Highclere Castle.
world-famous as the location for hit drama series Downton Abbey.
Over centuries it's played host to royalty. nobility and celebrity.
It holds unexpected secrets.
This is a fairy tale castle
with a real-life Lord and Lady.
And even a real-life butler.
I think it's very important to maintain standards
because once they disappear they will never come back.
This is the behind-the-scenes story of England's best-known country home.
(Bell)
70 miles west of London lies one of the great estates of England...
Highclere.
A country house nestling in 5.000 acres.
That's five times the size of New York's Central Park.
Highclere is the location backdrop
for the successful television period drama Downton Abbey.
And walking through its doors is like walking onto the television set.
In reality. this is a 19th-Century trophy house
designed to show off inherited wealth.
And far more than just a fictional creation.
For Highclere is also a family home
for a real Lord and Lady.
The Carnarvon family have lived here for 300 years.
Their links with Highclere go back even further.
The family have owned the land here
since the time of Charles II's reign in the late 1600s.
George Herbert. the 8th Earl of Carnarvon.
inherited his title and the keys to the castle in 2001.
Just two years after marrying former accountant Fiona Aitken.
the present-day Lady Carnarvon.
Good afternoon, my Lord. Good afternoon, my Lady.
I met my husband at the end of '96.
I first came here in January '97.
You don't know when you turn up you're going to end up marrying...
You're just a guest.
And I came for a shooting party
and we then were together for a couple of years
before we got married.
Lady Carnarvon married into a classic English fairy tale life
complete with servants.
Because an estate like Highclere doesn't run itself.
Oh, how wonderful.
Thanks very much.
My favorite point of day.
I just need a biscuit to dunk and then I'd be really happy.
Back in the castle's heyday.
an army of 60 servants attended to the Lord and Lady's every whim.
Thank you very much indeed.
Today there's around 20 full-time staff
helping manage this historic estate.
Our role is really that we're long-term stewards of the estate
for the next generation of the castle and the estate,
leaving it for the future generations to enjoy, really.
Highclere costs a cool one million dollars a year to maintain.
So cashing in on Downton's television fame
is an invaluable boost to Lord and Lady Carnarvon's income.
We really have to do our best to make the whole place earn its living and pay its way.
And add a value where possible.
And you can't really get any greater value added
than finding Downton Abbey being shot at Highclere itself,
which adds value in fact to all the enterprises here in all honesty.
Because it's really put Highclere on the map.
That map attracts 60.000 visitors a year.
Most are Downton fanatics.
So enthusiastic and they turn up here
and get so excited there's a real earl and countess.
It's great.
It's fantastic, and they've chosen to come here.
It's been an extraordinary experience.
Millions of television viewers now know and love
every corner of Lord and Lady Carnarvon's home.
Downton's script-writer Julian Fellowes is a friend of the family.
He had Highclere in mind as he wrote the hit drama.
With a starring role for rooms such as the elegant library.
the setting for frequent meetings
between the fictional Earl of Grantham
and his equally fictitious butler.
They discuss the fictitious running of their fictitious house.
In reality. it was used in the late 19th Century
by the 4th Earl of Carnarvon
as his withdrawing room.
The ladies. however.
withdrew to the more feminine splendor of the drawing room.
Still. today. one of the family's favorite rooms.
We thoroughly enjoy using it today.
We use it for drinks before dinner.
It's my preferred choice. It's a girly room
when you're dressed up and relaxing at the beginning of an evening. Heaven.
And Julian and the Fellowes, when they stay,
they would also come down
and join us for drinks here
and obviously in Downton Abbey as well it's used by the supposed Grantham family.
And Maggie Smith and Cora, Elizabeth McGovern,
sit here for their tete-a-tetes.
Or, in the third series,
there seems to be a few tete-a-tetes between Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith.
Much of the furniture and many of the ornaments and paintings in the house
have been passed down the generations as family heirlooms.
The children of the 1st Earl of Carnarvon hang over the fireplace.
In pride of place is Lady Carnarvon's pride and joy.
a 19th-Century family heirloom.
And I moved it here into the drawing room.
It was jolly heavy and quite a kerfuffle.
