Life in Avis Crocombe’s Victorian kitchen proves a recipe for YouTube stardom

VISITORS to stately homes and historic sites are all to familiar with this sight; a video featuring actors playing characters from yesteryear.

But a series of short films featuring the work of a servant at an English stately home has now become a runaway hit on one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. The films, showing a Victorian cook instructing viewers on how to make traditional versions of Christmas pudding, pancakes and pigeon pies, have proved an unexpected success for English Heritage, helping to bring history to life for a new generation.

The cooking classes, presented by a historical interpreter playing Avis Crocombe – who was the head cook at Audley End, a Jacobean mansion house near Saffron Walden, during the 1880s – have helped English Heritage attract more than half a million subscribers and around 2.5million views of its videos every month since she first aired. Mrs Crocombe’s tutorial for making cucumber ice cream is one of the most popular, with almost 1.9million views compared with 1.5million for a Jamie Oliver strawberry ice cream video.

Dr Peter Moore, collections curator at English Heritage, said: “Avis Crocombe’s videos give people a glimpse of what life would have been like for people living and working in large Victorian country houses.

“They have been incredibly popular, not just with people here in the UK but across the world too; she has lots of viewers from the United States, Philippines and India.”

The homely presentation and the traditional setting of Mrs Crocombe’s cookery classes – think Nigella in a bonnet – has allowed English Heritage to outstrip other similar organisations when it comes to attracting YouTube viewers.

On the back of the films English Heritage has been able to promote not only its properties, but cookbooks and Victorian make-up tutorials. Tom Dennis, head of content at English Heritage, said: “It became obvious to us that YouTube was a natural fit for reaching newer, younger audiences with our storytelling, and that meant creating content to fit the habits of this audience.

“Not only has this channel allowed us to reach a wider public, it has also provided a very valuable revenue stream for us as a charity.”