Keep Calm and Carry On

Britain’s stately homes were forced to close their doors during the recent lockdown. These ancient walls are used to surviving against the odds – but how have they coped in the current crisis?

- NATASHA FOGES

On 3 May 1950 Alnwick Castle opened its doors to visitors for the first time, and 100 eager tourists queued up to buy a ticket in the first hour. Britain’s second-largest privately inhabited castle (after Windsor), home to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, it has come a long way since, with soaring visitor numbers boosted by appearances in the Harry Potter films.

But this year on the 70th anniversary of Alnwick’s opening, the famous gardens lay quietly deserted and the castle’s 150 rooms were eerily empty of visitors. High above the historic battlements, a blue NHS flag fluttered from the flagpole.

Alnwick has stood for over 900 years, witnessing wars, famine and disease. But like Britain’s other castles and stately homes it was abruptly forced to close its doors to the public this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of Britain’s best-known ‘statelies’ are owned and cared for independently, rather than by government or national charities. They are hugely expensive to run, and in most cases, visitor numbers are the key to survival. In response to the pandemic, tickets and tours were hastily cancelled, tearooms and gift shops closed. Income for these historic houses was reduced to zero overnight.

Day-to-day management was another complication. In bygone times, a vast team of ‘downstairs’ staff would have bustled upstairs at the ring of a bell to attend to their master’s and mistress’s every whim. Chambermaids and scullery girls are hard to come by these days, but modern-day stately homes still have an army of staff. Their job, by and large, is to look after the house rather than the family within – from gardeners that tend the prize roses and farmers working on the estate to the curators that look after precious art collections.