Tag Archives: Highclere Castle

Downton Abbey Locations: Irresistible for a Fan

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I managed to get to Highclere Castle, the “real” Downton Abbey, on a day it was closed to the general public. Now, I have no claim to fame and I was not invited to take tea with the current Countess, but I was armed with a yearly pass from the Historic Houses Association of England. Reading the booklet’s fine print, I let out a very unladylike whoop–it was covered! Hopeless fan of British eye candy that I am, I was not about to miss my chance.

We arrived at the estate in sunny Hampshire on a day when a fleet of classy British sport cars were parked on the grounds. Lord Grantham and his faithful golden labrador were nowhere in sight.

Full disclosure: my husband had seen exactly half of one episode of the TV show, but we share a fascination with British country homes. It’s always fun to be on the inside looking out of those imposing windows.

Alas, no photos were allowed inside, but after a short time cooling our heels outside the famous front door, in we went. Is that door-knocker a wolf? He’s just a little intimidating, for sure. Inside, the house looks exactly as it does on TV and now in the movie. No photos are allowed, but I can’t blame the owners. Visitors moved through the lush rooms quietly, not rushed, murmuring about their favorite scenes.

The movie’s other stately home location is Harewood–pronounced “Harwood,” of course. I never get British pronunciations right until I’m either corrected or I hear them from somebody who knows better.

Harewood is in Yorkshire (where Downton Abbey is supposed to be) and it’s very grand indeed.

In the recent movie, set in 1927, it’s one of the homes of Princess Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She is married to Viscount Henry Lascelles, later the Sixth Earl of Harewood. He had a reputation for being difficult, especially after possibly suffering from shellshock in World War I. Also, he was fifteen years older than the Princess. But I can’t find any evidence that she ever considered leaving him, as in the movie.

Princess Mary was beloved for her gentle nature and her service during the Great War, including her gift packages in 1914 to every single British and Indian soldier, nurse or anyone who had a part in the war effort. The packages included tobacco, a pipe, cigarettes and a lighter in a brass box with a picture of her face. Those who did not smoke received boxes with sweets and such instead.

Harewood as it stands today was built beginning in 1759. The money came directly from the slave trade. Henry Lascelles, an earlier ancestor of the current owners, went to Barbados at the age of twenty-one and made his family’s fortune by astute, and apparently ruthless, exploitation of interests the family already had in sugar, cotton, rum and tobacco production–and in running slave ships.

The year 2007 was the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire, which happened in 1807. The Lascelles family had already sponsored research into the original source of their wealth, something very few British families did. In the Bicentary year, they sponsored a whole range of talks, tours, lectures and theatrical performances on the subject of slavery. Many if not most of the stately homes I like so much share the same history, but very few acknowledge it.

My old guidebook from a visit in the 1990s does not mention the slave trade at all. To their credit, the current owners have produced a new guidebook that not only tells the sad story, but tells how to access the actual historical records online.

The original Henry Lascelles may not have enjoyed his ill-gotten gains all that much. In 1753, he killed himself by slashing his own throat. (I have to wonder if his death was really a suicide, but that’s the story in the house’s current guidebook, above). His son Edwin Lascelles immediately began planning a grand house on the property he inherited.

The slave-trade money certainly bought beauty and luxury.

Robert Adam was a young Scottish architect, recently returned from studies in Italy and on the way up the social ladder when Edwin Lascelles hired him. The hallmark of Adams’s style was elaborate symmetrical plaster ornamentation on every flat surface, and especially on every ceiling.

Capability Brown designed the extensive grounds and gardens.

And Thomas Chippendale furnished the entire house from top to bottom.

Chippendale’s hall chairs, designed especially for the grand entry hall, were never sat upon–they were purely decorative. No doubt anybody like me, who might have plopped down in one, was never left alone in this most intimidating room.

Today, Jacob Epstein’s monumental alabaster sculpture “Adam” dominates the grand hall. It was made in the late 1930s and arrived at Harewood only in 1961. One wonders what “Downton Abbey’s” Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, would make of this Adam.

