Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcast

I’m delighted to welcome author and explorer Levison Wood to Highclere, where we talk about my great love; trees and his book, The Great Tree Story: how forests have shaped our world.
 Levison shares how studying the Grand Tour at university inspired his lifelong passion for travel and storytelling, from hitchhiking across Europe and Central Asia to serving as an officer in the Parachute Regiment and deploying to Afghanistan. He recalls founding a production company and undertaking extraordinary long-distance walks, including nine months walking the White Nile from its farthest source to the Mediterranean, followed by the length of the Himalayas and other epic routes. 
We explore what drew him to write about trees, especially an experience with the Asháninka in the Amazon and we discuss ancient yews, cedars, redwoods, Highclere’s planting of 22,000 trees and his plans to adapt The Great Tree Story into a feature documentary.
01:05 Grand Tour Roots
03:26 Modern Travel Risks
04:56 Army Years and Afghanistan
05:49 From Soldier to Storyteller
07:31 Walking the Nile
09:06 More Epic Expeditions
10:33 Planning and Logistics
12:31 Highclere Explorer Heritage
14:30 Why Trees Matter
17:32 Ancient Trees and Estate Planting
19:42 Redwoods and Tree Lore
23:29 Trees in Culture and Craft
24:33 Green Man and Next Film
You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.

I welcome Dutch historian Rutger Bregman to the podcast after first messaging him on Instagram and we talk about what I took from his book Humankind and my own wish to bring people together to remember friendship and kindness. 
Rutger reflects on Dutch directness and equality shaped by living with water, from the 1953 flood to the Delta Works, and shares why he writes for a general audience about big questions of human nature. 
We discuss his challenge to the “veneer theory” and his belief in “survival of the friendlies,” alongside a real shipwreck story near Tonga where six boys survived 15 months through cooperation. Our conversation turns to bullying, family and attachment, the Second World War and Rutger’s research for Moral Ambition on how resistance spreads simply by asking others to help.
01:10 Dutch Culture and Directness
04:01 Water Engineering and Delta Works
05:41 Early Civilizations and Conflict
06:58 Why Bregman Writes Big History
08:12 Debunking Human Nature Myths
10:07 Cooperation at Highclere Today
12:49 Tempest and Amoral People
13:55 Real Lord of the Flies Story
19:00 Bullying Attachment and Family
21:41 Victorian Fathers Revisited
22:40 Reform Politics And Women
23:28 Why Study War
24:04 Resistance Myth Debunked
25:24 Heroes Are Asked
27:29 Unconventional Organizers
30:25 Kindness After Loss
32:19 Kindness Is Contagious
35:03 Lessons From Animals
36:18 Veneer Theory And Dickens
37:59 British Indirectness
You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.

I’m delighted to welcome historical novelist Caroline Montague to the castle, where we talk about how writing offers a refuge from everyday life and how she protects her creative time in her office with her dogs. Caroline shares the remarkable history of Burnt Norton, its links to T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” and the dramatic tale of Sir William Kite, whose scandal, bankruptcy, and death by fire helped give the house its name, alongside stories of the “white lady” said to haunt the top floor. 
We discuss her path from law and interior design to writing, her planning process shaped by a firm agent, shifting titles and covers, and her current rewrite of a book about a famous royal swap. We also chat about spaniels, horses and the comfort animals bring.
00:49 Writing Routine and Space
01:35 Career Path to Author
02:41 Burnt Norton and TS Eliot
04:42 William Kite House Tragedy
07:02 Ghost Stories White Lady
09:51 House History and Hauntings
11:25 Plotting Process and Ideas
13:16 Deadlines Output and Titles
15:18 Rewriting The Hook
16:08 Jigsaw Writing Method
17:17 Past Healing Present
18:17 Woods And Creativity
18:35 Spaniel Life And Social Media
19:59 Dressage Highs And Loss
21:09 New Horse Gio
22:33 Italy And Spanish Stallions
25:08 Books Animals And Imagination
You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.

