Downton Abbey, Season 6, Ep. 6

Tags

1920s, British drama, Cora, Downton Abbey, drama, Edith Crawley, England, Grantham, Henry Talbot, Mary Crawley, Masterpiece, Masterpiece Theater, Mr Carson, Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Patmore, period piece, romance, Thomas, Tom, Violet

My reactions to the sixth episode of the final season of Downton Abbey. I’d say this was my favourite episode of the season due to all the humour.

• As is true for the whole season, I find the clothing sumptuous and it made me want to work on my triceps.
• Robert is out of the hospital and on the mend, but confined to bed all week.
• This week the hoi poloi was allowed to trample through the Abbey to make money for the Hospital Trust. What a situation ripe for dissension and humour! Of course, Violet, Carson and Robert believed this was the end of civilisation and they did have a point. Even Edith (I think) later said having them come through made her feel like there was something strange so that people were willing to pay to gape at them so that their home was a bit like a zoo. What was most funny was how when Cora, Mary and Edith gave their tours they knew so little about the house’s history. It makes sense because they’ve grown so used to it. It’s just home. Still since they fight to keep it you’d expect them to know more.

Don’t you just love these clothes?

• Daisy continues to get on my nerves. Lately, Mr. Mason is growing sweet on Mrs. Patmore, who seems to return his feelings. Daisy does whatever she can to keep them apart. In this episode she throws a letter to Mrs. Patmore from Mr. Mason in the trash. Luckily, Mrs. Patmore finds it, but Daisy’s acting so oddly and there’s no reason for it–especially since Daisy hasn’t taken up Mr. Mason’s offer for her to live in his house, which would be a lot more more comfortable and pretty than the servants’ quarters. She’d still be able to work at the Abbey.
• The storyline with the hospital progressed. The York Royal Hospital will take over the local hospital. What’s worse was that they’ve made Cora president of the hospital, and they’re sidelining Violet. Everyone kept that a secret from Violet till she discovered the truth via the grapevine. She was livid! The climax was Violet storming into the Abbey during the charity tour and blowing off steam with the acerbic wit we love her for.
• Mary’s love life is moving along. With Tom as an escort, she met Henry Talbot at a dinner party in London. Afterwards, Tom disappeared and Henry and Mary got caught in the rain and shared a romantic kiss. She’s still concerned about his lack of status and his car racing, which reminds her of Matthew’s death.
• Edith invited Bertie, the man who helped her get the magazine out in one night, for dinner at the Abbey. She even showed him her “ward” Marigold. Finally Mary is on to the truth that Marigold is Edith’s daughter. Rather than directly asking Edith, which she really can’t go since she’s got such a rotten relationship with her sister or asking her parents, she’s trying to get the truth out of Anna and Tom. I really applaud their loyalty to Edith as neither spilled the beans.
• Poor Thomas. He’s teaching Andy, who’s illiterate, to read. Yet Mrs. Patmore and Carson have seen Andy coming out of Thomas’ room so they’ve reached the conclusion that Thomas is corrupting Andy. Well, Thomas has been cold and conniving so people don’t expect him to be kind so in part, you reap what you sow, but it’s still too bad. He’s being pushed out the door. It’s understandable because the family has to make cut backs, but now it seems, that he’s getting pushed out because  Thomas has been misunderstood. He promised Andy he’d keep his illiteracy a secret so out of honour he can’t tell. What a dilemma.
• Mr Carson continues to nitpick his new bride Mrs Hughes over her cleaning and cooking skills. She must have known how to make a bed to have progressed in her early career, yet it’s not good enough for Mr Carson, who has no tact. Unfortunately, rather than raising the issue, Mrs Hughes has been stewing. I predict she’ll explode next week. We’ll see.
• Dexter, who deserves to be out of a job at the Dowager’s, coerced Spratt into pleading her case with Violet. He succeeded, but as is the case with blackmail, he’s still on the hook. Dexter will tell the world that he hid his nephew, who was fleeing the law. Yes, Spratt broke the law, but Dexter is so manipulative it’s dangerous.

