tickets and they've stayed in the families.
28:17They still have ownership of these seats.
28:21Behind the scenes...
28:22Are you OK there, Pavel?
28:23Pavel is preparing the replacement fabric.
28:26Sometimes you need to get a really sharp blade.
28:29This is what you're going to put on the board board.
28:34Meanwhile, Alan needs to strip out the staples.
28:37It's a tedious job, but it has its rewards.
28:40I love working here.
28:42I think by the time I retire, I can actually say I've seen quite a bit of the hall and how it can be changed and adapted for various shows.
28:54I was never much of an opera person before I started to work at the hall.
28:58But I must admit, the King and I was very good.
29:02And I do appreciate the ballet.
29:05I would say for anyone who's never seen ballet, you don't realise the amount of work that they put into it.
29:12But ballet and opera is just one end of the spectrum of performances put on in the hall.
29:19The Royal Albert Hall has played host to some of the most extraordinary events that you can imagine.
29:25There was the first bodybuilding championships there.
29:28Men displaying their beautiful physiques.
29:30And the person judging, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
29:33Of course!
29:34That's who you need to judge men's bodies.
29:36The writer of Sherlock Holmes.
29:38It makes perfect sense.
29:39And then the suffragettes had their big gathering rallies when they were trying to get the vote in the Edwardian times.
29:45But really, some of the weirdest stuff was in the Victorian period.
29:50Down in the archives, Liz has a surprisingly mundane memento of one of the most bizarre events ever hosted by the hall.
29:59So, we found this bovril jar.
30:02It was actually dug up by workmen who were constructing our basement extension.
30:08So we know that it's probably about 150 years old.
30:11It's an amazing find because we also have other links to bovril at the hall.
30:16In 1891, there was the world's first sci-fi convention held here.
30:21And it has a strange link to bovril.
30:24It was called the Vriljar Bazaar.
30:28And we've got a wonderful illustration here of that event, which was based on a book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton called The Coming Race.
30:38And lots of the guests turned up in costumes based on the book, which was a bestseller at the time because it was one of the first novels to harness the fear and excitement about electricity.
30:53This is the programme from it.
30:55And it shows the Vriljar people on the front.
30:58Here they are with their wings.
31:01And this page in the programme shows you the layout of the event.
31:08So it had lots of stools surrounding the auditorium floor.
31:12And there were stools on the stage as well.
31:14So up here, there was actually a mind-reading dog.
31:17So you could have your fortune told by a dog.
31:21And then there was also a stool selling bovril just here.
31:24So bovril takes its name from, the bow comes from bovine because it's beef extract.
31:30And then the Vril comes from the Vriljar people.
31:33So it was supposed to give you kind of a life force and energy that you could only get from this beef extract.
31:40You could harness the electrical forces of the Vril.
31:44And it was only a few years before this event itself that electricity was actually installed at the Royal Albert Hall.
31:51And when it was, there was a lot of feedback from some of the trustees at the hall saying,
31:56well, we don't want this at the Albert Hall.
31:58So this really does stand out amongst all the events that were in this period,
32:03which were usually just classical music, choral concerts or organ recitals.
32:09This really does stand out in our history.
32:12This is where bovril comes from.
32:14Now, I use that to make shepherd's pies to this day, right?
32:17Bovril is an essential ingredient of British cooking.
32:19And it was in a sci-fi convention in the Royal Albert Hall.
32:26Outside the Royal Albert Hall's entrance, a specialist team are preparing for another big arrival.
32:37A 26-ton crane that can reach lengths of 44 metres.
32:43So it's a big day-to-day for the hall and for us as a contractor.
32:47We're ready to start lifting the old stuff out, getting ready to install the new fans.
32:53So just over my right shoulder is a concrete shaft that goes down 20 to 30 metres into the basement.
33:01It's not coming down.
33:03And we've got the crane specialist here.
33:06But he relies on his colleagues below to tell him, bit to the left, bit to the right.
33:12And don't leave it there.
33:14So we've got quite a bit of stuff to get out today.
33:16All the different aircon coils, fan motors.
33:19It's just the sheer amount of it, really, at the moment.
33:22But I think the trickiest lift is going to be the housing for the fan there.
33:26Because of the shape of it, because it's round, you know, to get a decent level lift on it.
33:31OK mate, nice and slow, take care of please, nice and slow.
