Keeping the Receipt

Claire Saul learns about "Mrs" Crocombe, Audley End House & Gardens' Victorian cook who has become a global culinary sensation

- Claire Saul

The below stairs cook is often one of the most memorable characters from the many period dramas set in grand country houses over the years. Upstairs, Downstairs' Mrs Bridges (Angela Baddeley) and Downton Abbey's Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) depict women at the apex of their careers in service, holding a role of considerable responsibility in households where formal dining and entertaining was a staple of the aristocratic diary, and both the resident family and droves of staff required multiple meals each day.

The social history of such grand estates is a popular topic with modern visitors to heritage hotspots. Research for such visitor interpretation at the English Heritage property Audley End House & Gardens, in Essex, identified cook Avis Crocombe among the staff serving the aristocratic Braybrooke family during the 1880s.

When Avis took up her position at their Saffron Waldon country estate, also their London townhouse, she bucked the contemporary trend of hiring male French chefs, who were considered to have greater prestige. Her annual salary of £50 represented a significant cost saving at a time when the family's rental income had declined. Forty-three-year-old Miss Crocombe also assumed a different title.

"It was the convention then to call cooks 'Mrs," says English Heritage's properties historian Andrew Hann.

"The majority of females in service were not married and the more senior servants, such as the cook and the housekeeper, would be called 'Mrs' to give them a sense of status. This marked them out as being more important, people who should be respected by the other servants."