I got professional piano movers in to do it, obviously,
but it is wonderful.
It's an original Steinway from 1895.
It has beautiful tone.
Quite fun to put photographs on it.
And some of the music here is my modern very simple music.
And some of it is much more complicated pieces,
which were obviously played by my predecessors here.
The drawing room has changed little through the years.
It and other rooms are perhaps the real stars of the Downton drama.
It is a very beautiful house
and seems to never... It never fluffs its lines, does it, in Downton.
It always looks great.
And the camera will find different shots of the library or the dining room.
Or the views maybe from the tower
or maybe up to the towers.
It's amazing that your house somehow is being so much part of a story.
I sometimes see views of the rooms from an angle I don't normally appreciate.
And I think, hold on, where exactly is that? Where are they?
Possessions the family have accumulated over centuries
make this a television set like no other.
Some books here slightly predate the television era.
There are volumes from the 16th Century.
The grand staircase dates back 150 years.
Solid oak. taking a year to carve into shape.
Much is irreplaceable.
not least the leather wall coverings
brought back from Spain by the 3rd Earl in 1631.
And coats of arms from the 1st Earl to his modern-day descendent.
The treasure trove list goes on and on and on.
To the accompanying tick-tock of 37 historic clocks.
Napoleon's 1795 desk
vies for attention with the baroque ceiling from the same era.
And one of the world's greatest family picture albums.
One particular portrait even carries a somber family legend.
Moving this dining room painting will spell disaster for the Carnarvons.
So Countess Margaret Sawyer remains a perpetual house guest.
And Highclere survives.
Watched over by King Charles I on horseback.
a priceless Van Dyck.
But there's one secret room you'll never see in Downton Abbey.
The smoking room is strictly for family eyes only.
An English manor house tradition from the late 18th-Century onwards.
this room was a male preserve
for smoking. gaming and important men's talk
away from the ladies.
It also saved the women from instant asphyxiation.
It was a smoking room for two reasons.
The chimney didn't work well.
So there was a lot of smoke in the room.
But in fact nowadays we don't use this fire any more.
And some of this room has been restored in some ways.
It's one of my favorites
because it has these absolutely beautiful paintings in it.
The glorious colors of this still life of different types of birds
and the paradise landscape
by a Dutch painter called Jan Weenix.
In pride of place is a photo of the current Earl's grandfather.
A colorful character with a party reputation.
This is one of his wives.
The famous dancer Tilly Losch.
My grandfather, he loved this room.
And he loved being in these leather chairs here.
In fact, he spent much of his life around this part of the castle.
Highclere may be a castle today
but once it looked like this.
In 1839. architect Charles Barry is brought in.
fresh from designing London's Houses of Parliament.
He remodels Highclere in a matching Gothic revival style.
A clear homage to the British seat of government.
It turns what had been an unremarkable home into a far grander status symbol.
And Highclere House transforms into the freshly minted Highclere Castle.
Even earlier. the parklands too had their own makeover.
The most fashionable landscape gardener of his age.
Lancelot Capability Brown.
swept away the earlier formal gardens.
Instead. he opened up Highclere to the beauty of the English countryside.
And a peculiarly English tradition
of creating the oddest of ornamental buildings.
These fanciful structures known as follies
were designed by family member Robert Herbert.
inspired by classical ruins during the grand tour of Europe.
de rigueur for young bucks of his day.
I really am so much in debt from Robert Herbert's vision
in the 18th Century.
Without that kind of vision, we wouldn't be enjoying so much today.
To the south of the castle. Heaven's Gate built in 1737.
a pillared temple called Jackdaw's Castle built in 1743.
And to the northeast.
overlooking Dunsmere Lake.
the romantic but utterly pointless Temple of Diana.
Everything about the sprawling 5.000 acres of the Highclere Estate
is designed to impress.
The mile-long drive to the house winds its way past 56 cedars of Lebanon
planted by the first Earl of Carnarvon over three centuries ago.
Such planning takes time.
Well, we're just coming into the main part of Lime Avenue,
where most of these lime Iinden trees
were planted at the time of my grandfather's birth in 1899
and most of them are still going strong today.