33:41Just be careful this one, there's a lot of sort of dust and bits onto it.
33:48Whilst the last remaining pieces of redundant equipment are removed from the basement,
33:54in the hidden spaces beneath the hall, the installation of the grills is entering the final phase.
34:02Russ is sealing off the end of the supply air grills that have been installed on the circle level.
34:08We've got the correct system.
34:10If anything is going to be missed, it's not going to work correctly.
34:15Make sure it's opened.
34:19Go to the next one.
34:21This secret space is called the supply air plenum.
34:25And it's concealed within the ceiling underneath the circle level.
34:29This room will be filled with cool air that will dissipate through the supply grills.
34:33The scale of it is obviously massive.
34:35The capacity of the circle is 1,500 people.
34:39We've installed over 600 grills that provide over 30 litres a second per grill.
34:45So we're moving 15,000 litres of air a second to cool the space.
34:50To prove it works, Neil needs a full house.
34:53But there's still a lot to do before they can reopen to the public.
34:56We're roughly two weeks from the end of the project.
34:59And really, ideally, what we'd like is an audience back in,
35:03so we can see it perform exactly how it needs to perform.
35:07As part of that final preparation, Frank Borg is making sure the hall will be looking its best
35:16when the doors are open to the public once more.
35:19All right, we're going to do some stencil in here.
35:21It's quite a fitting job.
35:23We just have to get it all lined up and make sure it's flat on the wall.
35:26Because otherwise, when you put the actual paint on it, it will just get underneath the stencil.
35:31When you peel it off, it'll look a bit of a mess.
35:34So the paint here, we use that for the green part of the stencil with scumble glaze mixed in.
35:41The same glaze we use, actually, to do the wood graining on the doors,
35:45and it just gives it a slightly glazed look.
35:48You don't want to apply too much paint and glaze to it.
35:51It's got to be done quite subtly.
35:53It was actually at the Millennium, when they did a massive renovation,
35:59that they uncovered an original Victorian paint scheme, which had stenciling,
36:05and we're using that today to recreate the Victorian ambience of the building.
36:10I use a stencil brush now just to spread the glaze out a bit
36:15and try and make it as even as possible, which sometimes a sponge doesn't actually do.
36:21It's quite rare to actually go into a building where all the decor is actually uniform throughout.
36:27So for me, as a decorator, I find that quite special at the hall.
36:32The Victorians were massively keen on the idea that wall surfaces
36:36should be enlivened and enriched with colour.
36:41So stenciling is a way of providing an effect
36:44which isn't going to cost as much as actually getting somebody to paint for you.
36:48And so you see it everywhere.
36:50It's one of those things that's characteristically Victorian.
36:54I'm going to take this stencil off now and peel it back.
36:59And hopefully actually just carry on the pattern from what we did the previous day.
37:05And that would have to be left for about six hours now at least,
37:09before we do the red stencil on top.
37:11And then that will be finished.
37:13You all right, Pavel?
37:16Back in the auditorium, the box is entering the final act.
37:20Let's have a look.
37:22You've got 50mm hanging over.
37:27Can you give it to me a bit?
37:29Yeah, go on.
37:30Still enough.
37:31It's just enough to take over the edge to trim so that when the braid goes on there's nothing showing beneath it.
37:38It's very important to get a really good finish quality because this is Royal Albert Hall.
37:47Well, this is the last touch with the book boards and we use ornamental dumbed brass pins.
37:59You can see that finishing touch.
38:01It's not until you see the boxes you think, oh yeah, there's all them pins along the front and also the other side as well.
38:07Unfortunately, this is where you want to be an octopus with about eight arms and eight pairs of hands.
38:14Once all the brass pins are in, the box will be ready to welcome audiences again.
38:21Up on the roof, it's the moment of truth for Gavin Downs and his team.
38:27All right guys, you're ready for the test, yeah?
38:30The dome's glazing has been carefully cleaned, repaired and restored.
38:34We're pretty happy with what we've done.
38:36The glass has all been checked again, yeah?
38:39Make sure it's all sitting properly.
38:41All right, go and start the test now.
38:42I'm going to go underneath with Stuart and check from the inside.
38:46Inside the dome, it's a nervous wait for Stuart Edwards.
38:50Hi Stuart.
38:51Hi Gavin.
