Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  The work might have been hard, but the rule at Highclere was not at all tyrannical. Minnie Wills always said that she had come from a home that was not happy and Highclere became more her home than that one. The piano in the servants’ hall and the care implied by that cocoa at the end of the day attest to a benevolent regime. The staff enjoyed trips to Newbury and, later on, to the racecourse. There was also an annual dance, held in the Library, to which staff from all the other large houses in the neighbourhood were invited. Lord and Lady Carnarvon upheld a tradition that Highclere should be ‘a household of kindness’. Winifred, Almina’s sister-in-law, remarked on this approvingly. And as Nanny Moss, the 6th Earl’s much-loved nurse put it, ‘No one from Highclere Castle will ever go to Hell.’

  Perhaps it was at one of these dances, or at the races, that Minnie and Arthur Hayter, the groom, first got chatting. It was the beginning of a long friendship that would eventually end in romance. Relationships between members of staff were of course relatively common, but they could only progress if the couple married, as, quite apart from any moral codes, their lives were so segregated. For a woman, marriage meant the end of her working life, so many servants delayed their wedding a number of years, until they were more financially secure. Some women also decided to prioritise moving up the household’s structure to become housekeeper, or a lady’s maid. That might well have been the motivating factor in Minnie and Arthur’s extended courtship.

  Highclere was a symbiotic system, and mutual respect was the key to its success. The 5th Earl prided himself on an Old World courtesy, and that set the tone for the entire household. He took an interest in the well-being of the staff and the cottagers on the estate; often a donation would be made towards a fund for a tenant whose livestock had died, and money was also made available for the staff to have medical treatment. This attitude was maintained by his successor. The 6th Earl wrote in his memoirs that he considered his staff the lynchpin of his establishment and freely admitted that he would not be able to run Highclere without the invaluable help of his butler (Robert Taylor) of forty-four years’ standing.

  The Castle was, of course, only one part of the domain. The estate was a self-contained community with its own forge, sawmills, carpenters, brickies, dairy farm and electricians’ workshops. There were vegetable gardens, fruit orchards, greenhouses and a brewery, pigs and cattle. There were security staff and gatekeepers, plantsmen, gamekeepers and foresters.

  The gardens were extensive and, as in all great houses, the quality of the flowers for cutting and produce to be used in the kitchens was a matter of great pride. The head gardener in 1895 was William Pope, a fierce man, protective of his territory. He had between twenty and twenty-five men working under him. The walled kitchen garden was a good five acres in size, with a charming orchard beyond it, framed by plum trees whose fruit was famously delicious.

  Mr Pope had not only to produce food throughout the year but also to know how to maximise yields and to store it so that nothing should go to waste. Greenhouses lined the south-facing walls to extend the growing season. A vinery, peach house and orangery were heated by a boiler, whilst rainwater was collected from all the gutters. A north-facing fernery provided a collection of different flower species for the Castle and there were roses from the Rose House and more flowers in the designated cutting beds.

  The dairy yard lay near the kitchen gardens, and when the family was in town rather than at Highclere, the milk and cheeses were sent up to the London house in small silver churns. These churns are still piled, somewhat haphazardly, in one of the dozens of storerooms in the basement of the Castle. All houses accumulate clutter, and the nooks and crannies of Highclere provide ample room for hundreds of years’ worth.

  Opposite the dairy was the hayrack for the dairy yard and, next to that, beneath the shelter of the walls of the great kitchen garden, were the chickens. The damp boggy field leading west from the kitchen garden was used to grow potatoes.

  Every day, Pope would send his senior gardener, Samuel Ward, to enquire of the cook what was needed. There was an entire family of delightfully named Digweed boys working as Highclere gardeners, and one of them would run up to the kitchens with the fruit and vegetables required.