Despite this tradition of planting for the future.
not even an historic estate like Highclere can survive unchanged.
Ever rising maintenance costs and taxes have chipped away at the land-holding.
Like many estates, it has lost some land.
It was perhaps 20% bigger then.
But much of it is still intact today.
Another intact though much changed tradition
involves the human face of the Highclere estate.
For 300 years. the privileged Carnarvons have been looked after by faithful servants.
Today. they still employ a butler.
In the past. he'd be known as Mr. Edwards.
These days it's just Colin.
This is a job that... you dress up, you look smart, you feel good.
If you feel good, you can do your job better, I think.
The roll of the butler nowadays
differs quite enormously from what it was in Downton's days.
In those days, they looked purely after the family.
I think in the Downton era it would have been completely different.
I'm quite envious of Carson.
Today it's all about multitasking.
In the summer. Colin also works in the visitors' ticket office.
when he's not looking after the family.
The Highclere butler's role may have changed over the years.
but that doesn't stop Colin from ensuring standards remain.
The tables have been laid this way for hundreds of years
in these type of houses.
Something that doesn't change.
If it does change, it just doesn't look right.
I think it's very important to maintain standards
because once they disappear, they will never come back.
Colin takes his job seriously.
It's become part of his identity.
Even at home.
Oh, yes, every breakfast
we always lay this way at home.
My wife is in the kitchen preparing and I lay the table.
So how does Colin rate his Downton alter ego?
When you see Mr Carson laying the table,
he's learnt very quickly how it should be done.
And I think I would employ him.
Just like the fictional Carson. Colin has to take care of a variety of VIP guests.
The Queen and Prince Philip were regular visitors.
Prince Harry's been here.
Had film stars. They're normal people.
We treat them as everyone else.
As an earl. Lord Carnarvon is part of the British aristocracy.
just one down from a duke. who holds pole position.
The higher up the hierarchy. the more likely you are to have a royal visit.
And that means you have to keep the house in good order
so that it's fit for a visit from the Queen.
With 19 fireplaces. 386 windows just on two floors alone.
and four main stairwells.
housekeeping is a never-ending chore.
Just cleaning and polishing all 356 pieces of this crystal chandelier
takes two days.
100 years ago. the aristocrats that lived upstairs at Highclere
were looked after by a host of staff who worked downstairs.
Maids. butlers. valets. footmen. gardeners. gatekeepers and grooms
all made sure that the castle ran like clockwork.
And woe betide any servant disobeying strict codes of conduct.
Maids cleaned in the early hours of the morning
to avoid disturbing their sleeping lord and lady.
Servants must neither be seen nor heard.
Cheap labor provided no motive for labor-saving devices.
Everything was done by hand.
Electricity came early to Highclere.
In the 19th century. only the wealthy could afford it.
And new hi-tech devices proved handy
for summoning the servants.
What we have here is the bell board.
Every room, virtually, in the castle,
has a button it its room
which is connected to all the different little bells there.
If someone presses one, the centre starts waggling
and you can tell which room has called you.
The bell board saved servants the bother
of lurking outside a room to see if they were needed.
But only if they could get on more efficiently with work downstairs.
A few other state-of-the-art household aids
have survived the centuries.
High in the tower is where unmarried maids once slept.
Once strictly off limits to young male footmen.
now equally off limits to tourists visiting the castle.
Three maids shared each tiny room.
never far from the call of duty.
The only hi-tech appliance here was to help in case of fire.
The ground is a long way down.
so a canvas escape chute could be hung from the window.
Maids were taught to keep arms close to bodies.
otherwise delicate elbows might catch in the metal hoops.
Complementing the inside staff are ground staff looking after the estate.
This has been a playground for deer since medieval times.
But to protect the vegetation. their numbers have to be kept under control.
And so it takes one man and his gun.
In the office, they call me Robert Hawker the Deer Stalker.
Because it rhymes.
Robert comes from a long line of Highclere deer stalkers
and has been deer manager on the estate for seven years.
Maintaining a healthy population means culling the weaker animals.
On the estate, we have three species of deer.
We have the muntjac, the roe and the fallow.
They're such beautiful animals and, you know,
my job here is just to make sure that they flourish.
