Keeping Downton Abbey
Contractors and a small staff tend to the castle’s hundreds of rooms
“Isuppose if you know how many rooms you’ve got,” went the delicious quote by the Countess of Carnarvon in London’s Daily Telegraph, “you haven’t got a very big house.”
Delivered two years ago when the fuss first stirred over the popular, Emmyaward-winning British series Downton Abbey filmed at her home, it raises some embarrassment for Lady Fiona Carnarvon when I remind her of it today.
“I kind of regret saying that, but it just popped out of my mouth,” she admits when I’m put through to her in the study of Highclere Castle, a country estate west of London. “I thought that sounded dreadful and I really didn’t mean it to.”
Truth is, the comment is spot on for the setting of the Masterpiece Classic show, now in its third season. The show is focused on the fictional Downton world of the Earl and Countess of Grantham and the folk “under” them, and the home plays a central role again among heavyweight stars such as Dame Maggie Smith (the dowager countess and the earl’s mother), Hugh Bonneville (the Earl of Grantham and head of the Crawley family) and, this year, Shirley MacLaine (American mother of the Countess of Grantham, played by Elizabeth McGovern).
The sandstone castle is filled with notable state rooms — from the saloon, the golden epicentre of the home, bedecked with leather wall coverings from Spain dating from 1631, to the library boasting nearly 6,000 books and the baroque-ceilinged splendour of the music room.
There are carved wooden stairs, ornate silver, crafted turrets and 150-year-old windows, among hundreds of rooms sitting on 400 hectares of parkland. Trying to pin down more precise statistics is useless, quite frankly.
“I simply don’t know how many bedrooms there are — between 50 and 80 apparently; I’ve just never counted,” Carnarvon adds pithily. “I don’t know even how many square feet there are.”
While in her 30s, she and husband, Geordie, the eighth Earl of Carnarvon and the Queen’s godson, moved into Highclere after her father-in- law died in 2001. Previously an accountant, the countess soon entered a life less ordinary.
“It’s really so bizarre what you end up knowing when you’re married to an earl in a house,” she continues. For example, you might find her poring over maps so that no water pipes are cut through “because that is awfully tedious” or making herself completely au fait with the workings of a reservoir coming off a nearby hill. “I’m now frightfully good at sorting out soil pipes and other really glamorous things in the plumbing department,” she says matter-of-factly.
In the old days, hundreds of staff would have been allotted into different “departments,” including housekeeping, maintenance and the sawmill, with each boasting 20 to 30 people.
“Now housekeeping has two people, but it’s still referred to grandly as a department,” laughs Lady Carnarvon, who has a 12-year-old son, Edward. As for the person who used to create jams and elderflower cordials to be stored in a specially assigned area in the castle, she quips: “The still-room maid is now me.”
So much of the work today is done by contractors on the castle, designed in 1842 by Sir Charles Barry, who also had the Gothic vision for London’s Houses of Parliament. Built on the site of a previous ancient house, where the Carnarvons have lived since 1679, Highclere boasts foundations of a medieval palace belonging to the bishops of Winchester for eight centuries.
Without a castle maintenance book or specialty magazine for reference, the extraordinary features of running this type of home are passed down by word of mouth. Lady Carnarvon “just followed her nose” and has relied on her housekeeper and others for much advice.
“Most people that are here have been here a lot longer than me, so I tell them that I’m the newcomer and have them explain how things work,” she says. “Now I’m best friends with the utterly delightful electricians and I’m into three-way lighting systems, which I never dreamt I would be.”
Inside the building, for example, if she wants to redo a room, she turns to one lady who has decorated the house for more than 50 years (and her father before her).
“So I can say to her, ‘What colour was this room in 1942?’ and she’ll know. It’s extraordinary,” she muses. (Her fascination with history is well documented: While exploring the castle’s role in the First World War and her husband’s great-grandmother, Lady Carnarvon wrote Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle. Lady Grantham in the TV series, scripted by (now Lord) Julian Fellowes, is loosely based on her.)
Traditionally, there’s been a certain rhythm to maintenance. Usually, February is the main refurbishment or housekeeping month, she explains, but with the Downton filming starting earlier and earlier, they no longer have that month. She’s certainly not complaining, however: “This is something that won’t come along again, so we definitely run with that,” she adds. “It’s a great opportunity.”
“Upkeep is done in fits and starts today,” she explains. By way of example, she has recently spied a window blown out at the top of the castle — and with her husband off shooting — she adds she often finds herself “pushed up into the top of the house to sort things out, and invariably I find a couple more windows that need mending too.”
With the filming crew on site, that usually means “she does things in other bits of the castle,” she explains. Such as polishing the silver, which is performed over a couple of days by a few people “along with tea and doughnuts in the strong room,” she laughs. Not that there’s as much of that as in the earlier, even grander days of Highclere. “Sadly, some of it was sold for the maintenance fund but then it’s more useful as that because, in today’s world, it’s not what one has out all the time anyway,” she adds.
Today, she brands herself a “multi-muddler” incessantly working on projects both inside and outside the castle. Beyond enjoying “a gas” with her people in the kitchen, every Wednesday she meets with the staff to go through the chores and any upcoming events.
Over her 11 years at Highclere, however, Lady Carnarvon believes she has relaxed about running the extraordinary home. “I used to want to get everything perfect and get everything done straightaway,” she explains. “Now I realize that that’s not what life here is about; it’s about just carrying on.”
Carrying on, perhaps, but accompanied occasionally with a glass of Champagne. She’s been known to start early on her favourite tipple if things are not going entirely according to plan, but adds, “In all honesty, I don’t drink that much, but I have figured out that two glasses of Champagne a week is the same as one glass of white wine. I’m all for Champagne; it’s an excellent drink.”
So when it comes to the glamorous setting of Downton, it sounds like there’s plenty of clinking to be heard whether or not the cameras are rolling.