The Real Life Downton Abbey: How Life Was Really Lived in Stately Homes a Century Ago

by Jacky Hyams

  From The Book of Sweets & Puddings by Myrtle Lindlaw

  Longleat House.

  Chapter 8

  Entertainment & Sport

  The dining rituals are one aspect of the intense social networking of the wealthy elite. Yet there are many other activities on the calendar that take up a great deal of their time – and create even more party planning for the servants and those working on the estate.

  The traditional outdoor hunting, shooting, fishing lifestyle of the country house elite is long established. But as a means of lavishly funded social networking, its importance peaks in the Edwardian years, mainly because the country-house party featuring these upper-crust sporting pursuits has grown, mostly thanks to Edward VII’s enthusiasm for all things related to pleasure and socialising, into a hedonistic, plush toff lifestyle – gracious living in a ‘gilded age’.

  THE SHOOTING PARTY

  The weekend – or Saturday to Monday three-day country-house party – can sometimes extend to a party of two or three weeks duration, if it is held on one of the very big shooting estates like Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (home of the Churchill family), Chatsworth in Derbyshire, home to the 8th Duke of Devonshire and his wife Louise, or King Edward’s own 8,000-hectare estate, Sandringham, in Norfolk, where his own railway station (at Wolferton) has been constructed, just two miles away from his hunting lodge, so that guests can arrive close to the estate for the big shooting parties.

  Guests have their servants load up their car with an enormous leather trunk, containing enough outfits for five or six changes of clothing each day. Or the trunk is loaded onto a luggage van in a train, while the guests travel in the first-class compartments.

  Shooting birds or game is very much the rich man’s sport. Thousands of birds or ‘bag’ are shot in a three-day session hosted by the King for his tweed-suited guests, assisted by a large number of gamekeepers and estate workers (and sometimes locals hired for the purpose). It is, by today’s standards, a very labour-intensive affair.

  The gamekeepers have a big role to play in the planning of the shooting party. They work at rearing the game birds, protecting them from predatory poachers. They also have to make sure there are sufficient numbers available to shoot. As many as 20,000 pheasants, for instance, are bred in one year, all looked after by under-gamekeeping staff.

  At the big shoot itself many other staff are involved: there are beaters – their role is to walk up from a certain point to drive the birds in the direction of the guns. There are loaders helping load the guns and cartridge boys helping, too. By tradition, the beaters wear white smocks, with large felt hats with wide brims, specially designed for safety reasons – and so that their visibility allows the head gamekeeper to keep an eye on their movements. Shooting itself is now much safer than in the previous century: breech-loading guns, copper percussion caps and self-contained central-firing cartridges mean more reliable firearms.

  So great is the demand for, and popularity of, these high-maintenance shooting parties that cash-strapped landowners often rent out the rights to shoot, hunt and fish on their estates to the wealthy ‘new money’ entrepreneurs who haven’t yet purchased their own.

  Yet no matter how many birds the men, clad in their chunky tweeds, knickerbockers, thick stockings and heavy boots, may shoot, open boasting about exactly how many birds they’ve ‘bagged’ in one session is very much frowned upon: it’s not the sort of thing a gentleman does. It’s also considered uncivilised to discuss sport when ladies are present. Yet a gentleman does not stop to query the cost of a twelve-bore gun and leather case – around £150 at the time – three years’ salary for a butler, shop or factory worker.

  Around 30–40 guests at a time may be invited to these country-house parties to hunt, shoot and fish during the day and enjoy a number of different entertainments after dark. Card games and gambling are extremely popular after-dinner pursuits. Games like whist, backgammon and bezique, a French card game for two players, are also popular. Or they might play charades or other parlour games. But baccarat (an illegal card game much loved by the gambling-mad Prince of Wales) goes right out of fashion after 1891 when the Prince is involved in another huge scandal: one of his friends, Sir William Gordon Cumming, is caught cheating at the game and is rejected by society after a very public court case where he attempts to defend his reputation – and fails.