Anglophile that I am, I’ll always fall for the beauty and romance of a way of life that only existed for a very few people in a very brief period of time. But I’m happy to see the true cost of such beauty acknowledged as it is at Harewood.

Paying the Bills at Downton Abbey

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The hit show Downton Abbey is filmed at the real-life Highclere Castle, a little south and east of London in Hampshire.  The castle is still occupied by the heirs of the prominent Herbert family, who acquired the estate in around 1769.  Why not? If I inherited a castle, I would certainly live there.  But it’s not as easy as it seems.

Traditionally, keeping up a large country home required the income from at least 1,000 acres.  This meant intensive work by tenant farmers, with the heir to the property closely supervising, usually through an estate manager.  It has become more and more difficult to turn a profit in agriculture, especially since many large estates have had to sell off acreage.  One big reason is the dreaded Inheritance Tax, popularly known as the Death Tax.  The tax in approximately its present form was begun in 1894.  On the death of the landowner, the heir had to come up with staggering tax payments–often as much as the market value of the estate.  This problem only got worse during and after the two World Wars, as Britain struggled to pay the enormous costs of war.

In the 1840s, the Third Earl of Carnavon went on a building spree and ran out of money.  By the time the Fifth Earl inherited, his debts were crushing. At the time, many financially strapped aristocrats were marrying American heiresses like Cora Levinson, who became Countess of Grantham on the show Downton Abbey.  The Fifth Earl found an heiress closer to home. He married Almina Wombwell, who in spite of her name was actually the beloved biological daughter of banker Alfred de Rothschild. Lady Almina’s inherited fortune saved the house in 1895.

The present 8th Countess of Carnavon has written a book titled Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey.  (I haven’t read it yet!)

AlminaBook

In recent years the present Earl was able to negotiate a delay in paying the “death tax” by working out an agreement with the English Heritage organization, whereby the building and grounds are open to public visits for part of the year.  The cost of a day’s visit is about $27.  On a typical summer day, about 1500 visitors pay this fee.  (Due to the popularity of the show, reservations are booked up months in advance, but a few walk-up tickets are available). There is also a gift shop, of course. And the estate is rented out for weddings, about 20-25 per year, at rates starting at about $22,000. During filming of Downton Abbey, the film company pays somewhere around $5,000 per day.

All this seems like big money, but it costs $1.5 million to run the house for a year.  And major repairs are needed.  I’ve seen estimates as high as $18 million, and reports that the upper floors of the castle are uninhabitable. The present Countess is coming in for some criticism for cashing in on the show’s popularity, but I certainly can’t blame her.  Like the family on the hit show, she wants to preserve a property and with it a little piece of a vanished way of life.  She personally cannot even inherit, since the property will go to the son of her husband’s first marriage.  The recent article is in The New York TImes at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/fashion/trying-to-turn-a-castle-into-a-cash-register.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

In coming posts I will explore other ways the great country houses of England have been preserved, and revisit some of my favorites.  Join me next time!

Jeeves: the Ultimate Valet

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In the British TV series Jeeves and Wooster, ditsy aristocrat Bertie Wooster answers his door to find a dignified personage, his new valet Jeeves, who says, “I was given to understand that you required a valet, sir.”  As usual, Bertie Wooster’s life is in disarray, so Jeeves has arrived not a moment too soon. So begins a howlingly funny saga that says a lot about British social classes.  The series, drawn from the Jeeves and Wooster stories of P.G. Wodehouse, ran from 1990 to 1993.

JeevesDVD

Hugh Laurie, better known to American audiences as the difficult genius Dr. House, plays Bertie.  His real-life friend and collaborator Stephen Fry plays Jeeves.

The joke is that the valet is miles ahead of the aristocrat in intelligence, education, proper behavior, and common sense.  So Jeeves uses his ingenuity to pull Bertie out of one impossible scrape after another, all of them caused by Bertie’s cluelessness.

Jeeves is also at pains to save Bertie from fashion faux pas, as in this exchange, concerning an unsightly white jacket Bertie insists on wearing:

Jeeves: I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir, or else that it has been placed there by your enemies.

