Secrets Of The Real Downton

With the new film out this month, who better to spill the beans on our favourite stately home than its real-life heroine, Lady Carnarvon of Highclere Castle

- Zoe West

It’s official – the Crawley family is back. Diehard Downton Abbey fans already know a royal visit is afoot in the movie that’s out this month – and the very idea of hosting the King and Queen is sending ripples of anxiety through the entire household.

And no one knows what entertaining on a majestic scale feels better than the real-life lady of Downton Abbey – Lady Carnarvon of Highclere Castle, where it’s filmed. She has received private royal visits, as well as welcoming thousands of Lady Carnarvon of visitors to her home during Highclere Castle the castle’s summer season.

The eldest of six daughters, Fiona Aitken married the 8th Earl of Carnarvon, heir to Highclere Castle, in 1999. Although she was a chartered accountant and came from a wealthy family in London, Fiona admits taking on the stately home, now known to millions around the world as Downton Abbey, was a monumental challenge. It had been uninhabited for years – bathrooms and bedrooms were piled up with furniture, upturned sofas and exhibition boxes, and the walls were painted in forbidding shades of post-WW2 shiny cream and green. As the couple sat down to discuss their vision for the castle, little could they have imagined the effect that Highclere becoming Downton would have? Now, as it graduates from its TV triumph to monopolize the big screen too, we catch up with Lady Carnarvon to find out what life is like at one of our best-loved stately homes.

Dogs and fresh air

‘Daily life is extremely busy at Highclere. We don’t really do weekends – at least, not in the way Countess Violet Crawley [Dame Maggie Smith] meant when she quipped, “What is a weekend?”