Food historian Dr Annie Gray, celebrity chef James Martin and the BBC have been given privileged access to cook at the Swiss Cottage within the grounds of Osborne House, the first time the kitchen has been used for at least 120 years.
Although Dr Gray didn’t use the ovens or copperware in the ’play’ cottage, she did prepare a traditional German dessert and lavender pancakes back in July for an episode of James Martin’s Home Comforts.
The Swiss Cottage was at the centre of the royal children’s world when they stayed at Osborne. They grew fruit and vegetables in the gardens around the cottage, played on the miniature fort just outside it and collected natural curiosities to display in a museum originally housed in the cottage. Today, it is perhaps the kitchen and sitting room that give the clearest sense of how the Swiss Cottage was used. These rooms contain a full set of the cooking equipment that would have been found in a small mid-19th-century house – but with one key difference: everything is built at three-quarter scale, specifically for the children’s use.
The episode is to be aired today (Tuesday) at 15:45 on BBC1.