I’m delighted to welcome the novelist Emily Howes to the castle to talk about her book The Painter’s Daughters, inspired by Gainsborough’s portraits of his two girls and the striking shift from their lively childhood images to a stiffer, unhappier adulthood. 
Emily shares how she researched 18th-century Bath, its muddy, smelly, party-like medical culture, through visits and sources such as James Hamilton’s biography, Letters from Bath, and books on travel, while noting how little survives from the daughters’ own voices. 
We discuss Molly’s documented illness and Emily’s discovery of a possible porphyria link to the Prince of Wales, as well as Gainsborough’s finances, his wife’s hidden savings, and the sisters’ relationship, which Emily likens to Downton Abbey’s sister dynamics. 
Emily also previews her next novel, Mrs Dickens, exploring Catherine Dickens’s erasure after Dickens left her for Ellen Turner and the fate of their children.
00:46 Why the Daughters
03:20 Bath After Covid
05:57 Money and Marriage
08:18 Research and Sources
09:27 Molly Illness Mystery
12:21 Sisters and Downton
16:05 Blue Boy and Imagination
17:25 Gainsborough at Highclere
22:23 Next Book Mrs Dickens
24:35 Dickens Family Fallout
27:53 Catherine After Separation

You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.

In this episode from Highclere Castle, I sit down with Nick Hopton to talk about his book, "Marma Mia," which begins as the story of buying and restoring a holiday house in an unspoiled part of Tuscany, the Maremma and becomes a wider family and personal journey. 
Nick shares how reading "A Year in Provence" during COVID while he was British Ambassador to Libya helped inspire him to write a feel-good book that encourages readers to discover lesser-known regions. 
We discuss his Foreign Office career and his approach to languages, including learning Arabic across postings such as Morocco, Yemen, Qatar and Libya, along with French, Italian, Spanish, some German, and some Farsi ahead of becoming ambassador to Iran after the 2015 nuclear deal and the reopening of the British embassy. 
Nick explains how a friend’s suggestion to look beyond Chianti led serendipitously to the first house they viewed and ultimately boughtalongside the realities of renovating abroad: high costs, practical challenges, and the highs and lows of making a place work for family life. We also talk about his unexpected love of landscaping and working with a skilled digger operator he calls “Michelangelo,” the region’s food, wine, local olive oil and its strong Tuscan accent. 
Nick recounts a memorable moment when a friend arrived with an armed escort and the town’s mayor turned out to greet them, and he updates me on ongoing projects, including drilling a 97-meter well to reach a fresh aquifer. Looking ahead, Nick describes writing best in the relative isolation of the Italian house and shares his interest in writing more broadly about the Mediterranean, linked to his role creating a new program at the University of Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics. We touch on the Napoleonic history of the area, including the principality of Piombino and Lucca and Napoleon’s sister Elisa and end with a playful question about a dream dance guest Nick chooses Dante’s Beatrice, reflecting his early love of Dante’s poetry and its lifelong influence.
00:00 Meet Nick Hopton & the book ‘Marma Mia’ (restoring a house in Italy)
00:50 Inspired by ‘A Year in Provence’: writing a feel-good travel memoir during COVID
01:59 Diplomatic life & learning languages: Arabic, French, Italian (and more)
04:26 Why you should speak the local language (even with bad grammar)
05:17 Falling for Tuscany’s Maremma: the serendipitous house-buying story
07:42 Renovation reality: highs, lows, and why the Maremma stays authentic
08:44 Landscaping obsession: diggers, Kubotas, and ‘Michelangelo’ the operator
11:05 Food, wine & dialect: tomatoes, olive oil, and the Tuscan accent
12:49 Small-town surprises: the ambassador friend visit and the mayor’s welcome
13:43 The work never ends: is the villa project ever really finished?
14:01 Digging a 97m Well & the Never-Ending House Project
14:27 What’s Next After the Book: A Wider Mediterranean Focus
14:58 Seeing the Mediterranean Holistically (Cambridge Geopolitics & Trade Routes)
16:26 Duff Cooper, John Julius Norwich & Highclere’s Colorful Guests
17:20 Writing Habits: Tuscany, Isolation, Rhythm & Beating Procrastination
18:37 Italy, Maremma & Napoleonic History: Elisa and the Principality of Piombino and Lucca
20:30 Diplomatic Postings & Reopening the UK Embassy in Iran (2015)
23:09 Iran Today: Regime Weakness, Protests, and a Hope to Visit the Cradle of Civilization
24:21 Highclere’s Library, the Book Club, and a Shared Love of Italy
25:27 Finale: The Summer Dance Fantasy Guest—Dante, Beatrice & Vita Nova
You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.