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Downton Abbey, S6-Ep. 3 &4

Tags

Anna Bates, British, Crawley's, Daisy, dowager, Downton Abbey, drama, Edith Crawley, England, Henry Talbot, hospital, Mary, miscarriage, Mr Carson, Mrs. Hughes, period piece, pregnancy, race cars, romance, Violet

I’m a bit behind in my musings on Downton Abbey.  The major events in episode 3 were Carson & Mrs. Hughes’ wedding. After a kerfluffle over what the ever-practical Mrs. Hughes would wear (she didn’t want to make a big deal about a dress and thus had no pretty, let alone elegant dresses), Elsie Hughes looked lovely in a coat that Cora wound up giving her. The trouble before the wedding reached its pinnacle when Cora, who had a headache from arguing with the dowager, discovered Anna, Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes all in her bedroom trying on one of her coats that Mary said she could wear. Cora through an out-of-character fit, but then Mary hadn’t explained or asked and it did look like a trespass over social boundaries. Soon Cora, true to form, apologised and wound up graciously giving Mrs. Hughes a gorgeous, embroidered coat that perfectly matched the plain dress Mrs. Patmore had ordered from a catalog. How lucky!

Edith took the reigns at the magazine. She sacked the complaining editor and worked all night to get the edition out. She lucked into meeting an attractive male acquaintance who asked her for drinks and then wound up staying up all night to help her with the magazine. How much cleaner than saving the pigs! Does that make it more or less romantic? What happened to Mary’s pig-beau?

Anna continued to have pains and fears of a miscarriage. The family elders continued to bicker over plans for the hospital and once again Thomas had a semi-comical, semi-sad Chekoves-que job interview at a big estate in decline. In the final scene I’m sure I wasn’t alone in rejoicing that Tom and Sybie have returned to Downton for good! (We could have guessed since Tom has been shown in promotional interviews and photos.)

Episode 4

Mr & Mrs. Carson were on their honeymoon for most of the episode. Several characters mentioned how hard it would be to call Mrs. Hughes Mrs. Carson. That little problem was solved at the end when everyone agreed that at the house she’d be Mrs. Hughes.

The squabbling over the hospital continued. Violet called in an aristocratic friend to assist her in her cause. Unfortunately, Lady Shackleton flip-flopped at the dinner party. Her main use proved to be that she brought her nephew, Henry, who is one of Mary’s suitors from last season.

Anna felt she was about to miscarry, so late at night Mary whisked her off to London via York, where the super Royal York Hospital with all it’s nifty skill and technology is. Hmm. Well, it worked out because Mary got to have cocktails with Henry and flirt a bit. Anna was okay and had a procedure that saved the baby. Still I wouldn’t want to take a train trip lasting I’d guess a few hours when I was miscarrying. Seems the last thing a woman would want to do would be to be on a train.

Daisy, who’s very eager to see that Mr. Mason get the house and farm that the Drewes have vacated since Mrs. Drewes kidnapped Edith’s daughter Marigold (what was she thinking?), almost sabotaged her job. She’s gotten to be quite a firebrand. She took Cora’s interest in Mr. Mason and a vague comment that Cora would see what she could do as a promise. When she hears a rumour that Mr. Mason won’t get the the land, Daisy works herself into a frenzy that culminates in her determination to tell off Cora. Every single servant urges her to calm down, to watch it, to wait and hope for the best, but Daisy obstinately ignores. At the pinnacle of her rage, Daisy storms upstairs. She’s willing to put her job on the line. Fortunately, before she can irrationally lash out against Cora, the Crawley’s tell her that they’ve decided that (although it’s not a great financial decision) they’re giving Mr. Mason the farmland. I doubt there was a luckier character on the show than Daisy at this time.

My favourite part of the show was when Gwen, who in the first season was a maid who with Sybil’s help became a secretary, showed up at Downton. She came with her husband, an aristocrat. When she arrived Thomas and Anna recognised her. The family members didn’t. Thomas, full of envy, blustered about how Gwen prospered, but he’s working in the same house in 1925 that he was in 1912 (or earlier). When serving, Thomas spilled the beans and got Gwen to reveal that she had been a kitchenmaid at Downton. While Thomas tried to embarrass her, Gwen regaled the family with stories of how dear Sybil helped her get the education and job that propelled her into the workforce and how that ties into her current association with a new woman’s college, Hillcroft. All the Crawley women now fully support this novel idea to educate women who need to work.

Baxter, Cora’s lady’s maid, is called upon to agree to testify against the man who urged her to steal from her previous employer. At first she was reluctant, but Mr. Mosley convinced her that if she didn’t other women would probably be tricked by him and would end up in jail or as prostitutes (that’s what has happened to some of women he’d conned).

