Don’t let the Dowager Countess get bored.
Nick Briggs / Carnival Films 2014 for MASTERPIECE
On the set of Downton Abbey, tucked within a nondescript soundstage in a sleepy London suburb, one can leave the bedroom of Lady Cora, countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), and in just a few quick strides, be standing in the sitting room for Downton's head of household Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan).
As many fans of the popular Masterpiece Classic PBS series already know, the upstairs-downstairs separation is reinforced by even more drastic geography behind the scenes. Highclere Castle, a stunning historic British manor in Hampshire, is used for upstairs scenes, while the downstairs ones are shot at Ealing Studios in London. But as BuzzFeed News discovered on a tour of the Ealing soundstage last summer, there are at least a few posh spaces mixed in with the utilitarian sets.
Along with Cora's bedroom, the office of the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) is just a few feet away from the storage room that houses a vast trove of muddy, smelly riding boots — a detail that might make the Countess apoplectic with revulsion. Sure, it's efficient for filming purposes, but it is still jarring to transition from the lovely, colorful living spaces of Downton's upper class to the stark world of the servants in just a couple steps. As production designer Donal Woods explained to BuzzFeed News, that is very much by design. "If you want shorthand for the look of Downton it's a black and white film downstairs, and it's a super technicolor film upstairs," he said.
Here are more fascinating behind-the-scenes details about the show BuzzFeed News learned from the Downton set.
The giant rack of bells is one of the set's most well-known attributes, but it's also one of the most out of date.
The bells used by the upstairs residents to summon the servants have loomed over the downstairs dining room since the very first episode of Downton and they have proven to be incredibly popular among guests who visit the set. "There's a bell-maker in Derbyshire who normally sells one bell a week, and suddenly we wanted about 30," said Woods. "He nearly collapsed."
But, according to Woods, the bells shouldn't be there at all. After World War I, most manor homes switched their servant calling system from analog bells to electric lights, he said. "You just clicked over with a dial, and [the light in the servants' area] went from white to red. And you think, Oh, I'm wanted in the study. But everybody loves these bells so much, we haven't changed them."
ITV
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