Alan Titchmarsh pieces together the incredible rags-to-riches story of Thomas Legh, owner of Lyme in Cheshire. In Wiltshire, Oz Clarke learns the art of painted glass restoration, while Dan Jones is in Wales to discover the ingenious ways the Romans got their hands on gold.

Alan Titchmarsh reveals the secrets of the Cistercian monks who lived at Fountain's Abbey in North Yorkshire over 800 years ago, and visits its neighbour - the spectacular Studley Royal Water Garden. Anneka Rice is at Mottisfont in Hampshire and Britain's last working water-driven spade mill. Miriam O'Reilly joins a bat watch on the South Downs, and Dan Jones treads in the footprints of Giants in County Antrim.

Alan visits Hardwick Hall, the magnificent Derbyshire home of Bess of Hardwick, to tell the story of how she rose from humble beginnings to become the secondmost powerful woman in Elizabethan England. Continuing the family history, Miriam O'Reilly visits nearby Stainsby Mill, Jenni Bond travels to the copper mines at Ecton and Peter Peter Purves visits Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, where Bess once held Mary, Queen of Scots, in custody.