  Baccarat is soon replaced with bridge, which becomes even more popular with women after the founding of fashionable ladies clubs in London in the late 1800s. Fancy dress parties are very much in vogue. Musical entertainments are organised. And, of course, the country-house party is the perfect opportunity to gossip, argue, flirt and more – in between indulging at the overladen dining table.

  These house parties are not just about leisure and pleasure, of course. They are the elite’s big opportunity to push forward their social and political ambitions. And, in the case of families with eligible grown-up children, this is the perfect chance to show them off to each other. In the most favourable light.

  A beautiful young woman, attired in a figure-hugging riding habit with matching skirt atop a beautiful horse, ridden side-saddle with style and brio, has a powerful effect on admiring male eyes. Especially if breeding and inheritance are on the agenda.

  While horse riding itself is popular with upper-crust women, they do not, as a rule, join the men at the shoot – it’s not really considered conventional for women to do so. Nor is it correct etiquette. ‘Ladies are better out of the way, unless they are very tractable and obediently follow close on the track of the sportsmen,’ warns the aristos’ etiquette bible, Etiquette of Good Society.

  Yet shooting is such a major preoccupation that adept horsewomen, like Dame Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, become crack shots, as well as riding in foxhunts, or riding to hounds, as it is known. Hunting the fox down in the woods is another aspect of the Edwardian country-house party that is very much taken for granted – as an upper-class sport, it does not create the controversy it does today. And it requires riding skill and stamina, chasing over hills, hedges and travelling long distances for a large part of the day. But nonetheless, the Edwardian elite horsewoman, with her small hard hat, long dark leather boots and looped riding skirt, experiences a rare sense of freedom and abandon as she gallops through the countryside. There is no rule which says the rider can’t enjoy herself in the great outdoors.

  There are many other diversions for the house-party guests. Huge lawns and gardens are laid out to promenade in. Guests can ride or walk through extensive parklands or take tea under an awning. Huge private libraries in the house offer a wide range of books or periodicals to browse through. Games of croquet and golf are popular with both sexes (in fact golf has become so well-liked by the early twentieth century that golfers are spending £4.7 million a year on the sport).

  By now, many grand houses boast their own tennis court – sometimes more than one – and in the summer months, guests play tennis on the grass (hard courts are viewed as somewhat vulgar). As a sport, tennis is a late-Victorian innovation, so it is still very much a fashionable person’s game. And, of course, another opportunity for a slender, beautiful young woman to show off her sporting prowess – and her shape – to the best advantage.

  The outfits women wear to play all sports are very cumbersome, with long, heavy skirts (amazingly, some fashionable women go skiing in long skirts with breeches underneath: trousers for women do not appear until the twenties). Playing tennis in a clinging white skirt, dropping to just two inches above the ground, plus white blouse, white waistband and a light-coloured silk tie and white collar – doesn’t seem like fun on a hot summer’s day. And indeed, it is not unusual for sprained ankles to be a result of tripping over on a skirt hem. Yet for the highborn ladies, tennis is another fashionable pursuit – and women’s fashion, by now, is gradually beginning to move away from the heavy restrictive clothing of the past.

  If it rains, the guests might go fo
r a ride. Sometimes a shopping expedition in the car is organised to a nearby town – when the ladies are forced to cover their faces in long floaty veils because there’s such a lot of dust flying around the bumpy country roads: protective goggles are also sometimes worn. And when the women return, to change, yet again, into their flimsy tea gowns before taking tea, the men take the opportunity to play billiards and snooker – playing these games after dinner is considered impolite and offensive to the women.