  The sawmills lay across the cricket field near White Oak, the large sprawling house where James Rutherford, the agent, lived. They had been refitted by the 5th Earl with the latest steam-powered saw. The division of labour in terms of overseeing the house and estate was firmly along traditional lines: anything outside the Castle was the Earl’s concern and, just as Almina had wasted no time in refurbishing the Drawing Room, Carnarvon had spent money on the latest equipment out at the sawmill. He was very much a gadget man, delighting in the advances in technology that were coming fast throughout the 1890s.

  The yard outside the mill was stacked high with different types of wood. The estate carpenters had a stock of planks, boarding, joists or posts; everything they needed. There were thirty men working under head forester William Storie and, as in the gardens, one family in particular, the Annetts, worked for generations as foresters.

  Henry Maber, who became head gamekeeper in 1896, was a large, solid man who had moved to Highclere from East Anglia. He rode a cob and was steeped in knowledge of the countryside. He lived with his family in a house called Broadspear, overlooking the sweeping, Capability Brown-designed lawns. The house was close to the rearing pens at Penwood, the neighbouring village. The young pheasants were raised there before being taken out to the estate’s various woods in late spring and left to grow to maturity in time for the shooting season.

  It was a very prestigious job because Highclere was regarded as one of the great Edwardian shoots. Lord Carnarvon was one of the finest shots in the country and his close friends Lord de Grey and Lord Ashburton rivalled him for the same accolade. They were unsparing in their comments if they thought Lord Carnarvon had mismanaged a drive or his keeper was not up to form. Maber was always worrying about the weather, where the birds were and whether he could meet His Lordship’s desired bag. He had four under-keepers and another fifteen men working for him. They were all given cottages and lived at the furthest-flung corners of the estate so that they could patrol the limits for poachers. He reported to both Lord Carnarvon and to Major Rutherford.

  Like other estate staff, Maber talked frankly. One morning he greeted Lord Carnarvon with, ‘Excuse me milord; afore you goes any further I’d like you to get to the lee side of me as Mrs Maber told me my breath didn’t smell very sweet this morning.’

  Some of the gardeners would earn extra money as beaters on the shoots in winter. One of the Digweeds was acting as a stop on a drive for Maber when the latter found him relieving himself against a tree. ‘Now, Digweed you turnip-headed gardener, you stop that there dung spreading and get on with your job!’

  His son was Charles Maber who grew up, learned the same countryside lore and served in turn as head keeper.

  The U-shaped Georgian brick courtyard to the west of the Castle housed the small brewery and the riding and carriage horses in large cobbled stables. The carriages were also kept here. The grooms lived in a warren of rooms above, sleeping two to a bedroom, their trunks, full of possessions, at the ends of their beds. Arthur Hayter arrived to take up the position of most junior groom and coachman in 1895. His family were farmers and Arthur’s new job was seen as a definite step up. He loved the horses in his care and could manage them brilliantly, whispering to them when they were upset. There were at least a dozen horses and one groom for each pair so the stables hummed with activity. Arthur reported to head coachman, Henry Brickell, who had driven the just-married couple on their wedding day. Brickell was a longstanding employee and a much trusted, steady man.

  Nobody could possibly have known it, but Highclere was passing into a golden time. Everyone who lived and worked there was caught up in the last spectacular flourishing of a secure existence. The rules were understood by everybody: upstairs and downstairs worlds interacted only in
very specific and controlled ways. A new Countess, even one with grand ideas and the cash to carry them out, was unlikely to provoke much lasting change. In 1895 the Empire was at its peak, Queen Victoria was two years away from her Diamond Jubilee, and Britain was, without question, the most prosperous and powerful country in the world. It was a time of peace and progress, of supreme self-belief. The threat to the old ways, as yet scarcely perceived, came not from any individual upstairs but from the new technology and the bigger political forces reshaping society and the balance of power in Europe.

  If you’d asked Henry Brickell how he felt about the future, though, he might not have been too cheery. His job was increasingly marginalised, in a sign of things to come, by Lord Carnarvon’s passion for gadgets. The 5th Earl was exploring the exciting possibilities offered by the new horsepower – the motor car.

  Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, 1899. (photo credit i1.1)

  Highclere Castle, drawn in 1889. (photo credit i1.2)

  Highclere Castle, present day.

  The Saloon of the Castle c. 1895.

  The State Drawing Room of the Castle c. 1895.

  Henry, the 4th Earl of Carnarvon, in his study at the Castle c. 1870. He was a Cabinet Minister (Secretary of State for the Colonies) in the 1860s under Prime Minister Lord Derby and again in the 1870s in the Government of Benjamin Disraeli. He was responsible for the granting of independence to Canada.

  The 4th Earl of Carnarvon, 1883. (photo credit i1.7)

  Evelyn Herbert, the 4th Countess of Carnarvon, 1874.

  An early portrait of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. (photo credit i1.9)

  An early portrait of Alfred de Rothschild, Almina’s father. (photo credit i1.10)

  A drawing of Almina Wombwell, before she was married. (photo credit i1.11)

  Alfred de Rothschild, in the late 1800s.

  Almina in the 1890s, probably taken shortly before her marriage.

  Another portrait of Almina just before her wedding in 1895.

  St. Margaret’s Church, where Almina was married to Lord Carnarvon in 1895. (photo credit i1.15)

  A portrait by Paul César Helleu on the occasion of Almina’s wedding, with her married signature. (photo credit i1.16)

  Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, in full regalia.

  6

  Dressing for Dinner

  Lord and Lady Carnarvon set out for Christmas at Halton House a week after they had waved off their illustrious house guest, the Prince of Wales. Pleased with each other, themselves and the world, they had no reason to doubt that life would continue in its delightful round of balls, shoots and travels abroad, as far as they both could see. They were looking forward to being thoroughly spoiled by Alfred, who celebrated Christmas in style, despite being Jewish. It was an excuse for a party, and although he wasn’t going to participate in the religious aspects, the secular trimmings were there to be enjoyed. It was a predictably jolly occasion, with Carnarvon’s great friend Prince Victor Duleep Singh a fellow guest as well; a thoroughly multicultural and eclectic gathering of people, all bent on celebrating their own good fortune as much as anything more pious.

  The Carnarvons were regular visitors to Halton House throughout the early years of their married life. There was a permanent whirl of moving between Highclere, London, Bretby in Derbyshire and Pixton in Somerset, as well as foreign travel. Given Almina’s lifelong devotion to the city of her childhood, they went often to Paris, usually staying in the Ritz hotel, and popped out to the Bois de Boulogne for racing at Longchamps on a fine weekend.

  For Lord Carnarvon it was a relatively sedate existence, compared to his long sailing missions to the other side of the globe. For Almina, though, the world was expanding faster and further than ever before. Young ladies simply did not travel as men did. They were kept indoors or close to home and groomed for the transition from their father’s home to their husband’s. Only now that she was Countess of Carnarvon could she diffuse some of her formidable energy in seeing a bit of the world. In the first ten years of her married life, Almina accompanied her husband to France, Italy, Germany, Egypt many times, America and the Far East.

  When they were at Highclere or at their house in London, the Carnarvons were always entertaining. It was a curiously public existence compared to domestic life for most married couples today. They were hardly ever alone, and their house was always full of staff and guests. In the summer there were racing parties and tennis weekends; in the autumn there were shoots. All year long there were local fetes and garden parties and, to all of these functions, they invited the latest stars of the social scene, the newly married, the intriguing and the glamorous.

  In May 1896, almost a year after their own marriage, they invited the newly wed Duke and Duchess of Marlborough to stay. Consuelo Vanderbilt was an American heiress of spectacular wealth, whom the 9th Duke had quite plainly married only for her money. She was a beautiful and charming woman, but the fact was that the couple loathed each other. They had both given up the people they really loved in order to marry each other, and Consuelo, who was only seventeen at the time, had been coerced into the marriage by her domineering mother. She later reported having cried behind her veil as she said her vows.

