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

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  The outcome of the legal case in the Egyptian courts was disappointing for Almina and Carter. Mistakes were made, all of which would probably have been avoided if Lord Carnarvon were still alive. She did, however, succeed in persuading the Egyptian administration to allow Carter to complete the excavation and recording of the tomb. For a man who had only ever wanted to be left alone to do his work, that was enough.

  Meanwhile, there was more paperwork to contend with at home. The 5th Earl had left Highclere entailed to his son and his heirs, but almost everything else, from horses to other houses, was left to Almina. There was a knotty tax situation that was absorbing a lot of time and looked set to absorb a great deal of money as well. This was the scenario that Carnarvon had been quietly dreading for years, ever since Lloyd George’s super tax became law in 1910 and his annual tax bill started to climb from something negligible to, by 1919, more than 60 per cent of his income. The nation naturally needed to rebuild itself after the war, pay for pensions for the war wounded and the widows, and build the thousands of homes ‘fit for heroes’ called for by Lloyd George, but it was a very sudden change in the amount of money that the old class of landowners had to find.

  Lord Carnarvon was permanently worried about the overdraft at Lloyd’s and how to plan for the future. The Earl, like so many of the aristocracy, was much richer in assets than cash, and spent money on a lifestyle more as a matter of custom than on the basis of carefully calculated net income. He had written to Rutherford only months before he died to ask him to ensure all expenses were trimmed as much as possible, but that proved to be too little too late: now Porchy, his heir, and Almina, his widow, were facing a very substantial death-duties bill.

  The issue of death duties, payable when a large estate passed from one generation to another, was the other tax nightmare that haunted the landed classes, especially after 1920 when they were massively increased. Cash had to be raised fast to pay the tax owed on these enormous assets, and often that meant that the house had to be sold, or at least emptied of contents. The situation with Highclere was alleviated, as always, by the Rothschild money. Almina was stoical – as far as she was concerned, it was simply a question of deciding which paintings to part with, but the bill was certain to be huge and the whole process complicated. It meant that none of the bequests to George Fearnside, Albert Streatfield and other longstanding friends and staff could be carried out until the matter was resolved. In the meantime, Almina wanted to stay busy. It had always been her tactic when under pressure, and now she swirled out to dinner from Seamore Place, visited Porchy and Catherine at Highclere, was looked after by friends and went to Paris to shop. She also began to spend more time with Lieutenant Colonel Ian Dennistoun, whom she had met through his ex-wife, who was a friend of hers.

  Almina met Dorothy Dennistoun when their mutual friend, General Sir John Cowans, was dying in 1921; the women immediately became very close and Dorothy came constantly to Highclere. Sir John was the brilliant quartermaster who had played a crucial role in the Great War, but his reputation was overshadowed by revelations that he had had a number of affairs. One of them was with Dorothy, who had been separated from her husband for some time. After the Dennistouns divorced, Ian was often alone. He used a wheelchair, as he had broken his hip very badly, and he had terrible money worries too, but he was kind, charming and a good friend to Almina after her husband’s death. Almina had never in her life been alone, and now she found herself drawn to Ian. She looked after him and they began to spend more and more time together.

  There was a great piece of good news for the Carnarvon family in the midst of all their difficulties: Eve was getting married. She and Mr Beauchamp had been meeting for several Seasons now, and Eve’s fondness and respect for him had been growing steadily. He was a lot of fun and they loved to dance together. When her father died, Eve was completely bereft. Brograve offered her his support and that summer he became a constant visitor to Highclere.

  He had spent the previous year attempting to follow in his father’s footsteps as an MP, with no success. He was the National Liberals’ candidate in Lowestoft after his father resigned the seat, but lost heavily. That general election was a drubbing for the divided Liberal Party, but Brograve fought hard, despite the fact that his heart lay more with a career in business. He decided not to follow his own inclinations, though, chiefly to please his mother, Lady Beauchamp. Brograve was always very protective of both his parents after his older brother Edward was killed in France in 1914.

