Audley End Service Wing – The Restoration

Background to the Project

 The Audley End Estate is one of the great sights of East Anglia: a spectacular Jacobean mansion set in an outstanding landscaped park. Passed down through generations, this lavish countryside retreat would have required an extensive workforce to manage and maintain working order, caring for its rich interiors and catering for its even richer residents.

English Heritage now proudly unveils the story of the servants who once lived and worked at Audley End under the watchful eye of the fifth Lord Braybrooke. This £1 million investment, which has taken the course of a year to complete, is of great significance as visitors can now witness first-hand the heart of this great house in action, and understand the rigours of daily life for the servants who once ran one of England’s finest country estates. 

New Interpretation will focus on life in the Service Wing during the 1880s. This decade has been the focus of our research owing to the fact that, in September 1881, parts of the Service Wing were seriously damaged by fire. The kitchens, larders and the rooms above them required complete renovation, and many of the original fixtures and fittings from this period remain in place today, allowing us to re-present the Service Wing as it would have operated at the time.

 How we traced the servants of 1881
Detailed household accounts recording wages paid to servants at Audley End have not survived for the 1880s, so information about the servants working during this period had to be derived from census records, now available online from the National Archives website. The 1881 census lists all those present at Audley End on census night, the 3rd of April, and provides information about their occupation, age, marital status and place of birth. From these details it is possible to trace individuals back to earlier census listings for 1871, 1861 and so on, and to discover where they lived and what their circumstances were at these dates.

Unfortunately Lord and Lady Braybrooke were away from Audley End on the 3rd of April so the census reveals only a skeleton staff in residence including the housekeeper, dairy maid and two laundresses. Using a web search, however, the family can be quickly traced to their London residence, 42 Upper Brook Street, where they were staying with most of their servants. Bringing this information together a complete list of the 18 indoor servants based at Audley End in 1881 was compiled. These names could then be cross-referenced with various estate records to uncover more details of their working lives.

Conservation

English Heritage has done its utmost to ensure historical accuracy of all features within the Service Wing complex. During our research we discovered authentic paint finishes in both the dry larder and dairy, restored an original row of sinks in the wet laundry, and uncovered historic stone floors and drainage systems previously hidden beneath a modern concrete floor. A tour of this busy part of the house creates an authentic and atmospheric portrait of life in the Service Wing.

Wander the kitchen and view the vast array of utensils used to prepare feasts for the Braybrooke family; see the intricate rope and pulley systems in the dry laundry, a vast space with plenty of room for hanging freshly-scrubbed clothes; marvel at the authentic butter churn which would have given the dairy maid a regular morning workout, brought back to life and ready for a bit of elbow grease. With so many demanding tasks to carry out by hand, it is clear that the devil was in the detail for servants at Audley End. English Heritage has been careful to preserve and restore their working environment to reveal just how they were able to cope with such heavy and physically demanding workloads.

 

Finding Artefacts

Recreating an authentic Victorian service wing requires determination and persistence – plus a spot of luck every now and again. Jan Summerfield, Senior Curator for English Heritage was charged with sourcing original objects for the rooms. ‘I am fascinated by kitchenalia and cooking’, she says, which explains why she has scoured junk shops, eBay and auction rooms for pots, pans, chopping boards and cutlery. Perhaps her most exciting find has been a period turbot pan, bought by the Friends of Audley End at Christie’s, South Kensington. ‘It was the first one to come up for auction in 20 years’, she says. 

Interpretation – Bringing the Service Wing to Life

What did we want to say?
Our role in interpretation is to bring the Service Wing to life, and to help explain what is going on and how things happened.

Firstly we need to make sure we provide some basic information. What part of the Service Wing is which? What are the names of the rooms? What happened in each room?

Next we think about some of the key themes about the Service Wing which we aim to communicate.

 - Each of the different areas of the Service Wing was a small cog in the huge, efficient machine that was needed to keep a Victorian country house running

 - Much of the food consumed at Audley End, which passed through the service wing, came from right here on the Audley End estate

 - Audley End gives us the opportunity to reintroduce visitors to some of the household skills that perhaps are no longer familiar – e.g. churning butter 

 - At Audley End visitors can see the real people who worked as servants here, with their personalities, aspirations, friendships and feuds

 How did we say it?
At Audley End we have developed a unique combination of live interpretation and projected films, coupled with more traditional forms of printed materials.

By using costumed interpreters and projecting films of servants at work onto the walls, visitors can meet the real servants from 1881 and learn about their lives. These servants can show visitors how to starch a collar, or can discuss where the ingredients for a pie come from.

For a less ‘ghostly’ experience, a series of room panels give more information about the rooms and the servants, and inserted pages for the guidebook let people know about the new areas of the site. The detailed illustrations of the servants at work which feature on the panels and leaflet were commissioned for this project to recreate the feel of a Victorian household manual of the sort that the servants at Audley End would have used.