You've got to feel, always...
I believe, to be a true sportsman
and be able to do this sort of thing,
you've got to feel remorse for what you've just done.
There's a little hare there, tucked up under the rain.
You've got to feel remorse for what you've done,
otherwise you just become a killing machine.
And you need to feel that.
Cos it's a lovely animal that we've culled.
Just before dark,
a lot of stuff moves in that last 15 minutes of daylight.
That's when the possibilities go up higher for a shot.
But maybe not this time.
Robert didn't get to pull the trigger tonight.
His deer have a lucky escape.
Sunrise is a busy time for the estate gamekeepers.
It's feeding time for the pheasants.
Eddie is the head gamekeeper.
He's been here pretty much forever.
I started here in 1957,
when I was 14.
Only just 14.
And I've been here ever since.
The gamekeeper's job is to love and care for his birds.
so the wealthy can shoot them.
In the early 1900s. the aristocracy did this on an industrial scale.
Lavish three-day shooting parties
were opportunities for the lord of the manor to show off his wealth.
And Highclere did that particularly well.
Here in the gamekeepers' staffroom.
Eddie recalls Highclere's golden era.
In the old days there, it was all private.
Lord Carnarvon had his guests.
He'd invite, more or less, his old school friends
all through the winter,
and they'd shoot with one another.
The Prince Of Wales - the future King Edward VII -
came to shoot here in the 1890s.
A few years later. an esteemed Indian prince joined the party.
That's the prince with his two loaders
and the cartridge boy.
Which was taken around about 1904, I think.
They shot 1,600 pheasants here in three-quarters of an hour.
Luckily for the pheasants times have changed.
You can't run a shoot now, not with the cost of things now.
You just couldn't do it.
Today people do still come here to shoot.
but as one of the estate's many business opportunities.
and the visitors are more likely to be rich businessmen.
- Morning, Tom. - Morning, Ed.
Shoot went well yesterday.
It was a good day. Plenty of birds about.
If they all go like that, we'll be all right.
Yeah, we will.
Eddie is assisted by his young underkeeper Tom.
Yeah, Ed's a very good boss.
He's fair. Although he can be strict.
(Whistles)
It's early days in Tom's career.
but like many of the staff on the estate.
he expects to be here for life.
I've been on Highclere Estate as a gamekeeper
for the past three seasons.
Although, I did help out, and do my work experience,
and also helped out through school here.
Probably a bit too much.
These heavy tweed suits have been worn by gamekeepers for generations.
They're designed to blend in with the landscape.
All part of the shooting tradition.
Another of the traditions of the shooting field
is that shot game should always be carried,
and also hung, with their heads up,
to basically show respect, again, for the birds.
So that they finish the day with their heads held high.
This brace of pheasant are off to the castle kitchen
for the Lord and Lady's dinner.
Highclere's kitchen is downstairs
in the basement of the castle.
It's the domain of head chef Paul and his sous chef Rob.
When they're not cooking for the Lord and Lady.
they're preparing menus for weddings and functions
that are part of the basket of businesses
that keep Highclere Castle afloat.
In the past. there would have been five cooks.
a first kitchen maid. second kitchen maid.
scullery maid and still-room maid.
Today it's just the two full-time chefs.
Though they do have lots of modern conveniences to help.
- Morning, Paul. - Good morning, Eddie.
- Pheasant for you. - Fantastic. Thank you.
- Lovely. - Thank you.
This pheasant is destined for a mushroom risotto.
a dish cooked in this kitchen for more than 100 years.
Lovely. Fantastic. Right.
Pheasants would have been eaten here 100 years ago.
They're on the land. They can graze off it.
It's similar to the roebucks and the deer,
who also have shooting seasons when they can and can't be consumed.
Right now, it's part of the staple diet.
100 years ago, they would have eaten these on the bone.
It's a superior way of cooking the meat cos it stays nice and moist.
It was also a golden age for British food.
giving birth to the celebrity chef.
exotic new dishes.
and gargantuan 12-course meals.
Aristocrats poached their dishes and their chefs from across the globe.
Many ingredients came from the Continent.
Risotto, 1574, found in Milan.
Chefs traveled. Good houses went on holidays.