  Consuelo spoke in almost hushed tones of her first London season, that summer of 1896. ‘Those who knew the London of 1896 and 1897 will recall with something of a heartache the brilliant succession of festivities.’ Part of those festivities, of course, were the inevitable weekend house parties, such as the one she attended at Highclere.

  She and Almina were in oddly analogous positions. They were both beautiful young heiresses who had married into the aristocracy because of their family’s fortune and despite its roots in trade. They were both outsiders. Almina had been sidelined by her illegitimate status, Consuelo was constantly sneered at for being American and therefore hardly worthy to be a Duchess. But there the similarity ended. Consuelo was miserable before and throughout her marriage, and separated from the Duke of Marlborough in 1906. Almina was giddily in love on her wedding day and the Carnarvons had a happy and companionable marriage for many years.

  Did the girls recognise something in each other that weekend? Did they talk about the mishaps they’d had in the course of their apprenticeship in ‘Being a Chatelaine’? Consuelo always recalled that she was totally unprepared for the rigid observance of precedence in her new world. A Duchess was higher ranking than a marchioness, who came higher up than a Countess, but there were endless distinctions between Duchesses, marchionesses and Countesses, the age of each title had to be taken into account, and older women took precedence over younger ones, all of which could reshuffle everything into a different order. Once, at a party at Blenheim Palace, her husband’s seat, Consuelo was unsure of the sequence in which the ladies should be withdrawing from the dining room. Not wanting to appear rude, she dithered in the doorway, only to be shoved in the back by a furious Marchioness, who hissed at her, ‘It is quite as vulgar to hang back as to jump ahead.’

  Perhaps it was a relief to speak to someone who understood that alongside the luxury and privilege was the constant pressure not to do ‘The Wrong Thing’, since few people in that strictly codified world would have been prepared to laugh it off. And all the conventions only served to remind them that with the rank came the risk that all trace of their individuality would be swept away. Almina and Consuelo were adjusting to the fact that their personal wishes and desires were considerably less important than the main tasks in hand: producing an heir for the estate and enacting their roles as great ladies.

  It would have been hard even to find a moment to have that conversation, since privacy was virtually impossible to come by when there could be up to eighty people in the house. But the impulse to share secrets and stories is strong and, in any case, new ways to get round the conventions were always being devised. It was considered improper to play games on the Lord’s day, for example, so it became fashionable for the ladies to spend their Sunday afternoons
walking in pairs, for tête-à-tête conversations. Social prestige could be measured by how many invitations to walk a lady received. Part of the appeal must surely have been that the strolls through the beautiful park afforded the opportunity to speak frankly, or at least more frankly than in the drawing room taking tea.

  Hosting a weekend party was liable to produce endless opportunities to slip up, or to overlook a crucial detail. Almina had acquitted herself splendidly at her baptism of fire, the Prince of Wales’s visit back in December, but the frantic activity and expense attest to a certain level of anxiety as well as exuberance. She might have tried to reassure the new Duchess, with the benefit of her extra six months’ experience and her greater familiarity with English customs. Her advice would have come in handy a few months later, when the Duchess had to host her first shooting party at Blenheim, once again in honour of the Prince of Wales.

  The marriage between Consuelo and Marlborough was already becoming a byword for loveless but lucrative arrangements at the time of the couple’s visit to Highclere. Almina’s curiosity and sympathy might have led to a few enquiries as the girls strolled. Unfettered gossip would not have been on the agenda, though. Everything about Almina suggests that she was deeply conscious of her own dignity. She had only just arrived at such an exalted position that she could be arm-in-arm with a Duchess, and neither girl would have wanted to be grouped together as the outsiders or to commit the cardinal sin of indiscretion. Almina was sensitive to any insinuation that she was letting herself down. Shame was a powerful inhibitor and could be experienced by proxy, as her son later attested.