Bertie Wooster: I’ll have you know, Jeeves, that I bought this in Cannes!

Jeeves: And wore it, sir?

Bertie Wooster: Every night at the Casino. Beautiful women used to try and catch my eye!

Jeeves: Presumably they thought you were a waiter, sir.

Actually, Jeeves is much more than a valet.  Bertie is a single young man, and the time is the 1930’s when servants are becoming few and far between.  So Bertie only has one servant.  Jeeves is cook, butler, driver, valet, and guardian angel.  Jeeves knows everything. (The search engine “Ask” was originally named “Ask Jeeves”). In his spare time, Jeeves reads Shakespeare and Spinoza, and can come up with a pithy quote for every occasion.

P. G. Wodehouse wrote about Jeeves and Wooster all through his long writing career, over a span of 59 years.  Jeeves’s first appearance was in 1915 and his last in 1974, the year before the author’s death. During that time, ideas about the master/servant relationship changed dramatically.

World War I brought about the greatest change.  As in Downton Abbey, servants often accompanied aristocratic officers to the battlefield.  In the story, footman William accompanies Matthew Crawley to the trenches.

During the war, it became clear to everyone that servants faced battle with at least as much courage as their social betters.  In fact, true or not, there was a popular idea that aristocrats were much more likely to be victims of what was then called “shell-shock.”  The number of servants employed in Britain went from about a million and a half before the war to just over a million afterwards.  Those who returned from the fighting often sought better opportunities.  Wealthy families had less money to keep up their estates, too. And lampooning the rich made P.G. Wodehouse extremely popular.

One of the pleasures of watching British films is trying to recognize film locations.  One episode of Jeeves and Wooster, “Trouble at Totleigh Towers,” was filmed at–you can probably guess–Highclere, the location for Downton Abbey.  All the more reason to visit sometime!

Join me next time for more explorations into the art, literature and history of Europe and the British Isles.

Why Do Americans Love Downton Abbey?

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I can’t speak for everyone, but I like the show for the sheer Englishness of it.  The show actually depicts a long-vanished England, so there’s an element of nostalgia, too.  And the England depicted never did really exist except for a very tiny minority of aristocratic people and the comparatively small number of ordinary people who served them in their grand country homes.  So there’s a large element of fantasy.

Even today, as England becomes more and more diverse, I love the uniquely English expressions, habits and ways of looking at the world. For example, here is a sign that stands outside the very old, very ornate gate of the private driveway of Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire:

DeadSlowHoot

The hand-lettered sign reads “Dead Slow. Hoot.”  What does it mean?  I could not think of any legitimate reason that as a lowly tourist, I could drive up to the private gate and demand entry.  But I think the sign means that drivers are to approach the gate as slowly as humanly possible, and then  to sound their horns to be let in.  The word “Hoot” implies, of course, a decorous tap, not a prolonged blast. Apparently there is no automatic opener and no card-recognition system on the 18th-century gate.  Someone will have to run out, confer with the driver, and swing the gate open.

Notice also the gathering of people and animals beside the gate.  The wearing of practical rain gear and the watering of dogs are hallowed activities in the countryside of England. So is the visiting of stately homes–it has been a favorite pastime at least since the days of Jane Austen.  In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet famously changes her fate when against her better judgment she tours Mr. Darcy’s estate, Pemberly, and comes face to face with Mr. Darcy himself. Many people believe that Jane Austen based Pemberly on Chatsworth House.

I just read that the “real” Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, is completely sold out of pre-bookable tickets for the coming opening times, mid-July to mid-September.  There are some tickets available to walk-ups, usually after 2 pm.  However, if I were traveling to England this summer, I would not let that worry me. I would go instead to Chatsworth House, and then I would go to at least a dozen other stately homes.  They’re all over England, and each has its own story every bit as fascinating as the fictional one so many of us love.

I’m going to write in coming posts about English country houses I have visited.  Join me next time for more explorations into the art and history of Europe–with the British Isles thrown in!