Lady Carnarvon signs a copy of her latest book.
In a room packed with “Downton Abbey” fans, it was an irresistible opening line.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is … Carson.”
So historian Cary Carson began Monday night’s conversation with the eighth countess of Highclere Castle, the real-life setting of “Downton Abbey.”
Update: Read Lady Carnarvon’s recollections of her Williamsburg visit.
Carson – who shares his surname with Downton’s inimitable butler – spent an hour interviewing Lady Fiona Carnarvon on stage in Colonial Williamsburg’s Hennage Auditorium. The current countess of Highclere Castle fielded questions from both Carson and audience members about the scenery and stories of the majestic estate where her husband’s family has resided for more than 300 years and which now serves as a shooting location for the wildly popular PBS series.
“It’s a home you can live in,” said Carnarvon, whose second book, “Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey,” was published in October. “At Highclere Castle, you can actually have a cozy conversation in the library.”
But not a shower, apparently. In this home of roughly 300 rooms, there is not a single shower head.
“As children we used plastic jugs to wash our hair. We’re back to that again,” Carnarvon said, adding that the 50-plus bedrooms lack heat.
Attendees at last night’s event could have their photos taken in front of a Highclere Castle backdrop.
Fans of the show know Highclere Castle to be an essential element of “Downtown Abbey,” the plotlines for which often bear more than a little resemblance to actual trials and triumphs of the Carnarvon family. Carnarvon, who is a friend of the show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, said she regularly watches, too.
But it is the true inhabitants and stories of Highclere Castle that inspire her writing – for example, the title character of her first book, “Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey,” who became a nurse during World War I and transformed the palatial estate into an Army hospital. Her husband, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun with archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.
Hosting a TV crew at the ancestral home brings a degree of risk and irritation, Lady Fiona Carnarvon said; for instance, when parquet floor boards give way to heavy equipment. But she spoke frankly about the importance of “Downton Abbey” for Highclere Castle’s economic prosperity. The once-struggling estate now fills daily with visitors, and – as suggested by the long lines at her book signings on Sunday and Monday – the countess’s books about “the real Downton Abbey” are a commercial hit.
“It’s a wonderful position to be in, in difficult economic times,” she said. “We are lucky. I hope I don’t take it for granted.”
— Catherine Whittenburg
Read Lady Carnarvon’s blog “
