Britain – September 2019

n the new Downton Abbey  lm, veteran housekeeper

Mrs Hughes is unequivocal in brie ng staff: “I want

every surface in this house to gleam and sparkle,” she

tells them, and this, says Dr Mac Graham, historian

of Holkham Hall, is exactly the effect that the grand

Norfolk home is after today.

The parallels don’t stop there. While the staff of

Downton Abbey prepare for a royal visit, Holkham Hall,

seat of the Earls of Leicester, has hosted many a royal

guest, starting with a young Queen Victoria. Just 16 and

still a princess, Victoria visited as part of a tour, arranged

by her mother, of what would soon be her realm.

In the  lm, staff  nd their noses put out of joint by

members of the royal household who rather take over

things, and this is likely to be a true depiction. When

Victoria visited, she would have come with a full entourage

• her mother, her ladies-in-waiting (who may well have
  been daughters of earls themselves), and her own servants,
  who would have slept near her on a specially designed
  mezzanine  oor. The royal chamber would have had two
  bells, one to summon the queen’s own servants, and
  another to summon a member of the household staff.
  By now, we’re all familiar with the terms ‘above stairs’
  and ‘below stairs’, but this implies that staff were very
  separate from the residents of the house and their guests.
  Intruth, staff often lived and worked much closer than
  that, scuttling up and down staircases hidden behind
  silk wallpaper and huge tapestries.
  On the new Hidden Passages and Servants’ Stairs
  tours of Holkham Hall, visitors can go behind the scenes
  tosee just how well this 18th-century property was
  designed to enable staff to get to the family and guests
  in the quickest possible time. One staircase acts as the
  main artery of Holkham Hall, with a labyrinth of corridors
  that run behind the rooms, making it easy for staff to
  scuttle around without being seen.
  Dr Graham, who has been instrumental in the curation
  PHOTOS:ofthese tours, says: “We are able to show how the

©
MARK HEMSWORTH/IVAN VDOVIN/ALAMY/HOLKHAM HALL/BLENHEIM PALACE

This image:

Holkham Hall’s

Old Kitchen

Below:The secret

staircase at the

heart of the house

This image:Holkham’s

magnificent exterior

Opposite: The Marble

Hall, with columns

chiefly constructed of

Staffordshire alabaster