 Alice de Roschild was born in Frankfurt in 1847. She was the youngest of her parents, seven surviving children. And in 1898 she inherited Wadston Manor, which had been built by her brother Ferdinand. At Wadston she is most often remembered as the custodian of her brother's creation. Somebody who kept his vision intact rather than being remembered as a collector or a person or an actor in her own right. As you can see from this room she was also a great collector. She collected medieval and Renaissance paintings, early English pottery, and was very keen on ceramics of all types. And in fact she furnished three of her own houses. She had three great gardens. She spent six months of the year in the south of France in later life. And she's a much fuller character than merely the guardian of what her brother created. The centenary of Alice's death has given us a real opportunity for more in-depth archival research, both with the letters and documents we hold here but also in other collections. We found some really interesting insights and information into who Alice was and what her interests were. When she was only 13 her mother died and Alice then joined the household of her sister and spent time visiting other family members. She didn't really have a home of her own and her aunt Charlotte later describes as being like a shuttlecock. One important friendship she makes at this time is with her cousins Constance and Annie. She visits them in the 1860s at their house in Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire. And this sketchbook we have shows this wonderful view of Aston Clinton House with these four young women in the background playing croquet. And we know from Alice's letters to Constance that this was something that they did spend time doing both on that occasion but in later years as well. Alice maintains that connection with Buckinghamshire later in life, her and Ferdinand by adjoining estates at Wadden and Eathrop which they develop in tandem with one another. On Ferdinand's death in 1898 she inherits the Wadden estate so becomes the owner of a very significant piece of land here that she maintains for the rest of her life. What we're looking at here is a recreation of Alice's sitting room in Wadston as it was in about 1910. And we're really lucky in that we've got these amazing early colour photographs of some of Alice's interiors and flower arrangements. But mainly focusing on this room which was her sitting room. And they show exactly which pictures hung where, which porcelin was on which piece of furniture. And what we've been able to do because we're in the very fortunate position of still having virtually everything that was in Alice's room is put it back in its original position. And I think the rest of her family was fascinated with objects with the 18th century French royal provenance. And so this chest of drawers by Jean-Henri Wiesner was made for the contest de Provence for her living quarters at the Palace of Versailles. So whilst this room demonstrates Alice conforming to Rothschild taste, she also collected a number of objects that were quite different from those collected by the rest of her family. I'm currently standing in the Armour Corridor in the Bachelor's Wing surrounded by the collection of arms and armour assembled by Miss Alice after the death of Ferdinand to replace the collection sent to the British Museum at that time. Although she was the guardian of Wadsden for 20 years, she also contributed to the collection in this way. And in collecting arms and armour, maybe something slightly unusual for a woman to be collecting at this time. Although Wadsden was home to Miss Alice, she also had several other properties and she would travel between each of them. When she wasn't at Wadsden, the house was put to bed in a way that we still recognise today. This involved packing away porceling into boxes and also covering furniture with tailor-made covers to avoid the buildup of dust and also light damage. Some of these practices became known in later times as Miss Alice's rules and some of things that are recognisable today as good practice for conservation. For example, the exclusion of light by using blinds for light control. Also asking visitors not to touch the collection. She asked her guests not to smoke in the vulnerable parts of the house which today we recognise as just common sense within this kind of environment. On top of everything else, Alice was a great gardener and the deathedil slope here behind me is reminiscent of the slopes of Phelps that she planted at the Villa Victoria, her estate in Grasse, near Cannes, in the south of France. It was there that she created a huge garden with large palm trees and succulents but also beds of pansies and violas and wallflowers. All immaculately maintained by an army of about 70 gardeners. And one spring Queen Victoria became a regular guest which sent Alice into overdrive. She was running up and down the mountain making sure everything was looking tip-top, issuing commands, issuing orders to widen the path for Queen Victoria's pony cart and that caused Queen Victoria to call her the all-powerful. Even when she was away in France she kept a very close eye on what was happening in the gardens here at Waterston and at Eithrub, the adjacent property which was her summer daytime retreat and where she'd laid out her first garden. And she'd write to her head gardener Johnson with detailed instructions to, for example, make sure all the keyholes on the doors of the glasshouses were shut and all the water tanks were flushed properly. And she even ordered him to replace the soil around the fruit trees with better quality, especially imported soil. And between the two of them, Alice and Johnson raised the standard of the gardens here at Waterston to even greater heights. And amongst her other contributions are the fantastic rose beds and the wonderful three-dimensional carpet bedding. But throughout it all it was quality that she insisted upon. I really admire her single-mindedness, her fearlessness and her ability to live her life and not be confined by social expectations so she didn't get married, she didn't seem to feel as though she ought to get married and she continued doing what she wanted to do We're hoping that by shining a light on Alice we can celebrate her energy, her dedication, her quest for perfection and her independent spirit.