‘Downton Abbey’ enchants in real life as well

Photo by Catharine Hamm

photos by Catharine Hamm/Los Angeles Times Entertainers perform at the door to the Highclere library, where Hugh Bonneville, the fictional Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, often has serious discussion with members of the Crawley family.

Photo by Catharine Hamm

Lady Fiona Carnarvon discusses her newest book, Lady Catherine, the Earl and the Real Downton Abbey which follows Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey. Both focus on the countesses who presided over Highclere until death (Almina) or divorce (Catherine).

NEWBURY, England He is a farmer, she says, and she is a farmers wife. They are active in their community. She writes a bit on the side, her writing room only recently having been wired for electricity.

On my recent visit to her home, she was warm and welcoming. Her yellow Lab, Bella, followed her closely as her mistress ushered visitors into the house.

And oh my. What a house. Two hundred rooms. Forty bedrooms. Silk wallcoverings in one room, 16th century Spanish leather wallcoverings in another. An original Van Dyck.

Hundreds of other treasures make it abundantly clear that you are not in Kansas anymore.

You are, instead, on the set of Downton Abbey, but its not a set at all. It is Highclere Castle, and for viewers of the popular PBS show, it is this magnificent home they see, outside and partly inside too.

The farmers wife, as she called herself the Countess of Carnarvon has tried hard to keep it a home, she says, rather than a museum, although she and her husband, the Eighth Earl of Carnarvon, and their son often live elsewhere.

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'Downton Abbey' enchants in real life as well