A Visit to Downton Abbey and Downton Village

I haven’t written anything because I haven’t done anything that interesting that you couldn’t read about in the top 10 of London, with much better pictures and description than I have,  except that I got a cold and resulting sinus infection and spent two days in bed early on.  Didn’t think that was too interesting either. 

But today I went to Bampton Village, aka Downtown village, and Highclere Castle, aka Downton Abbey. Tickets for tours are very hard to get!  If you tried now, there is September 12 and that’s it!    First we stopped in the ancient market town of Bampton Village that is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.  It was a center of fighting between the Kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia and later Cromwell’s forces tried, unsuccessfully, to kill the many royalists in the area.  It is a postcard- perfect Cotswold Village that doubles as the village surrounding Downton Abbey.   Julian Fellowes was having trouble finding a village that retained credibility to be used for the early 1900, and finally one of the staff said, “why don’t you look at my village”.  It is actually about an hour away, but still quite close to London for filming convenience.  It looks very much like it does on the show with some minor camouflages that we were shown today, like this garbage can has been platform with 2 milk cans for the last 5 years. 

  The church of St. Mary, c. 1153, aka St. Michael’s,  has a prominent role in the show.  The steeple is guarded by four saints who were added in 1270.  During a storm in 1990, St. John fell into the church proper.  He now sits, very weathered and beat up, but whole in a small side chapel.   Mrs. Crawley’s house, the only place in Bampton to be filmed inside is adjacent to the church.

Many of our guide's stories about the filming of Downton Abbey have to do with the automobiles and trying to drive them.  The actress who plays Lady Edith had never driven a car, but she didn't have any bad habits that needed breaking like Branson and others.   Filming in Brampton had a lot of obstacles that needed to be avoided: it was easier at  Highclere because of more space to stop.  Apparently the car used in the scenes is very similar to a car owned by the real "Earl of Grantham" and he did almost kill himself in a driving accident and had to be nursed back to health over many months.  Apparently, the brake is only a hand brake, not a foot brake and to change gears, you need to double clutch, and there were several stories about cars not stopping when they want them to. The hand crank was the only way to start the car that was used as their first car and it is very dangerous, doesn't always start or keep running.  The car used by Lady Edith is less expensive than the car that Branson drove, but it is still valued at 170,000 pounds so they were very concerned to turn it over to someone who didn't know how to drive!!

It was a beautiful drive of an hour through the Cotswold’s to Highclere Castle.  Even though Henry Herbert was granted the title Earl of Carnarvon in 1739, the present house is the creation of Sir Charles Barry (he also designed Parliament) for the 3^rd Earl in 1838.  The really interesting story starts  in 1895 when the 5th^th Earl marries Almina Wombell, the illegitimate daughter of Alfred de Rothschild.  There are many similarities between the true stories of Highclere and the fictional Downton.  Almina, an American,  came with a dowry of 500,000 pounds (30 million pounds—45 million dollars in today’s money).   She also paid off her bridegroom’s debt of 150,000 pounds and was given an annual income of 12,000 pounds to increase when she had children.  You do the math!  Highclere did become a hospital during WWI with a surgery, physical therapy, and soldiers were brought from the front to convalesce in the house where they were treated as house guests with dinner table set with the finest silver and china.  Almina acted as one of the nurses and apparently ran a tight ship with the 30 trained nurses she brought from London to help.  The cook of the 5^th Earl, Paul Brook Taylor, started to go blind and the Countess took him to hospital in London or surgery to save his eyesight—like Mrs. Padmore.

 Lord Carnarvon is most famous worldwide for financing and actually assisting Howard Carter with the Egyptian archaeological digs that resulted in the finding of King Tut.  Unfortunately, he cut himself shaving shortly after the tomb was opened, got an infection—this was before antibiotics, became septicemia and died just a few weeks after the Tut treasures were found.  He never saw most of them including the gold mask.  The family thought all of the Egyptian artifacts had long been sold when they realized that tucked in many nooks and crannies including a secret door between the library and drawing rooms, were many, many artifacts of previous Egyptian digs looking for treasure.  This is now in an Egyptology museum in the basement.

So, back to the present, the Earl is broke again, the house is placed on the National Trust, but that still doesn’t afford the revenue they need to continue with their lifestyle or to keep up household repairs.  There are 5,000 acres surrounding Highclere that also belongs to the Earl and Countess.  They almost sell the house for 12 million pounds a few years ago, but an acquaintance of the Earl’s knows someone who knows an acquaintance of Julian Fellowes who is looking for a picturesque house is double as Downton Abbey. So, overnight, Highclere becomes Downton.  Apparently they are doing very well being Downton Abbey, but they still have to keep the house open to the public for  60 days a year because of their National Trust status.  According to one of the room guides, the current Earl and Countess aren’t that hot to have the public traipsing through their house now that they don’t need the money!  So, that's why it's so hard to get a tour.

PS  Matthew left the show for another opportunity at his request, Sybil left because she couldn't get along with people, and Maggie Smith is a very funny lady who ad libs many of Violet's lines.