Odds and Ends

• Tom wants to do something more than just be the agent for the estate. He’s got an inkling that it may have to do with racing cars.
• Mary and Henry met in London and romance may bud there, again.
• Quite a few people–Anna, Robert, and Violet–experienced some kind of health worries or aliments. Will this mean that down the line the Crawley’s may actually need that new hospital with all it’s modern equipment and knowledge.
• Violet made a good speech on how when government gets into an area, people lose power and autonomy. Typically, I don’t buy that line of thought, but Violet was quite convincing.
• As usual the dresses were amazing.

 

 

Mr Selfridge, Finale Part 1

Tags

1919, Amanda Abbington, British drama, British TV, drama, England, Frances O'Connor, Gordon, Grace, Harry Selfridge, Masterpiece Theater, Miss Mardle, Mr Crabbe, Mr Grove, Mr. Selfridge, Nancy Webb, sale, Selfridges, Victor, Violette

In the US, we got episodes 9 and 10 together for our finale.

So I came to them with great anticipation. We’ve known that Nancy’s a con artist and that Loxley’s scheming to get even with Harry for helping Mae, his ex-wife, though Loxley’s so one dimensional, it annoys me. The less screen time he gets the better. Many viewers have read about Harry’s life in Woodhouse’s Shopping, Selfridge and Mr Selfridge and we know that after Rose died, Harry’s life began to unravel as he became more indulgent and reckless. So far this season we haven’t seen too much of that — yet.

Harry’s got a lot on the line as he’s started a price war to make good on the promise to his board to get them a 10% dividend. Loxley’s circling the waters hoping to bring Harry down. As for romance, Harry’s proposed to Nancy completely unaware that she’s a con artist. Granted she seems to be falling for Harry, but she’s still too cunning for my tastes. How I wish Mamma Selfridge or Princess Marie would go to the Information Bureau and have her looked up! Or Violette. She seems to have her suspicions.

This season isn’t the program’s best. It feels like they’ve gotten new writers to take over and they don’t have a sense of what viewers like me want.

The episode begins with Harry showing everyone a warehouse of goods that they must sell so he can keep his board members happy. Everyone rises to the occasion, which does show a devotion to the game of retail and to Harry himself. It reminds me of The Paradise and I would get caught up in the glamor of shopping and sales. There was an art to this business, which is sadly fallen by the wayside.

Loxley, who’s name must be synonymous with unctuous, has a fit when he reads in the paper that Lady Mae, his ex-wife is going to get married. The scene came off as rather over-the-top in terms of emotion. Loxley is meant to be a character your hate, but mainly he’s become a caricature. He then calls a meeting with two board members who for some reason see him as worth listening to. Why? The man’s clearly unscrupulous and was losing money himself until he started profiteering.

Harry stops a supplier from overcharging Nancy who’s buying lumber for houses she didn’t plan to build. In the car to the store she admires his bargaining prowess. He’s saved her. Swoon. Then things go pear-shaped as the car approaches the store. Protestors outside pelt Harry and Nancy with eggs. If you don’t like a business practice, boycott the sale. There’s no reason to get nasty. But this barbarism results in Harry deciding he needs a new head of security and since George needs a new job . . .

So George gets a job as head of security back at Selfridges, where he belongs.

Princess Marie informs Harry that she’s gotten delivery of her family jewels. She can now wipe the slate clean and carry her weight financially. Harry brushes aside any thoughts of repayment. Harry confesses that he and Nancy are secretly engaged, which sets off the princess’ radar. She’s leery of Nancy Webb, so she does some detective work. She discovers that Nancy’s architect is a fraud when she sees him hocking the engagement ring Harry gave Nancy. This storyline has gotten tense. It seems the truth about Nancy will come out and it’ll devastate Harry.

Billy, the biological father of Doris and Mr Groves’ son Ernest, stops by unannounced to visit Ernest. Mr Groves sent him packing and later chewed out Miss Mardle for interfering, which she did do. She responds by calling Groves a hypocrite and criticizing him for seeing things in black and white. She had a point, but could have been more humble. After all, her meddling led to Doris’ death. This storyline has seemed forced. Doris getting hit by the car and having an affair seemed dreamt up to add Drama! The scene where Mr Groves and Miss Mardle have it out, seemed, like many this season, to be forced and unnatural.