  He was by nature cheerful and relaxed, and got on very well with Almina as well as Porchy and Catherine. He played golf badly, bridge well and enjoyed racing only because Eve loved it so much. Aside from all his personal qualities, she appreciated the fact that her father had liked him. They shared a passion for cars and had been known to go out for a spin together in Lord Carnarvon’s Bugatti. Brograve had been wonderful at cheering Eve and making her laugh again. If ever she was down she used to ask him to sing ‘God Save the King’. He was completely unmusical and it was so flat that everyone would fall about laughing. In truth he was the only man Eve had ever seriously contemplated marrying, and the wedding was set for October, much to everyone’s delight.

  The other joyous announcement that summer was that Catherine, the Countess of Carnarvon, was pregnant with her first child. The baby was due just after Christmas. Highclere would be a home to children again, and there was a sense of renewal in the air, despite the family’s sadness.

  The relief at the good news was short lived. Aubrey had been feeling very low in spirit due to his worsening health for most of the spring and hadn’t been able to face battling back from Italy for his brother’s memorial service earlier in the year. But by summer he was feeling a bit better and he and Mary returned to England and went to stay at Highclere in July. It was to be his last visit. He went on to Pixton and consulted various doctors. He had always been slim but now he was looking gaunt; he was nearly totally blind and was running out of energy to battle his lifelong health problems and cope with the loss of his sight.

  One of the doctors, clearly a total quack, gave him an extraordinary piece of advice: that having all his teeth removed would restore his sight. Poor Aubrey must have been desperate because he went ahead and had it done. It turned out that he had a duodenal ulcer and the poison spread throughout his weakened body, developing into septicaemia, as had happened to his brother. Elsie rushed to her son’s bedside and she and Mary worked in shifts to bring his temperature down, but in an age before the discovery of penicillin, even their nursing couldn’t save him. His fine mind became increasingly lost in delirium and he died on 26 September.

  Aubrey was just forty-three years old; he left four young children. His obituaries paid tribute to his irrepressible spirit, and to the amount of life he had managed to pack into such a short span. He was a great linguist and traveller, he fought and negotiated in the Great War, was a maverick MP, championed small nations, especially Albania, wrote poetry and gathered devoted friends from all over the world, thanks to his remarkable charm. His wife, mother, younger brother Mervyn and half-sisters, Winifred, Margaret and Vera, buried him at Brushford Church on Exmoor. The memorial service in Piccadilly overflowed with friends.

  His mother, Elsie, had now buried both her husband and her oldest child, but she carried on, brave and stoical, throughout the 1920s. She had lived her life with dignity and purpose and encouraged everyone around her to do likewise. After her beloved son died, she established hospitals, schools and anti-malaria clinics in Albania, as well as a village for refugees called Herbert, after her son.

  There had been two deaths in one year and now everyone wanted to focus on Eve’s wedding. Mary, Aubrey’s widow, and Almina combined their forces to organise it. Mary’s help was invaluable, as Almina was also in the process of buying a new house. She and Ian were planning to marry and move to Scotland.

  On 8 October 1923, Lady Evelyn Herbert married Mr Brograve Beauchamp in St Margaret’s, Westminster
. She was followed down the aisle by ten little bridesmaids and given away by her brother, the Earl of Carnarvon. There is a beautiful photo of the couple leaving the church, which almost overflows with happy energy. Brograve, almost a foot taller than Eve, smiles straight at the camera, supremely pleased with his good fortune in marrying the woman he loves. Eve is wearing a highly embellished drop-waisted dress and a fashionable full-length lace veil thrown back over her hair, and is laughing, bending to speak to a well-wisher. She looks uncannily like a younger Almina.

