A Year at Highclere by The Countess of Carnovan: Hexes and high jinks at the real Downton
A YEAR AT HIGHCLERE by The Countess of Carnarvon (Penguin Books £22, 320pp)
Last Saturday I went to watch the final instalment of Downton Abbey and, like many of us, have been inconsolable ever since. After 15 years of keeping up with the Crawleys, the curtain has finally fallen on the fictional family who had become as much a fixture of British life as Paddington or beans on toast.
In all its glory: Highclere Castle
My passion for all things Downton was fanatical. It conquered my headspace to such an extent that when I was broken up with a few years back my mania for the show was cited as one of the main reasons.
From Lady Mary’s aristocratic antics to Mr Bates popping in and out of prison like it was his local off licence, the characters who peopled the Abbey were a source of nail-biting entertainment for its tens of millions of viewers across the globe. Now, without another instalment to look forward to, how will we superfans find a way of getting back into the abbey?
Thankfully, Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon, has flung open the doors of Highclere castle (the real Downton Abbey) and written a marvellous book taking us through life there over the course of a year. Along the way she drops in many an amusing anecdote of the great, the good and the grubby who have lived in and visited Highclere over the castle’s 500-year history.
The skeletons one keeps in one’s closet are not always put on display for the world to see, but for the owners of Highclere they are a source of family pride. Their vast cellars are stuffed with mummies and artefacts (both replicas and the real thing) collected by the famed Egyptologist and Highclere inhabitant George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.
A Year At Highclere is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Carnarvon’s sudden death came soon after he and Howard Carter discovered the infamous tomb of Tutankhamun, and he has long been suspected of falling victim to the ‘Pharoah’s curse’. Perhaps the death and bad luck of so many of the Downton lot can be explained by the ancient curses seeping up from the basement.
However, if anyone can put up with curses and ghosts it’s the Carnarvons. According to the Countess, ghosts and spirits are a staple feature of life at Highclere, but they are mostly benign. As she delightfully puts it, ‘ghosts are just people who have lost their way: missed the right turning if you will.’
On the slightly less ghoulish end of the spectrum are the famous faces who have cropped up over the years. Mostly they are guests of whom Downton’s charmingly snobbish butler Carson would have thoroughly approved. For example, the late Queen paid a weekend visit in 2002 along with Prince Phillip for which the hosts called in bucket-loads of Dubonnet for the Queen and beer (IPA) for Prince Phillip.
Thanks to the late, great Maggie Smith, acerbic wit was a key feature of the Downton franchise. She was an alchemist who could turn a seemingly banal line into comedy gold. Although, perhaps she would have met her match in two of Highclere’s frequent visitors; Joan Rivers and Judge Judy.
Fiona Carnarvon shows in this wonderful book that while Downton may have come to an end, Highclere’s stories are far from over.