The French aviator, who’s something of a churl, takes Violette out on a date — to Victor’s to “play out past history” if you believe what he says. She would have guessed as much before she gets to the alley where Victor’s club is, but never mind. It’s boorish in the extreme to flaunt that you’re going out with someone in front of your or their past love. Violette is extremely uncomfortable and should run from this sadistic man. He completely lacks insight or sensitivity when it comes to women. Violette is a strong-willed woman so even though her father’s meddled in her love life and said Victor’s off-limits, I don’t get that she feels she must go out with Jacques. At home Harry consoles Violette, who for some unknown reason feels she must marry this Jacques though she’s young and attractive. It’s just bizarre. Why does she feel so hopeless? Her mother didn’t marry till she was in her 30s. I doubt Violette’s that old.

Gordon vows to tell his father that he loves Grace. She’d put an end to their romance after Mr. Crabbe caught them kissing.

Mr. Grove consents to allow Billy to visit his son once a month. I do wonder if Billy would continue to visit if at some point he meets a new girl . . . .

Loxley manipulates the board members, who’re putty in his hands, into calling an emergency board meeting. Mr. Crabb gets hysterical, but Harry’s ready for them. He knows he could be ousted and in the end has the last laugh by not showing up. There’s a clause in the store’s by laws that says he can postpone a board meeting for two weeks. So he does.

That Hamilton Woman

Tags

18th century, 19th Century, Alexander Korda, Criterion Collection, Emma Hamilton, Emma Hart, England, Horatio Nelson, Horatio Nelson 1st Viscount Nelson, infidelity, Lady Emma Hamilton, Lady Nelson, Lawrence Olivier, Michael Korda, Naples, navy, passion, romance, That Hamilton Woman, Vivien Leigh

That Hamilton Woman (1941) opens with a once well-off woman trying to steal a bottle of wine from a shop in Calais. She’s caught and thrown in jail with another woman who joined in the brouhaha that followed her arrest. Starring Vivien Leigh and Lawrence Olivier, That Hamilton Woman is a propaganda movie that Churchill asked the director Alexander Korda to make to appeal to Americans and convince the public that joining the war was the right thing to do.

Based on history, Leigh stars as Emma, who’s frequently changed her name about as frequently as she’s changed lovers. Her last lover, whom she thinks will marry her sent her to Naples to stay with his uncle, an ambassador who has a passion for collecting art — and beautiful women if they come his way. Though she and her mother who’s with her are worldly enough to know better, Emma’s surprised that her “fiancé” is going to marry a rich woman to help him out of financial troubles. He arranged for his uncle to take Emma offer her hands. Jilted, she’s furious at the trickery, but she’s an opportunist and winds up marrying the old uncle and making the most of life as an ambassador’s wife.

Horatio Nelson by Abbott (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

She meets Horatio Nelson, the famous naval leader who beat Napolean, time and time again. Though their both married, they become intimate. Leigh’s perfect as the coquettish and politically astute Emma. Olivier is commanding as Nelson. We see the couple across many years from when they first meet, to when Nelson returns after 5 years at war. It’s the only movie I’ve seen where the leading man is still dashing despite losing an arm and an eye.

In Naples the couple is fairly open about their love. It maddens Nelson’s son who’s stationed on his ship and he’s the first to refer to Emma as “That Hamilton Woman.” Town gossips soon use that term as well, but it doesn’t bother Emma. She’s got chutzpah galore. I read the history and this was a woman who used to dance naked on tables in her early days in “show business.” So the late 18th century wasn’t as straight-laced as you might think.

The Ambassador Hamilton enjoys Emma more as an ornament than anything else. While he asks Emma to be discreet, he isn’t all that hurt by her affair. Nelson’s wife is another story. She’s been waiting for him for 7 years and has gotten wind of “that Hamilton woman.” The stern and upright, Mrs. Nelson meets her husband in London when he returns after defeating Napolean’s navy at Trafalgar, in a battle scene that’s wonderfully shot. She’s a plain woman who’s strict and old fashioned. I’m not sure whether the real Lady Nelson was like this and think the film would be stronger if she were actually a rather attractive nice woman. This choice makes it easy to side with Nelson. I prefer more complexity and reality.