  The end of 1923 brought a small announcement in The Times: the marriage of Almina, Lady Carnarvon and Lieutenant Colonel Ian Dennistoun had taken place at a register office in London. Eve and Brograve were the only people present. Almina and her new husband spent Christmas alone at the house they had just bought in Scotland, while Eve and Brograve travelled to Highclere to spend the holiday with Catherine and Porchy. Dr Johnnie was there, too. There was an atmosphere of excited anticipation about the baby’s birth, but there was to be a departure as well as a new arrival. It was Streatfield’s last Christmas serving the family. He had decided to retire and George Fearnside would be stepping up to his place as house steward. Streatfield had nearly forty years of service and, as he had always known he might, he had outlasted Almina, whose arrival he had witnessed back in 1895. Countesses come and Countesses go, but a good house steward stays for life.

  The new Lord Carnarvon had a smaller staff than at any time in the house’s history. Major Rutherford had been succeeded by one of his sons, but he had insisted on the cuts in expenditure that the 5th Earl had requested just before his death. They were relatively straitened times. But even so, and despite the shudders that went through the social system in the wake of the war, Highclere was still a mutually dependent community of people who lived and worked together, mostly in harmony. Some commentators had predicted after the war that it was the end for the great English country house. In fact, that proved not to be so. Despite the economic and political upheavals of the Twenties and Thirties, Highclere continued to be the setting for glamorous house parties. Standards were maintained, and indeed, Evelyn Waugh used to say that something was ‘very Highclere’ to mean ‘superbly carried out’. The novelist was an occasional guest: he first married the 5th Earl’s niece, Evelyn, Winifred’s daughter, and secondly Laura, again Carnarvon’s niece, but Aubrey Herbert’s daughter.

  By 1939 the 6th Earl employed less people at Highclere than his father but the Castle still functioned in much the same way (twenty-three inside servants as well as all the estate workers). It was the Second World War, not the First, that altered British society irrevocably. But for now, Highclere continued much as it ever had.

  Almina became a grandmother on 17 January 1924. Catherine gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the next heir to the title and the estate, who was named Henry George Reginald Molyneux Herbert. Laid in the cradle that Almina had used for both his father and his aunt, the new Lord Porchester began his life at Highclere adored by his parents and all the family. Eve and Brograve were down nearly every weekend and Eve and Catherine became very close. New friends began to fill the drawing rooms and stay in the bedrooms. Instead of the old waltzes and polkas, jazz and the Charleston wafted out through the open windows on a summer’s evening.

  The new Lord Porchester was christened in April 1924. He was taken down to Highclere Church in a smart pony phaeton that his late grandfather had used to drive around the park. Local people from Highclere Newtown and even Newbury had congregated to cheer on the christening party and fill the church. The bonny baby would grow up much loved and come to adore his grandmother Almina as she grew older.

  A year later Eve gave birth to a daughter, Patricia Evelyn, a cousin nearly the same age for the second child of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, who was named Penelope.

  Almina delighted in her expanding brood of grandchildren, and the gaiety that once again filled her beloved Highclere. When she visited she was proud and nostalgic in equal measure, but her life lay elsewhere now. Her husband was often unwell and Almina devoted herself to nursing him. It was the reminder she needed that nursing was her great purpose in life.

  There had been so many things to divert her attention since the end of the Great War: her late husband’s worsening health, then his discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, which catapulted the family into the limelight; and, of course, his dramatic, devastating death. Almina and Ian Dennistoun were to spend much of the next year caught up in a long and damaging court case brought by Ian’s ex-wife Dorothy, but Almina never stopped thinking about her vision for another hospital. It took until 1927, but when it was finally opened she named it Alfred House, in honour of her beloved father, the man who had made her whole extraordinary life possible.

  Epilogue: Almina’s Legacy

  One hundred years after the nineteen-year-old girl arrived at Highclere with trunks and travelling cases piled high with dresses, silks, hats, muffs, and dainty shoes, Highclere Castle is still home to the Carnarvons. Built in a glorious flight of fancy by the 3rd Earl, Highclere Castle represented an outstandingly confident tribute to the times.

  Almina attended the funerals of both Queen Victoria and her son, Edward VII, as well as two Coronations. She was a generous host, frequently entertaining her family and friends, amongst whom were politicians, adventurers, generals, surgeons, Egyptologists, racehorse trainers, bankers and aviators.