They found a good cook and they brought one back.
The Fifth Earl brought his chef back from Sri Lanka.
His recipe for chicken curry is still a favorite on the Highclere menu today.
A typical society dinner menu for a party of 20 people
cost around $100 -
double a maid's entire annual salary.
Country estates were playgrounds for the rich and famous
and Highclere joined in with gusto.
December 1895.
The Prince Of Wales - the future King Edward VII -
arrived at Highclere for the most extravagant weekend the castle had ever seen.
For His Royal Highness. nothing was too much money
or too extravagant.
There were 12 courses at dinner.
Caviar. truffles. snipe. partridge.
oysters. quail. ptarmigan.
pressed beef. chicken. galantines and pineapple.
With a full belly. the King retired to his room.
refurbished for his visit with red silk walls and ornate French furniture.
In today's money. the bill for three days' entertaining royalty
was an eye-watering $500.000.
What do you need?
I think 100 years ago, when Lord and Lady Carnarvon,
or any lord or any lady in a house in England were entertaining,
they wanted to be the best, they had to be the best.
It was about being top of the tree and having the finest ingredients.
Be it lobster, be it fillet of beef, be it venison.
I think today, under our current Lord and Lady Carnarvon,
we're a lot more cost aware.
We are a business. We do need to make money.
But the family still live well.
And the current Lady Carnarvon is still very particular about the cooking.
Lady Carnarvon and I have had many conversations over the Apple Charlotte recipe.
It's something I love to make with brioche and golden delicious apples.
However, I don't think Lady Carnarvon's nanny made it the same way,
so we're still fighting to come up with the perfect recipe ready for Lady Carnarvon.
Highclere is a spectacular house with a rich and exotic past.
But the most extraordinary chapter in its 300-year-old history began in 1890
when the present Lord Carnarvon's great-grandfather took on the title.
The land-rich. but cash-poor 5th Earl ran up huge debts.
And Highclere was facing potential ruin.
But the Earl had a solution.
He married a teenage heiress - Almina Wombwell.
daughter of banking giant Alfred de Rothschild.
A hundred years ago, an extraordinary woman called Almina lived here.
She was an heiress and, unlike the character Cora in Downton Abbey,
she was an heiress with that wonderful thing called cash.
And it was her own cash. It wasn't entailed, it wasn't tied up.
She was a tremendously wealthy woman.
As part of the marriage settlement de Rothschild paid $200.000
to cover the Earl's debts.
and provided Almina with a dowry of $800.000.
Almina's fabulous wealth ensured the flag continued to fly over Highclere.
And her mark on the castle survives today.
This is a silk wall covering here,
which was given as a present to Lady Almina
by her father Alfred de Rothschild,
just over a hundred years ago now.
And he gave her enough silk both for the wall covering and the curtains.
In original form it would have cost thousands of dollars.
Nothing was too much for Almina
and her insatiable appetite for the good life.
She loved wearing jewels and dancing.
She was just barely five foot. Very trim figure.
Loved the best clothes, the best jewels.
Not only rich. but also the wife of an earl.
unsurprisingly. Almina was a popular society hostess.
Her parties seemed often to start at ten o'clock at night
when everyone would draw up.
And the house was one of the first in the area to be electrified,
to have electricity.
And they would dance till six in the morning.
Carnarvon might come downstairs and say a few words
and then he would retreat back up to his sitting room,
and probably carry on reading or whatever else.
In fact. Carnarvon was working on something big.
Something so big it would bring worldwide fame to Highclere.
This was the Lord Carnarvon who bankrolled the discovery
and excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The story of how the Earl helped make such an extraordinary discovery.
began with his passion for automobiles.
My great-grandfather was fascinated by the new technology
of the early motor cars, the engines and designs.
And he was one of the first people to import
the really earliest cars.
I think he became quite keen on becoming a bit of a speedster
and driving rather fast, because he did have some fairly spectacular accidents.
There was one in Germany where he turned the whole thing over
and broke a whole bunch of bones -
even his jaw, upper body.
He was nursed back to health by my amazing great-grandmother Almina.
The accident left Lord Carnarvon in poor health.