The real Emma Hamilton, in a 1782–84 portrait by G. Romney,                (Source: Wikipedia)

Be that as it may, the film is dramatic and it was fun to watch Vivien Leigh in a role other than Scarlett O’Hara. Since we see in the first scene that Emma ends up on the skids, I’m not spoiling anything by discussing that. I felt sorry that she ended up like that. It didn’t seem right that her husband, who never insisted she end her affair, died penniless and then she got no money from Nelson. According to the Criterion Collection bonus feature with the director’s nephew, history’s unclear about what happened to Emma, but the moral code of the day required that to show an adulterous couple, you would have to show that dire consequences follow that sort of life choice.

All in all, That Hamilton Woman, was an entertaining way to learn about 18th and early 19th century British history. Nelson’s military acumen and self-sacrifice are laudable and though I doubt the film would succeed in convincing Americans it’s time to jump into WWII.

Again, the Criterion Collection’s bonus features were worth seeing. Michael Korda, whose uncle directed the film and whose father was the art director, provided lots on insights into its making and the collaboration between his father and uncle. He also described Vivien Leigh’s tempestuous relationship with Olivier whose personality favored more even-keel people.

Related articles

• That Hamilton Woman
• DVD Review: Charmed Lives – Leigh, Olivier, and “That Hamilton Woman”
• DVD Review: That Hamilton Woman
• Regency Personalities Series – Emma Hamilton
• Why Lady Hamilton
• That Hamilton Woman: a tale of two halves (for better or for worse)
• History of the World According to the Movies: Part 46 – Late Georgian Great Britain
• Nelson biopic sets sail

Mr Selfridge Style Hair

Tags

background, Downton Abbey, Edwardian, England, Gibson girl, hair, Mr. Selfridge, romantic

If you want to look like Kitty, try this style above.

This one reminds me more of Downton Abbey.

The Paradise

Tags

drama, Emil Zola, England, Industrial Revolution, jealousy, opportunity, period drama, retail, revenge, rivalry, romantic, secrets, The Ladies' Paradise, Victorian, working women

Country girl, Denise Lovette comes to the big city hoping to work for her uncle. His dressmaking business is struggling as the competition from the shining, novel department store The Paradise has captured his old customers. Despite her uncle’s disappointment, Denise takes a job at the only store hiring, The Paradise. Soon she’s in her element, an elegant women’s department headed by Miss Audrey with new colleagues, some friendly and others envious and vengeful. What keeps Denise going is the world of fashion and commerce. She’s a natural marketer. Ideas on boosting sales come to her in torrents.

Moray and Katerine

The Paradise is owned by John Moray, a widower who’s courting Katherine, a wealthy, spoiled banker’s daughter. Moray’s wife died under suspicious circumstances, known only to an equally suspicious character who lurks in the corners of The Paradise noting secrets in his little black book. Moray and Katherine’s rocky relationship is further disrupted by Denise, whose beauty, loyalty, innocence and sales acumen are mighty attractive.

I highly recommend this series, which you can watch on PBS.org till December 17th. It’ll tide you over till the January premiere of Downton Abbey‘s 5th season. I’m caught up in the store and the complexities of the era. The series begins in 1875 or so and shows the excitement of new businesses popping up along with new opportunities for women in the work world. It also shows the downside, how dedicated craftsmen must fight to survive. It’s a Darwinian competition draped in silk and lace.

I plan to read Emil Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise as soon as I get back to the states. Evidently, the BBC’s adaptation whitewashes some of the real problems, economic and social, for workers at this time. Since I’m an Upton Sinclair fan, I’ll probably enjoy the darker novel.

Related articles

• Review: The Paradise (Journal of Victorian Culture Online)
• Variety Review
• Émile Zola’s “Paradise” – The Ladies’ Delight (nochargebookbunch.com)
• ‘The Paradise’ to continue on PBS’ Masterpiece (tellyspotting.org)
• The Paradise- a Mini Series Review (llblog2010.wordpress.com)
• The Paradise – A Sunday night treat (mybigfatobsession.wordpress.com)
• The Paradise – Review of Season 1 (kylietang.wordpress.com)
• BBC drama The Paradise turns on the passion (thejournal.co.uk)
• Chinese crash the Downton Abbey party (telegraph.co.uk)

Downton Abbey Background: Part 2

Tags

Anglophile, Crawley, Downton Abbey, England, Fee tail, inheritance, Jane Austen, land, Peerage, period drama, To Kill a Mockingbird

So much of the drama of Downton Abbey rests on the entail. If you’ve read Jane Austen or To Kill a Mockingbird, you’ve heard about these mysterious legal arrangements. Last night at the local library, I learned for once and for all what an entail is and what their history was.