  She had no qualms about spending prodigious amounts of money to get things done. Most of us come up against the frustration of having ideas and aims with insufficient resources to fulfil them. By virtue of her doting and incredibly generous father, a lack of funds was never an obstacle so she ‘thought big’ in life and, whilst her first husband was alive, certainly succeeded.

  During the First World War, Almina devoted an extraordinary amount of energy to helping others, with no thought for the cost in terms of time or money, just a straightforward focus on doing in every moment what was required for each person. She helped to save countless lives, and neither the men she nursed nor their families ever forgot it. Today the only traces of the hospital at Highclere are the stories. Visitors still arrive hoping to share their memories or find out a little more about their relatives.

  Almina’s support and nursing of her husband saved his life on several occasions, and their long and happy marriage gave him the opportunity to continue working out in Egypt to pursue his passion and obsession. Carnarvon and Carter were a unique team, both mavericks but both focused and persistent. The tomb of Tutankhamun is still the only Ancient Egyptian royal burial site ever found intact, a holy grail revealing untold treasure. Its discovery culminated, like so many good stories, in tragedy at the moment of triumph, but the history of the boy-king has fascinated people from schoolchildren to eminent academics around the world ever since.

  Even today, Egyptologists are grateful to Almina for her unstinting support of Howard Carter after the 5th Earl died. She continued to maintain him, his team and the laboratory until he had finished the detailed excavation and recording of every single object. In recognition of her support, the Egyptian government repaid Almina £36,000 in 1936, which reimbursed her expenses for that period. It also transferred some of the investment and the ownership of the discovery into Egyptian hands.

  The Rothschild influence is still visible at Highclere in the green silk damask wall hangings in the Drawing Room, which is also where Almina’s beautiful piano sits. Stanhope bedroom has retained its red silk wall coverings, part of the redecoration in honour of the Prince of Wales’s visit in 1895.

  Almina’s love of comfort based on the latest in practical technology ensured that Highclere was one of the first houses to enjoy a fully plumbed hot- and cold-water system. The same structure is still used today, even if pipes have been replaced. She also ensured that the installation of electricity and electric light was undertaken early. That meant vastly fewer candles and oil lamps were used, cutting the risk of fire – a hazard which claimed other large
houses similar to Highclere.

  Almina obviously loved a good party and was as energetic in organising the big weekends at Highclere as any Edwardian hostess. Her passion for the best in rich French cooking still permeates the food eaten here. Highclere’s chef offers some of her dishes, such as crab au gratin with a generous amount of butter and cream, herb-crusted roast lamb and very rich cold chocolate pots.

  The enormous marriage settlement bestowed on Almina by Alfred de Rothschild was a turning point in the Carnarvon family’s fortunes, as debts were cleared and the estate put on a much sounder footing. Although many of her husband’s properties were sold to pay death duties or debts, Almina’s cash and chattels from her father, and the sharp deal she eventually did with the Metropolitan Museum for Lord Carnarvon’s collection of Egyptian antiquities, may well have saved Highclere for future generations of her family.

  Perhaps it was in the field of medicine that Almina left the greatest legacy. She realised that post-operative and trauma care were as much a part of the healing process as the best surgical techniques and the latest equipment. Almina’s understanding of the word ‘care’ was sincere. She realised that the nursing and physical environment at her Highclere hospital was going to make all the difference to the lives of the patients arriving from the horrors of the Western Front. Almina treated them as if they were country-house guests; nothing but the best food was served, with pastimes and recreation in the Castle State Rooms and park for those that were fit enough. She was a stickler for hygiene: perfect cleanliness in terms of nurses’ uniforms and every household surface were the order of the day, with attention paid to the smallest detail. Almina knew that nurses had to deal with psychological as well as physical suffering and her approach was to offer kindness, comfort and an ordered environment. She used all the wonders of Highclere to succeed in this goal, and the many letters from patients and their families are a tribute to her determination to get things right.