  THE SOCIAL YEAR

  In the nine years of his reign, Edward VII (or Edward the Caresser as history has dubbed him, because of the legion of mistresses he had following his marriage to Queen Alexandra in 1863) continues to pursue the high-maintenance country-house party lifestyle he’d created over many years as Prince of Wales, fitting it all in with his kingly duties which frequently take him on official trips abroad. Essentially, this highly social yet mainly sporting calendar goes like this:

  August: Yacht racing on the Royal Yacht Britannia at Cowes, Isle of Wight. The King is a keen yachtsman. The last-ever royal racing yacht, the Britannia, built for him in 1893, is one of the most successful racing yachts in the world. And Cowes Week, organised by the exclusive Royal Yacht Squadron where class rather than cash is the entry point, is an ideal setting for the fashionable elite to show off – mostly to each other – against the backdrop of the yachts gliding along the Solent.

  After the exhaustive social round of Cowes comes a stint at a German spa resort like Baden-Baden, Marienbad or Carlsbad, famous European spa centres where guests can fix digestive problems or ease ailments like arthritis by bathing in the warm thermal waters – or immersing themselves in mud. (These attempts at a more healthy spa ‘cure’ away from the excesses of the usual rich dining are somewhat tenuous: delicious menus still include calorie-laden delicacies like ices, sweetbreads or duck.) And another big attraction of Baden-Baden is its casino, a top draw for the wealthy gambler, as is Biarritz, where Edward loves to picnic alongside busy roads, pretending to be anonymous but knowing he is highly visible.

  October: Deer-hunting in Scotland.

  November Early spring is spent at the country-house estate – where the King, at Sandringham, frequently plays host to his rich cronies (dubbed the Marlborough House Set, after Marlborough House in London, his official residence when in town). Or his friends entertain him in their country homes (Queen Alexandra, discreet and tolerant of her husband’s excesses, does not accompany him to these gatherings – which sometimes include the King’s mistress of the time).

  May: The focus is London and The Season again, after a month or so on the French Riviera in early spring. Attending the first night of the Opera Season at Covent Garden is an important ‘see and be seen’ event, a good opportunity for the women to show off their latest creations – and their jewels. Horse racing, too is another passion – and a costly one. The country-house set often organise house parties around the big summer race meetings at Newmarket, Ascot, Sandown, Goodwood and Epsom where the women display their fashionable outfits and the men frequently race their own horses – and blow huge sums of money on equestrian betting and gambling.

  Theatre-going, as well as opera, forms part of the social calendar, in the opulent surroundings of the new, plushly decorated grand theatres of the West End of London. Formal evening dress is worn for opera and theatre-going, though the upper crust audience do not expect – or get – anything too daring or controversial up on the stage; the fashionable set expect to be dazzled by spectacularly beautiful sets rather than thought-provoking drama.

  Wimbledon in June is another sporting highlight as are the big dates on the cricket calendar: the April openings at the Oval and the July Test Matches at Lord’s are all occasions where the elite indulge endlessly in the Good Life – and keep a close eye on each other’s doings.

  And so it goes on, an endless round of parties, balls, weddings, race meetings – and servant management. For the mistress of the country or town house, the organisation of such an intensely social round of activity is both time-consuming and exhausting. Given the dictates of The Season and the exclusivity of the elite circle, many guests visit the same houses, year after year, a tight, jewel-encrusted coterie of people locked into a world of glittering displays of ostentation and wealth.

  There are certain drawbacks: if the house party includes King Edward VII, getting to bed after a long day can be tricky and often means a very late night given his dedication to food, wine and life’s pleasures. Royal etiquette demands that no lady retire before the Queen – who mostly doesn’t attend the house parties – and no gentleman can climb into his bed until the King decides to spread his huge bulk between the sheets of the regal boudoir.

  The King must travel with two valets to keep him looking slick and spruce at all times, as well as half a dozen other servants, his private secretary and two equerries. He has a somewhat disconcerting habit, when hosting a shooting party at Sandringham, of having all the clocks in the house set forward by half an hour – to give him more time for hunting. And if he is a guest at one of his set’s country houses, the hostess must always remember his bedside requirements: a cold roast chicken by the bed, in case he fancies a snack in the small hours.