He was advised to stay in a warm climate
and not be in the humid, cold climate of England.
Which is one of the reasons why he started going out to Egypt.
And there in Egypt Carnarvon developed a passion for ancient relics.
Deep down in Highclere's cellars
are replicas of the contents of a pharaoh's tomb.
Created by the modern-day Earl.
this memorial to his great-grandfather
includes one of the most recognizable images in the world -
the golden mask of the boy king Tutankhamun.
Really my great-grandfather was a man on a quest.
He was absolutely fascinated by objects of great antiquity and great beauty.
And he really wanted to find something that hadn't been found before.
The Earl used his wife's fortune to fund the archeologist Howard Carter.
as he searched the Valley of the Kings.
Several years and thousands upon thousands of dollars later they made history.
And, of course, they made the fateful discovery, end of October, November, 1922,
when one of the workmen found those now-famous steps
that looked down to the rock-cut tomb.
Lord Carnarvon was beside Carter as he chiseled
the first hole in the sealed entrance.
Carnarvon asked: Can you see anything?
Carter replied with the famous words: Yes. Wonderful things.
And, of course, they came away with the greatest archeological discovery
and archeological prize that's ever been.
The discovery made headlines all around the world.
and put Highclere on the map.
Highclere became part of a global event with the discovery of the tomb.
There was the first Pathe News cine-film and that kind of thing.
It went right round the world
and everyone wanted an interview with Lord Carnarvon.
But just at his moment of greatest triumph disaster struck.
Resting on the banks of the Nile
the Earl was bitten by a mosquito.
Just four months after the spectacular discovery
Lord Carnarvon died from the effects of septicemia.
Newspapers around the world blamed the tragedy on a curse from the tomb.
And the hype intensified after a bizarre coincidence.
As the Earl passed away in Egypt.
his dog Susie. back at Highclere.
howled and died at the exact same instant.
The current Earl celebrates his great-grandfather's discovery
with these reproductions in the basement.
But upstairs at Highclere there is genuine Egyptian treasure.
In 1988 one of the castle's carefully concealed secrets was uncovered.
hidden in the walls of the smoking room.
One of the really fascinating secrets of the smoking room
are these extraordinary cupboards hidden here
between the drawing room behind me and the smoking room,
which during my grandfather's life
lay undisturbed and undiscovered for some 62 years.
And we never knew anything about it.
My grandfather was superstitious and never said anything.
So after he died, my father and his butler Robert Taylor
were looking at all the different things in the castle
and Robert said to my father:
Well, my lord, there might be some Egyptian stuff.
My father says: I don't believe it. There just can't be any.
He took him here and they pulled out the furniture, and went in here.
There were these extraordinary objects.
Unknown to us, after my great-grandfather died,
Howard Carter had sent most of the collection of my great-grandfather,
the wonderful Egyptian collection, to New York, to the Metropolitan Museum.
But a few items he left at Highclere and they were hidden in these cupboards.
And you can still see today the old tobacco-type packets and tins with Cairo on them.
And that kind of thing, and jewelry boxes,
little make-up pots from the time of the lady pharaoh Hatshepsut.
They were all stored in this cupboard here
and the one on the other side as well.
So these houses give up secrets in strange places,
and we have a connection with three or four thousand years
into the past of Ancient Egypt.
But that connection is bitter-sweet.
leading to the death of one of the family's most enterprising earls.
So we're now en route slowly heading up Beacon Hill
to see the grave of my great-grandfather.
And, of course, his grave lies at over 800 feet above sea level
at the summit of Beacon Hill,
which is an ancient Iron Age fort
and has spectacular views in all directions.
The Earl's body was brought back from Egypt
and laid to rest. at this. the highest point on the Highclere Estate.
We're right by the grave of my great-grandfather,
the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.
He was one of the, perhaps the last great eccentric,
even maverick adventurers.
And he wanted to be buried high up on his estate,
looking back to his glorious house - the castle.
And maybe he also thought that he was buried in a quiet, desolate spot,
like the extraordinary ancient pharaoh Tutankhamun,
whose tomb he discovered.
It's always rather poignant coming back up here, looking at his grave.
It just makes one think of past ancestors and what they did, really.