38:52We're all ready to start the water test now, so fingers crossed we're all going to be dry.
38:56Excellent.
38:57Go for it, please.
38:58Good job, good job.
38:59This is the water test.
39:00It simulates adverse weather conditions.
39:01We work one metre at the time.
39:02This is always a nervous point for us.
39:06You can see with the extra line of defences we've put in, the water is flowing away from the glass and the capping.
39:13That's looking very good.
39:14No signs of ingress.
39:15It looks like we'll be finally able to get rid of those yellow buckets, Gavin.
39:17Best news all year for you.
39:18Absolutely.
39:19You've done an incredible job.
39:21No worries.
39:23No worries.
39:27It's a thumbs up from the boss.
39:28Which means his team can move on to the next job.
39:29Down in the basement in air handling unit one.
40:00Art fans have arrived, and the team are hard at work.
40:04There's going to be 12 of them all together.
40:06They're a lot more energy efficient than the one we took out.
40:09If one of them goes down or breaks down,
40:11the other ones will increase in speed to compensate.
40:14These are less maintenance.
40:15You don't really require any maintenance on them at all.
40:20This is the final hurdle before the system can go live.
40:25Yeah, it's gone really well.
40:26We've got three in at the moment.
40:27We've got another nine to go.
40:28And then the electricians will come in and connect all the electrics to them.
40:32And hopefully in a day or two, they're all up and running.
40:35Once the new fans are in motion,
40:37the air will travel through an incredible secret space
40:40that runs all around the building.
40:42We're currently in the supply chamber
40:44off of air handling unit number one that feeds the auditorium.
40:48So this grill here will supply the fresh air
40:51through this tunnel into the auditorium.
40:54So this tunnel has a massive impact on the environmental conditions in the arena.
41:00Where we are now is currently sort of three levels underneath the hall.
41:05And this goes all of the way to the end.
41:08So when we get to the end, it rises up and then it will split into the sub-arena,
41:15where then it goes into a displacement system underneath the seats,
41:20much like the Victorians ventilated the building in the existing tunnels within the main hall.
41:25When the new fans are installed and running,
41:29you will not be able to access this tunnel
41:30because of the amount of air that's moving down it.
41:34With the end of the new ventilation project in sight,
41:38the final test will be with a live audience.
41:42150 years ago, the hall was getting ready to open its doors for the very first time.
41:48The grand opening on the 29th of March in 1871 was a huge extravaganza.
41:55Queen Victoria, who had been in mourning for several years, appeared in black.
42:00The hall was lavishly decorated.
42:03And when Queen Victoria arrived, it was absolutely packed.
42:07There are over 8,000 people there, including the hoi polloi,
42:11the great unwashed as they were known then.
42:13And so much so, actually, that when they had the ceremony,
42:17there's a rumour that they perfumed the air
42:19so that Queen Victoria wouldn't be upset by the smells.
42:22It was quite a traditional ceremony.
42:25There was classical music and some opera song.
42:27And it was recorded across newspapers across the whole country
42:30and, in fact, across the whole world.
42:32So it was a very important occasion.
42:35Now in the 21st century,
42:37the hall is once again preparing to welcome back eager crowds
42:41after its 15-month pandemic closure.
42:44Today, the dedicated team who have been entrusted
42:47with caring for, repairing and transforming the building
42:50must prepare to unveil the hall in all its glory
42:53and celebrate its 150th year.
42:57It's been brilliant.
42:58While all the work on restoring the building has been going on,
43:01we've been finding things that we never knew existed.
43:04Amazing finds about the people that built it
43:07and also just learning about how it was constructed.
43:11But now it's going to be really exciting
43:13to have people back in the building
43:15and actually enjoying it
43:16and using the building for what it was designed to be used for.
43:21As soon as you get people in the building,
43:22the atmosphere completely changes
43:24and it's going to feel alive again.
43:26And the great British landmark fixers descend on Southend
43:32to sort out the world's longest pier.
43:34New and exclusive to yesterday, next Monday night at 8.
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43:43Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:44Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:45Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:46Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:47Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:48Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:49Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:50Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:51Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:52Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:53Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:54Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:55Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:56Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:57Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:58Inside Hornby, a model world.
43:59Inside Hornby, a model world.
44:00Inside Hornby, a model world.
44:01Inside Hornby, a model world.
44:02Inside Hornby, a model world.
44:03Inside Hornby, a model world.