  Being part of this elite group means that the royal tastes eventually dictate the habits of everyone else; at one point, the traditional after-dinner ritual of cigars for the men is changed by the King to include cigarettes. And eventually it becomes more fashionable for women to smoke. This means special orders for the butler and the staff – because the traditional after-dinner serving of port has to be replaced with brandy, since brandy and cigarettes are seen to complement each other. Attention to detail at all times, 24/7.

  In view of all this, the make-up of the country-house shooting party is very carefully considered: the names of the guests are carefully listed in the social columns of the London newspapers. (Etiquette dictates that such guest lists are made up of people who know each other, anyway.) So the indoor staff, especially the butler, housekeeper and cook, spend a great deal of time, in between their everyday duties, making sure that everything goes exactly to plan. Guests may bring their own personal servants too, so there is a lot of communication between staff from other great houses – and usually a lot of gossip, too. Not surprisingly, given the boredom of the rigid social routine, the country-house party is also the prime opportunity for the wealthy guests to indulge in extra marital dalliance (see Chapter 10 for more on this).

  The lady of the house, in planning the event, must use incredible tact and discretion when considering the needs of her guests. In order to amuse or entertain the wives while the husbands are off shooting, for instance, she will sometimes invite a few spare men who don’t care for sport to make light, even flirtatious conversation or gossip with the women. (These are called ‘lap dogs’, which gives a pretty clear idea of their role.)

  And when it comes to drawing up the sleeping arrangements she has to be very cautious, too. The rules dictate that the name of each guest is written on a card, which is then slipped into a tiny brass frame on the bedroom door. But whose name should be displayed on the card of the room next door? It can be very tricky. A man who considers himself a great lover of women can get quite upset if his next door neighbour is a woman accompanied by her husband. And so on…

  ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE SERVANTS

  While their limited time off (half a day a week and one day off a month) and brief holiday periods are in stark contrast to the endless leisure pursuits of their masters, the servants do get to enjoy their time off, although a relatively isolated country house can’t offer the same diversions for relaxing pursuits as those found in the town or city.

  In the very big, grand country houses, the large numbers of servants working there often form a little community among themselves, especially if the lower servants’ relationships with each other are friendly.

  In the evening, between chores, they might read a newspaper, play dominoes or cards. Or sing
, accompanied by a piano-playing colleague who enjoys tinkling the keys of the servants’ hall piano in the corner. Making music is a cheerful diversion; someone might play a banjo, or a fiddle. It’s a time for housemaids to chatter, exchange thoughts, as they work on their sewing – away from the stern gaze of the housekeeper or the unwanted leering of a new, lecherous second footman.

  In the daytime, walking is the most common way of enjoying time off, given the complete lack of alternatives in the countryside. It’s healthy, at least. Footmen, chosen for their physical attributes, are traditionally the fittest, most athletic of the country-house staff. A footman might walk several miles during his time off. Some employers even encourage footmen to keep fit by rowing on a lake on the estate. The housemaid on her day off is most likely to take a walk through the country lanes with other servant girls in the area or perhaps take tea with them. Bicycles, at this time, have become safer, cheaper and more commonplace. So the use of a bike, if it’s available, can make a big difference to precious time off; it makes it easier, for instance, to cycle into the nearest town.

  Church every Sunday, which the servants attend with the family, the lowers walking the two or three miles and back while the uppers and family are transported by horse-drawn trap or car, isn’t exactly entertainment as such. But it does afford the opportunity to be sociable and exchange pleasantries with other workers in the area; given the size of the house and estate, there are always casual workers, carpenters and artisans working around the house to chat to briefly during the day. Friendships are most likely to be formed, however, between female lower servants. We’re still a long way off from male/female platonic friendship in this segregated environment.

  A servant’s one-week annual holiday is mostly spent visiting family. And this must be arranged with the housekeeper to fit in with the routine of the house. Quite often, the holiday break is taken when the family is away in London during The Season and the big spring-cleaning session is being organised in the house. Which doesn’t allow much of a break from the daily grind. Especially when you consider that going home, for female servants, often means cleaning or cooking if there are younger siblings or older relatives at home.