The 5th Earl has been written into the history books,
forever linking the family name Carnarvon
with one of the most extraordinary discoveries of all time.
Almina also had a moment of glory.
But hers had come a few years earlier.
August 4th, 1914.
At the end of a long, hot summer war was declared.
The conflict demanded hundreds of thousands of men
leave their old lives and learn to fight.
Life at Highclere, above and below stairs, changed forever.
75 men left the estate for the battlefields
to fight what would be a bloody war.
Some of the grooms were the first to enlist,
because they could obviously ride,
and at the time we thought the cavalry was an important part of the battle plan.
The keepers joined the machine-gunner corps.
And then some of the gardeners.
The aptly-named Digweed family had gardened at Highclere for generations.
Their oldest son George enlisted with two other gardeners.
Albert Young and Charlie Adams.
Though the head gardener Pope stayed behind to grow food for the estate.
Yet the upstairs side of Highclere also made sacrifices.
Society girl Almina set aside her life of privilege
to care for wounded army officers.
She had decided she wanted to turn this house into a hospital.
Almina organized doctors and surgeons.
and hired 30 nurses.
Highclere was transformed into a makeshift hospital for hundreds of men.
Blinds were fitted to all the south-facing windows
to offer shade for her patients.
The journey home from the Front wasn't easy.
but the ones who survived were met at the door by Lady Almina.
She welcomed the first 30-odd patients in September 1914.
As the officers began to arrive. the enormity of the situation became apparent.
Two-thirds had injuries to bones from shrapnel and gunshot wounds.
So the resourceful Almina adapted her plans.
She turned part of Highclere into an operating theater.
So this is Arundel bedroom,
which is one of my favorite bedrooms
to put guests in today.
But a hundred years ago was used by Almina
as her operating theater in the First World War.
I imagine it's because it was near the stone staircase
which could be used by the staff,
and this was where apparently there used to be operations every Monday,
when the surgeons would come down by train from London.
It was the orthopedic injuries -
the broken legs, the broken arms the broken hands,
which were sent back across the water to England.
So many of them had not merely a bust leg or bullets in their calf,
but also gangrene and dysentery.
So Almina was faced with some quite tough cases.
While the officers were convalescing.
Almina spared no expense to make them comfortable.
Silver service dinners were followed by cards in the library.
Highclere was a haven for the wounded.
In the archives are hundreds of letters from grateful patients and families -
testimony to the work of Almina.
I was indeed lucky to be sent to Highclere
and shall never forget all your kindness.
I arrived feeling an awful wreck and so depressed.
I didn't care whether I lived or died.
But your sympathy for me
and the fact that you stayed with me that first night
worked a most wonderful cure.
My heart feels too full for me to express the deep gratitude I feel for you
for all you've done for me.
Oh, I cannot tell you what a joy it is to be able to do so much already.
My heart feels too full for me to express the deep gratitude I feel to you.
Some of the letters are moving because they're obviously written by a right-handed man
in his left hand, learning to write from scratch
because he'd lost his right hand.
But she was an extraordinary woman.
She had the money.
If she didn't have the money she would still have gone and nursed people.
She had an extraordinary combination whereby she could do things on such a scale
and just go for it.
What a lot we owe to people who came before us.
The war claimed millions of lives.
wiping out entire estates and whole family lines.
Half of the men sent off to war were dead. wounded or missing.
including 13 men from Highclere.
Among them. gardeners George Digweed and Charlie Adams were taken prisoner
and died in captivity.
while Albert Young was killed in action.
The end of the war brought massive social and political change
and heralded a new era in England.
Men who left as servants returned as less deferential. battle-hardened veterans.
demanding social equality.
A British economy ruined by war demanded new taxes -
a shock to the landed gentry used to income tax at 6%.
By the time Lloyd George had his budget at the end of the war it was more like 50-60%.
People weren't really expecting these kind of things with the higher incomes
and a lot of them didn't prepare for it very well.
They kept spending money. They didn't think of the tax.
And then things were sold. A lot of estates began to be broken up.
Everyone was struggling to make ends meet.
The New World, America, was where the money was,
and art was being sold from this country to America to fund the gap
and for the families in this country to pay their tax.
