Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (7 page)

On arrival at Highclere the team are greeted by a bloodthirsty doorknocker on the castle’s double doors – the head of a wolf, its jaws filled with some unfortunate’s leg.

When the doors swing open to reveal the impressive sky-lit hall, however, the atmosphere suddenly becomes rather warmer. The grandeur of the Gothic-inspired great hall is matched by a sense of intimacy, reflected in the owner’s approach to the cast and crew.

In spring, as they begin six months of shooting, there is a notice pinned up inside the doors to inform the team that Lady Carnarvon has offered to take them to see the lambing that afternoon if they would like to go.

It is still very much a working estate. Lisa Heathcote, the food economist, notes a memorable encounter with locals as she worked in her catering tent. ‘A member of the Highclere staff was walking the hunt puppies and the dogs came galloping up. They disappeared down the lawn with half a piece of beef and even the parsley. I just laughed! There were a lot of them.’

A show the size of
Downton
needs to run like clockwork to get through the pages of script that must be filmed each day. Everyone relies on the daily call sheet, written by second assistant director Danielle Bennett. This sets out exactly when each actor must arrive at the studio or location, when they must go through make-up and costume, and takes into account the time needed to travel from base to set.

The unit call time – when cast and crew must be on set ready to film – may be for 8.30 a.m., as for Mary and Matthew’s wedding, but for many work starts hours earlier than that so they can be prepped and ready for that deadline. The call sheet also details everything from when the sandwiches arrive to who’s looking after the horse.

The longer-term shooting schedule (planning what is shot when) is masterminded by first assistant director Chris Croucher. ‘In series four I had one day to shoot scenes with three directors in the Crawley House interior – it seemed better to make a day of it,’ he explains.

In many ways the library is the heart of the house. A less formal setting than the drawing room, it has a masculine feel, as befits the de facto office of the master of the estate. Here, Robert can often be found at his desk with his dog Isis by his side, while someone slips in to browse the 5,000-plus books lining the shelves.

But with its plush red-velvet sofas – Highclere’s own – and roaring fire, it is also a room where the family frequently gather to talk, or to have a cosy cup of tea.

‘Every generation gets one room more right than others, and the Victorians perfected the library,’ says Julian Fellowes. ‘No Georgian library comes close to a marvellous early-Victorian library, and I think Highclere has one of the most beautiful in the country. To film there every day is a real privilege.’

As an actor, Hugh Bonneville is also a fan of working within its walls, for more practical reasons. ‘I think my favourite room to film in is the library, because it’s so big. There’s so much variety in it, and a feeling of space.’

The world of the servants is one that is far removed from that of the family they serve. There is an opulence to the life above stairs, which is deliberately emphasised through the design of the sets and the style of filming to show the contrast with the servants’ more rough-and-ready existence.

‘The below-stairs sets created at Ealing are very grey, slightly colourless – reflective of their lives,’ says Charmian Adams, the art director. ‘And then, once you open that green baize door and they move from their lives into the life above stairs, filmed at Highclere, everything is suddenly more colourful, more vibrant and glossy. The furniture is polished, it’s all beautiful – the people are beautiful, and their clothes are beautiful, and they have everything done for them.

‘The servants work like mad; it is like a factory underneath the house, where they are polishing, scrubbing and cleaning to maintain the serenity upstairs. Obviously Downton has its ups and downs – people die, all sorts of awful things happen – but visually it appears to be a calm and elegant place.’

The pace of the family’s movements above stairs reflects this too, and their rooms are at their busiest only when the maids and footmen almost imperceptibly go about their business. The footmen stand quietly to hand, unnoticed until they are needed, particularly at dinner, but the housemaids whirl round the ground-floor rooms and bedrooms at speed. Alastair Bruce, historical advisor for the show, reminds us that this speed is important, because maids were expected to do their work surreptitiously, out of sight of the family. ‘Women worked extremely hard to keep those houses going, but they were never allowed to be seen. They came and did their work, but never when the family were around. They would be invisibly puffing up pillows, cleaning, polishing and scrubbing.’