Inside the real-life Downton Abbey and the reality of renovating an ageing castle

Downton Abbey fans rejoice – there is less than a week left to wait for the much-anticipated movie, opening in Australian cinemas on September 12.

While Highclere Castle in Newbury, England is best-known as the home of the fictional Crawleys and their staff, the sprawling 6,000 acre estate actually belongs to the very real Carnarvon family, and has done for centuries.

Fiona Aitken, the real-life eighth Countess of Highclere is kept just as busy in the day-to-day running of the castle as her fictional counterparts.

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Although, the Countess of Grantham and Lady Mary probably never could have imagined counting social media management and branded liquor development among their duties.

“I act more as CEO,” Architectural Digest reported her saying. “There’s the estate, there’s the castle, there’s the properties and people renting cottages, and then there’s the horse-feed business and the books I’m writing.”

The series’ filming fees have financed some of the repairs required to maintain the property, and the tourism generated by its popularity helps too. Highclere attracts about 1,500 visitors per day.

Anyone who has completed a renovation on an old home knows that unforeseen costs are part and parcel. That is especially true when the renovation in question concerns 300 rooms, which are over  150 years old.

“At the top of the castle there are three rooms and I thought it would be quite fun to develop a new tour around how the maids lived. So up I went,” Aitken told Architectural Digest.

“I was going to decorate them as if Anna or Daisy [from Downton Abbey] had just hung up their hat and coat and walked out to do their business or whatever else. And then I found that the ceilings I was going to patch were actually leaking.

“What began as a small facelift for a few rooms turned into a £60,000 (AUD 107,433) roof repair.”

Diversification is key to the survival of any business, and Highclere Castle is no exception.

The Countess has at least 40 ongoing projects, which include the new tour of the maids’ rooms, hosting the annual Queen Charlotte’s Debutante Ball and other exhibitions, and the creation of a healing herb garden and Highclere Castle Gin, which is available in the U.S.

Many of the wallpapers seen on the show are ones the Countess installed. “So much goes on behind the scenes to make it seem as if nothing does,” she said to Architectural Digest.

In the bedrooms, she used seven or eight shades of off-white paint to bring out the decorative woodwork on the ceilings.

For anyone interested in visiting Downton Abbey, Lady Carnavon keeps her blog updated with information about Highclere’s tourism and its history.

She’s also shared her delight at having the full Downton cast, who she hadn’t seen for several years, back on the premises for filming – complete with instagram posts of Carson (aka actor Jim Carter) serving her tea.

Talking about her love of the show to Architectural Digest she said: “It’s magic that Maggie [Dame Maggie Smith] plays a character who often delivers just a few lines, and is the star. It’s not the young beautiful girls, it’s an amazing lady who is part of English heritage…”

Much like her castle.

This story originally appeared on stuff.co.nz