Highclere Castle
A SHORT HISTORY
The true story of Highclere Castle, setting of renowned TV series and feature
films Downton Abbey, is remarkably similar to that told in Downton
Abbey—it owes its survival to an heiress who married into a family of earls.
In 1895, at the young age of 19, Almina
Wombwell, the illegitimate daughter of
millionaire banker Alfred de Rothschild,
married the 5th Earl of Carnarvon of
Highclere. She brought to the family a huge
dowry of £500,000 (about £50 million
today), which helped sustain the castle
through the next fifty years and two
world wars.
Lady Almina Carnarvon was an
extraordinary woman who transformed
Highclere into a hospital in August 1914.
Acting as head matron, with the best
surgeons and nurses, she welcomed
severely injured soldiers who wrote that
Highclere was something like a "paradise"
after the battlefields and trenches of
Gallipoli and northern France. Tirelessly, she
saved lives and limbs, reassuring families
and patients throughout the war and the
devastating flu pandemic that spread
before the Treaty of Versailles was signed
in 1919.
With the close of the war, her husband,
the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, was able to
continue his excavation work in Egypt's
Valley of the Kings with his colleague
Howard Carter. The two men had worked in
Egypt for some sixteen years, passionate
about the area's works of art, culture and
architecture of the past. On the point of
giving up, Lord Carnarvon and Howard
Carter discovered the tomb of the pharaoh
Tutankhamen in November 1922. Today,
the current Lord and Lady Carnarvon have
created and curated a fascinating exhibition
through the cellars underneath the
castle, which displays works of art
from pharaonic times.
Highclere's history, however, was first
recorded in 749 AD, more than 1,000 years
before Almina's time. Highclere was owned
by the Bishops of Winchester for 800 years
before it was sold and bought by the direct
grandfather of Lord Carnarvon in 1679.
From medieval palace to red brick
Elizabethan house, it was then transformed
into a classical Georgian mansion. The final
transformation began in 1842. The 3rd Earl
of Carnarvon commissioned Sir Charles Barry
to design a splendid Italian-style "palace,"
which was thus taking shape
contemporaneously with the building and
creation of the Houses of Parliament in
London. It is therefore one of the most
important Victorian buildings in England,
with some 250 rooms and a silhouette
famous the world over.
The castle is set in 1,000 acres of
parkland that had been laid out in 1771 by
Capability Brown, known as England's
greatest landscape gardener. Near the castle
are a series of peaceful and exquisite
gardens, all of which inspire the all-natural
ingredients that comprise Highclere's soaps
and beverages.
Lady Carnarvon
Tour Highclere Castle Grounds
31 | Viking Explorer Society News