Any Downton Abbey fan knows that Lord Grantham can’t leave his estate to his daughter because of the entail. It must go to the oldest male heir and that heir died on the Titanic. A distant cousin, Matthew will inherit the massive house, all its furnishings and grounds. That information can suffice, but as we’ve go to wait till January for our next Downton Abbey fix and since the library had a historian speak on Downton Abbey background, and since I’m geeky enough to dash off to such an event, I can now illuminate this entail business.

Get out some No Doze and here we go!

Way back when in England everyone who helped out the powerful got parcels of land and the poor could work as farm hands and use the commons for pastures. The problem that soon surfaced was that as the father died all the sons would get a divided parcel of land. Well, that would mean in a few generations people would be living on like one acre. That’s no good. Land meant wealth, power and status.

So when the Normans invaded they were bright enough to be careful that the parcels of land they confiscated and doled out remained intact. So land was passed down by primogenator, i.e. to the eldest living son. This method gave the British aristocracy a lot of power. In fact, by the 18th century the aristocracy in England had more power than the monarch. (That wasn’t the case in France so I guess they did things differently over there.)

Women’s property and money was subsumed by the husband upon marriage.

Entails (Sometimes In tails)

According to LexisNexis, an entail means:

To settle property upon a person with limitations in respect of the succession. Precisely, to create an estate in tail, that is, a fee tail, in conveying or devising real property. To involve, e. g., the trial of a law suit “involves” much preparation.

But we figured that. Entails made this even more secure, power more consolidated. The land the nobles got in the Henry’s era weren’t all that big compared to what the Crawleys have. Why?

Enclosures

Small fields and forests got taken by a few families

Because of the Privatization and Enclosure Acts, which began in the 1600s, allowed people to petition Parliament to consolidate plots disenfranchising small farmers. Before you knew it 4 million acres in Britain were owned by 12 individuals (Ye Olde 1%). Enclosures allowed the rich to become richer. They also made farming more efficient for a time. Yet the small farmer sure got squeezed out.

Common Recovery document

An entail could be “smashed” as Violet periodically urges and even by Jane Austen’s time they were becoming unpopular. One way to break an entail was this loop hole – when the legal son turned 21 he could turn the property over to fee simple (i.e. owning a land with a deed) that way the new owner could do with it as he pleased, will it to anyone, split it up, sell off parts.

There was also something called a Common Recovery whereby an owner could break an entail by creating this legal mess whereby the landowner transfers the land to an agent or lawyer and then some bogus chap John Doe, Richard Row, Moses Mill or such seems to take the land and sell it all so the owner can do what he wants with it. It’s all quite confusing and I have no idea why the owner could sell to an agent but not to someone else, but then these property laws are all about power and injustice when you start reading through some of these articles.

The Fines and Recoveries Act of 1833 put an end to this charade and allowed that a lease could trump and entail.

So it seems that Robert Crawley could have signed away his entail at age 21, but if he was a serious sort who liked tradition, he wouldn’t have felt the need to. Most 21 year olds probably figure they’ll have at least one son. He still could . . . we’ll have to see what happens in January.

Commoners try to keep the commons

Related articles

• Downton Abbey Background, Part 1 (smkelly8.com)
• The Next Big Thing in Asia: Butlers (newsfeed.time.com)
• A Short History on Enclosures (The Land Magazine)
• Is Downton Abbey pushing up stately home prices? (gateway-homes.co.uk)
• Current Dispute in Wales over Enclosure (BBC)
• Feudal Origins of Land Titles (Institute for Economic Democracy)
• Law, Land and Love (A great, readable article on Pride & Prejudice and entails)
• Brief History of Allotments, i.e. How the Small Farmers & Co. Lost so Much

If You’re Going Through Downton Abbey Withdrawal

Tags

Downton Abbey, England, Highclere Castle, Public Broadcasting Service

Wouldn't you like to live here?

There’s a good documentary on English manor homes available on the PBS website. Elucidating, though not as witty.

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• Downton Abbey Beauty: No Mascara, Please, We’re Edwardians (bellasugar.com)
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• ‘Downton Abbey’ Finale Brings in Highest Ratings For PBS in Three Years (inquisitr.com)
• Seeing England’s real-life Downton Abbey (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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• These “Downton Abbey” Paper Dolls Are Just A Masterpiece (buzzfeed.com)