Alan visits Southwell Workhouse in Nottinghamshire and experiences some of the Dickensian conditions that the inmates endured. Jenni Bond learns how a workhouse runaway was punished in Lavenham, Nigel Havers visits back-to-back houses for the poor in Birmingham, and at Sutton House in Hackney Angelica Bell discovers the legacy of squatters in the 1980s.

Alan explores Cragside, a unique estate in Northumberland masterminded and landscaped by the Victorian inventor and pioneering industrialist Lord William Armstrong and filled with the most advanced technical advances of his day. Peter Purves visits Castle Drogo on Dartmoor, Miriam O'Reilly walks through the vast Cragside woodland and Angela Rippon visits the Red House in Bexleyheath, home of William Morris.

Alan visits Castle Ward in Northern Ireland, the setting of Winterfell in Game of Thrones. He learns why the 18th-century mansion was designed in two completely different styles - Palladian on one side and gothic on the other, learns the history of its warring owners and uncovers stories of lunacy, attempted murder, groundbreaking science and tragedy.