The evening sun streams across the lawn and lights up the warm brick of Queen Victoria's favourite residence, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. We wander along the Italianate terrace with its angular flowerbeds and neoclassical statues (as well as a good likeness of one of Prince Albert's dogs) looking down past the fountain to the bright blue sea and the mainland beyond. We are completely alone and all is tranquil - but for the delighted yells of our offspring playing frisbee on the vast swathe of grass to the side of the house (well away from any windows, plants or statuary!)
It is after hours and we have Queen Victoria's holiday home to ourselves. We are staying in the newly refurbished Pavilion Cottage on the Osborne Estate. It is one of the first properties in English Heritage's new portfolio of holiday lets (known as "Room with a View"), launched earlier this month. Each is at a different historic location, from Pendennis Castle (Falmouth, Cornwall) to Belsay Hall (Northumberland), Dover Castle (Kent) to Rievaulx Abbey (North Yorkshire). If Pavilion Cottage is anything to go by, they offer top-end self-catering accommodation as well as privileged access to the estates around them, including, in the case of the Osborne Estate property, use of Queen Victoria's private beach.
As soon as we arrived at Pavilion Cottage - a superbly converted cricket pavilion built just after Victoria's death when a Naval College was based here- the kids were out on the long veranda and running around the outside of the house. Already, on the two-minute drive through the grounds to the cottage, they had announced, "this is beautiful" and they now seemed determined to make the most of "their" 240-acre garden.
There was genuine enthusiasm when we set off to walk the three-quarters of a mile to the Swiss Cottage - a full-size chalet created as an education centre for Victoria and Albert's nine children. Here they learnt to keep house and cooked for their parents on miniature ranges. Next door is the royal children's museum, built in 1865 when their collection (started in the 1840s) outgrew the Swiss Cottage. It is an Aladdin's cave of curiosities. The very well informed guide picked out some child-friendly exhibits for us: tiny embroidered shoes (3" long) that a horrified Queen Victoria requested from visiting Chinese women; a huge stuffed Great Bustard (made extinct in the UK by overenthusiastic Victorian hunters); Zulu shields given personally to the Queen by the Warrior Chief brought to London (and treated as a hero) after his defeat in the Zulu wars; a nine-legged spider; and a 70m-year-old petrified tree trunk that Victoria received from the last Shogun of Japan.
Outside, a thatched "garden shed" houses scaled-down wheelbarrows and garden trolleys painted with the initials of the princes and princesses. Each child had an allotment to cultivate and the best produce was sold to Prince Albert so the children could learn about market value. Our kids just managed to resist the temptation to dive into the network of trenches that was the royal children's fort, complete with cannons, guardhouse (for which the monarch's offspring even helped make the bricks) and drawbridge. Instead they had a great game of chase around the maze of paths surrounding the chalet and gardens before a glorious walk back as the sun set behind the great house.
Most unusually for a royal residence, Osborne House was built as a family getaway. Designed by Prince Albert and paid for from the couple's private money, it was very much Victoria and Albert's own. They bought the estate when they were only 26 and it was a lifelong refuge for them both. Given to the nation shortly after the queen died here in 1901, it still has its owners' characters clearly stamped upon it. Like the enlightening little English Heritage book of quotes and anecdotes - 'We are Very Amused. Queen Victoria: the truth behind the frown' - helpfully placed next to the loo in Pavilion Cottage, the house and grounds give the lie to Victoria's image as the dour black-clad queen.
We approached the house in Victorian style, taking a horse carriage (50p per person) the few hundred yards from the bottom of the Pavilion Cottage driveway to the "boar hound entrance" (with boar and hound statues apparently purchased by the royal couple from a mail-order catalogue). The entrance corridor is flanked by, often sentimental, classical statues (mostly copies) many of which were given by Victoria and Albert to each other for Christmas and birthdays.
There is huge variety in the house, from Albert's bathroom - with the fully plumbed bath that this very modern man insisted upon (along with underfloor heating and an on-site sewage works) - to the opulent Durbar Room (built much later when Victoria was Empress of India) in which every visible inch is covered in moulded ornamentation (designed by an Indian artist trained by Kipling's father). In the centre of the room are cabinets full of elaborate gifts from India, with child-friendly interactive descriptions.
We see the council room - where Victoria made ministers stand for meetings so they wouldn't take too long - and the beautifully decorated full-size billiard table ("It's huge!" said the kids) built higher than usual, so Victoria and her ladies could play without bending over in an unseemly fashion. In the dining room, a discreet screen apparently hid the clerk of the kitchen while he watched the queen. As soon as she had finished eating, everyone's plates were cleared. Since she ate very fast, slow eaters - Gladstone in particular - frequently went hungry!
The dining room is full of family portraits. Looking at one large picture of Victoria and Albert and several of their children, the guide challenged our kids to work out which were the boys and which the girls. Since all children wore dresses until the age of about six, this wasn't easy, until we were told that boys' hair was parted at the side and that of girls in the middle. Another family group shows Victoria's oldest daughter Vicky with her angelic-looking little son William - a favourite grandchild of the queen - better known, by 1914, as Kaiser Wilhelm II.
In the royal nursery are family photographs documenting the extraordinary (and quite deliberate) reach of Victoria's offspring into the royal families of Europe - six within a generation, now even more. Our kids enjoyed spotting the Russian Tsarina and German dictator who once played where they themselves had just been playing.
We imagined the royal children on their private beach (now briefly ours), several hundred yards of pebble and sand with a panoramic view of the mainland. We skimmed stones and built sandcastles (it not being swimming time of year), and laughed at the idea of Queen Victoria emerging direct into the water from her vast caravan-like bathing machine (now parked near the Swiss Cottage).
With the aid of the estate's exceptionally friendly and helpful staff we really made ourselves at home on the Osborne Estate. For the first 36 hours we never left the grounds. Bring a bit of food and there is no need to. There is a choice of several lunch venues and plenty to do. Equally, Osborne is well placed for exploring the rest of the Isle of Wight - and a real haven to return to. We were left with a definite sense of belonging - and a soft spot for the place that will take a long time to fade.
Way to go
· Pavilion Cottage sleeps four (plus a cot) and is available for rent year-round. Cost depends on season. Weekly £535-£895, three-night weekend £230-£425, four-night mid-week £250-£460. To make bookings for this and other 'Room with A View' properties: 0870 333 1187; www.english-heritage.org.uk/holidaycottages
· Osborne House: Open daily 10am-5pm Apr 1-Sep 30; 10am-4pm Oct 1-30. From Nov 1 - Mar 31, it's open Wed-Sun (except Dec 24, 25 and Jan 1) for pre-booked guided tours only, and the Swiss Cottage and museum are closed. Entry is free to those staying at Pavilion Cottage. Ph: 01983 200 022.