Their revenue from land and farming was fallen off a cliff. There was very little.
The landed gentry could no longer afford large numbers of servants.
A generation educated by war saw greater opportunities in factories. trade and cities.
So many aristocratic families simply gave up.
(Explosion)
In the 1950s and 1960s. many British country houses were demolished.
Against all the odds. Highclere survived.
The present Lord Carnarvon has taken on the challenge of preserving the best of the past
but it can be a daunting task.
As Julian Fellowes has said in the Downton script,
you don't want to be the Earl that lets the whole thing down and it all collapses,
and that's the thing that really hangs over one a bit.
It's been discussed a number of times by Lord Grantham
and I feel the same thing.
Luckily. business is booming on the estate
and the Earl has been able to spend millions of dollars restoring the castle.
Inside the house. the salon with its triple height vaulted ceiling
and minstrels' gallery needed extensive repairs.
Some years back, we did the roof above us now over two years,
which was a few hundred thousand pounds.
We had to do it or we'd be very wet sitting here right now.
It never ends at Highclere. There's always something to be fixing, isn't there?
Yes. I like doing the fun bits inside.
But without having good rooves and good walls,
there's no point making a room look beautiful again.
As well as repairing the fabric of the house. there are other more unusual costs.
One man's folly is another man's maintenance project.
Recently. all have been restored by the Earl.
Everything we do here, whether it's fixing, heritage,
buildings like follies, or even rooves and walls,
it's all for the long term. It's not a short-term thing.
To pay for the long term. Highclere has become a business.
mixing old traditions with a new. modern twist.
The land around the castle is one of the last aristocrat owned farming estates.
The Highclere Estate is around 5,000 acres.
Quite a bit of it is grassland, rough pasture land,
like this downland we're on now, and also woodland.
There's about 2,000 acres of arable land for farming.
We're still growing wheat, barley, oats.
We also have about 1,600 ewes and their lambs as our sheep flock.
We have 1,400-1,500 acres to graze here, which is a fair amount on an estate this size.
The family has farmed here for hundreds of years.
an important source of income for generations.
I think the basic tenets and skills of management of game and wildlife in general
probably haven't changed so much.
But like most farms today. it's had to diversify.
Highclere is now famous for horse feed.
They produce award-winning oats for racehorses.
including the Queen's.
These are the original stables used for hundreds of years.
But no racehorses here.
Just Lady Carnarvon's Arab mare.
Back in Almina's time there were quite a few grooms,
a head groom and a head coachman, under coachman, under grooms,
stable boys to help.
But today there is just one groom - Jo - to look after the animals.
Come on. Don't panic. It's all right.
They're very gentle animals.
They've carried us for so many years, haven't they,
across fields and everywhere else.
The car's such a recent invention. They've been with us for thousands of years.
People have ridden around here for thousands of years.
I'm just riding in other people's footsteps
and cantering where they did
and roaring with laughter as you go in and out of trees.
Before cars took over the world. around 60 horses worked here
and Lord Carnarvon's great-grandfather also bred racehorses.
Now there are just six horses to look after.
It's part of Lady Carnarvon's daily routine to exercise her favorite. called Azi.
And the spaniels. of course.
I love riding through the park fields.
As you go and you look back, there's amazing views of the castle.
It was really designed for people to ride on horseback.
It's very very beautiful.
I think I always get a sense of coming into another world.
I think it's the landscape and the cedar trees.
Having the keys to a castle is a huge responsibility.
(Thunder rumbles)
We'll just about be able to get it to a state where the worst of the big repairs have been done.
That would mean all the difference to me,
to have achieved that in my lifetime.
I can hand over to my son George eventually and say:
At least you can build on that.
You're not going back to square one
with repairs that haven't been done for 150 years.
Between them. Lord and Lady Carnarvon are preserving Highclere
for future generations
I see my role as trying to support his endeavors to not drop the baton,
to continue to live here and look after the landscape and the house
and leave it in better nick than we inherited it
in a way that is relevant in today's world.
With its dedicated caretakers and newfound fame in Downton Abbey
Highclere Castle will remain one of the great estates of England for some time to come.