• Join / Renew
  • View / Create Account
  • View Your Cart
  • Members’ Area
    • Publications
      • Royal Oak News
      • National Trust Regional Newsletters
      • Magazine Discounts
    • Travel
      • Albion Tours 2021
      • Arrangements Abroad 2021
      • Heritage Circle Tours
      • National Trust Partners
      • Hotels and Accommodation
      • National Trust Rentals
      • Royal Over-Seas League
      • In and Around London Map
  • Programs & Events
    • Spring 2021 Online Lectures & Tours
    • Past Winter 2021 Online Lectures
    • Past Fall 2020 Online Lectures & Tours
    • Past Spring/Summer 2020 Online Events
    • Past Winter 2020 Events
    • Past Annual Benefits
  • Impact
    • Royal Oak Conservation Studio
    • Restoring Dyrham Park
    • Recent Campaigns
    • 2020 Grants
    • 2019 Grants
    • The Nigel Seeley Fellowship
    • The Damaris Horan Fellowship
  • Stories
    • Houses & Buildings
    • Gardens & Parklands
    • Art & Furniture
    • Nature & Wildlife
    • Cooking & Traditions
    • Families & People
    • Events & Galas
    • News & Announcements
  • About Us
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Press
    • FAQ
    • About The National Trust
  • Support Us
    • Membership
    • Restoring Dyrham Park
    • Heritage Circle
    • 2021 Annual Fund
    • Lecture Support
    • Legacy Circle
    • Partners
    • Ways to Give

The Royal Oak Foundation

  • View / Create Account
  • View Your Cart
  • Join/Renew
  • Members’ Area
    • Publications
      • Royal Oak News
      • National Trust Regional Newsletters
      • Magazine Discounts
    • Travel
      • Albion Tours 2021
      • Arrangements Abroad 2021
      • Heritage Circle Tours
      • National Trust Partners
      • Hotels and Accommodation
      • National Trust Rentals
      • Royal Over-Seas League
      • In and Around London Map
  • Programs & Events
    • Spring 2021 Online Lectures & Tours
    • Past Winter 2021 Online Lectures
    • Past Fall 2020 Online Lectures & Tours
    • Past Spring/Summer 2020 Online Events
    • Past Winter 2020 Events
    • Past Annual Benefits
  • Impact
    • Royal Oak Conservation Studio
    • Restoring Dyrham Park
    • Recent Campaigns
    • 2020 Grants
    • 2019 Grants
    • The Nigel Seeley Fellowship
    • The Damaris Horan Fellowship
  • Stories
    • Houses & Buildings
    • Gardens & Parklands
    • Art & Furniture
    • Nature & Wildlife
    • Cooking & Traditions
    • Families & People
    • Events & Galas
    • News & Announcements
  • About Us
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Press
    • FAQ
    • About The National Trust
  • Support Us
    • Membership
    • Restoring Dyrham Park
    • Heritage Circle
    • 2021 Annual Fund
    • Lecture Support
    • Legacy Circle
    • Partners
    • Ways to Give

Stories

Where to visit now that Downton Abbey is over

March 7, 2016

165313

Many Royal Oak members will recall meeting journalist and historian, Tessa Boase, who traveled through the US revealing the stories she uncovered in her research about the upstairs, downstairs culture in Britain’s finest country estates. Tessa has agreed to share her stories here on Royal Oak’s online AngloFiles Magazine. If you’d like to learn more about Tessa’s research, you can purchase her book ‘The Housekeeper’s Tale’ from her website. 

By Tessa Boase

You can visit Highclere Castle – but you can’t, alas, visit the servant quarters of TV’s Downton Abbey. All ‘downstairs’ scenes were filmed at Ealing Studios, West London, where a perfect set was created to transport us to the basement of a great house. Perhaps too perfect… one looks in vain for rising damp and black beetles, the bane of every country house cook.

Where should we go for the real thing? Many servants’ quarters were turned into storage rooms and offices during the latter 20th-century, when the National Trust took on many of its properties. These gloomy basements weren’t thought to have anything of interest to offer the visitor – but all this has now changed. British country houses are scrambling to restore their service wings, as it turns out that the public has an insatiable interest in sculleries, roasting jacks and boot rooms.

I’m firmly in the sculleries camp. After four years spent researching the lives of real servants, I found it thrilling to walk the real flag-stoned corridors and imagine my women going about their business. Sunlight deprivation preoccupied me. The distances they walked was surprising. I could see there was plenty of scope for below-stairs flirtations – but also for hazardous accidents… To me, these quarters have as much (if not more) relevance as the splendors of ‘upstairs’.

Here are my five National Trust favorites.

Uppark

Uppark, West Sussex

Uppark, West Sussex

The dank, underground nature of these servants’ quarters proved the perfect protection against a devastating fire in 1989. This is a time warp thrilling to visit. Pushing through the red baize door and descending to the basement, you get a panicky sense of claustrophobia. Tunnels connect the kitchen with the basement rooms. Here Mrs. Wells, mother of the writer H.G. Wells, reigned as High Victorian housekeeper. It was not a job she enjoyed – as I was to discover.

Erddig, Wales

Erddig, Wales

Erddig, North Wales

Some of the most perfectly preserved servants’ quarters existing, including a vast kitchen with soaring ceiling and royal blue walls. ‘Waste Not Want Not’ reads the intimidating inscription above the hob, a stern command for each new cook-housekeeper (and there were many at Erddig). I used these rooms to help reconstruct the story of Edwardian beauty Ellen Penketh, the overworked ‘thief cook’ who ended up in court.

childreninthelaundryberringtonhall768121

Berrington Hall, Herefordshire

Berrington Hall, Herefordshire

Not the Crawley family, but the Cawley family inhabited this neoclassical mansion in sumptuous grounds.  Designer Henry Holland came up with the perfect solution to hiding away Berrington’s army of servants: a hidden staircase, an underground tunnel and various hidden doorways. Servants were meant to remain unseen – and here you can trace their footsteps, trying to make yourself invisible. Dairy, laundry and pantry are brought to busy life with costumed volunteers.

kitchencragside1057687

Cragside, Northumberland

Cragside, Northumberland

The words ‘technology’ and ‘English country house’ rarely sit together, so these 19th-century servants’ quarters are fascinating for their unusually modern gadgets. Cragside was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric power; the Prince of Wales himself visited to see ‘the palace of a modern magician’. There’s a hydraulic lift for the lucky servants, early versions of a gas stove – even a dishwasher, created by madcap Victorian inventor Lord Armstrong.

butlerspantrydunhammassey949595

Dunham Massey, Cheshire

Dunham Massey, Cheshire

A Georgian estate, and a full complement of kitchens, sculleries, butlers’ pantries and serveries. So complete are these rooms, and so detailed the archives, that it’s a favorite with historians. (Particularly fascinating is Pamela Sambrook’s A Country House at Work). The kitchen has an ‘inspection gallery’ where guests could view the work of servants toiling red-faced down below, and marvel at the newly constructed ‘kitchen court’ of 1720. All remains intact today.

And if you can’t travel this year…

You can now paint your own ‘service quarters’ in the exact shades used on the Downton Abbey basement set at Pinewod. Amber Grey (Mrs Patmore’s kitchen) and Empire Grey (Mr Carson’s pantry) are available via www.mylands.co.uk – a very posh English paint shop dating back to 1884.

Learn more about the High Victorian housekeeper or the ‘thief cook’ in Tessa’s The Housekeeper’s Tale. Make sure you include your Royal Oak membership card on your next Downton Abbey-inspired trip!

Join Now

SHARE: Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Email this to someone
email
Post navigation
Previous StoryNext Story

Search the Blog

Filter by Category

  • Houses & Buildings
  • Gardens & Parklands
  • Art & Furniture
  • Nature & Wildlife
  • Cooking & Traditions
  • Families & People
  • Travel & Tours
  • Events & Galas
  • News & Announcements
  • Membership
  • 2021 Annual Fund
  • Heritage Circle
  • Legacy Circle
  • Royal Oak Lecture Support
  • Ways to Give
  • Partners
  • Restoring Dyrham Park
  • Royal Oak Conservation Studio
  • 2020 Grants
  • About Us
  • Board of Directors
  • Staff
  • About The National Trust
  • FAQ
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

general@royal-oak.org
lectures@royal-oak.org
T: 212.480.2889 | 800.913.6565
F: 212.764.7234

Copyright © 2021 The Royal Oak Foundation. All rights reserved.
20 W 44th Street, Suite 606, New York, New York 10036-6603

This website uses analytical and tracking cookies to improve your user experience and for statistical purposes. By continuing to browse on this website, you agree to the use of such cookies.