Downtown's etiquette errors give Countess the vapours: Stately home hostess reveals blunders in period drama dining scenes

Downton Abbey makes major faux pas at dinner time
Countess of Carnarvon highly critical of Downton's manners
Series 'fail to set tables correctly and don't have enough servants'
The Countess runs Highclere Castle where Downton is filmed

PUBLISHED: 18:07 EST, 8 September 2013 | UPDATED: 02:13 EST, 9 September 2013

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It is enough to make a butler lose his composure. For Downton Abbey has been accused of basic etiquette errors – by the lady of the house.

The Countess of Carnarvon, the mistress of Highclere Castle where the series is filmed, has criticised the ITV1 drama’s repeated faux pas.

Among them, says Lady Carnarvon – who writes a blog in which she reveals how a stately home should really be run – are the incorrect setting of the table for dinner and the lack of servants.

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All wrong: The set-up for the dinners on the popular ITV show are incorrect according to Lady Carnarvon of Highclere

‘It’s the little details,’ she says. ‘Glasses are back to front and things are set wrong.

‘Setting up the table is an art. Knives, forks and spoons are set from the outside in, beginning with the bread knife and working through each course to cheese.

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‘A pat of butter is impressed with the intertwined Cs and coronet and placed in front of each guest.

‘The wine glasses and water tumbler are arranged to the top right of each setting. Downton prefer a different arrangement.

‘I don’t want to step on people’s toes so I’ve tried a few times to say, “Do you know you’re setting the table wrong?” I do feel, after all, that it’s my dining table and obviously we wouldn’t set it like that.

Lady of the manor: Fiona, 8th Countess of Carnarvon, writes a blog about her life running Highclere Castle

‘They look at me blankly and I sort of try once more and then I give up… and now I try not to look because it’s easier.’

Other tips from Lady Carnarvon, whose husband the 8th Earl of Carnarvon owns Highclere, near Newbury in Berkshire, include butlers wearing white gloves to keep fingerprints off the glasses.

She has previously said a stately home of Downton Abbey’s size would, in the early 20th century when the programme is set, have had up to 60 domestic staff.

At the end of the third series, the fictional Crawley family had only about a dozen servants.

Her observations will delight the small group of Downton fans that takes to the internet after each episode to point out anachronisms.

But Lady Carnarvon perhaps cannot afford to be too critical of the show – one of the most popular period dramas ever – the fourth series of which begins on ITV1 this month.

For its success has had a dramatic impact on the lives of those living inside the ‘real’ Downton.

The fictional Earl of Grantham has struggled to keep hold of his ancestral home and, before Downton hit our screens, the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon admitted their estate needed £11.75million repairs, including £1.8million of urgent work on the main house.

Ravaged by damp and rot, at least 50 rooms were uninhabitable and stone turrets were in disrepair.

But after their friend, the show’s writer and producer Julian Fellowes, asked if he could film at Highclere, it has become one of the UK’s best-known stately homes.

Up to 1,200 visitors a day descend in the summer, enabling the owners to begin major repairs.

Pinkys up! Does Downtown's series 4 trailer adhere to etiquette?

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and people in Syria think they have problems...... Oh to be that blinkered to what really matters during our short time on this earth!

- liz , cheshire, 09/9/2013 08:14

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I always lay my table correctly when im eating my beans on toast in front of you've been framed.

- trojan216 , taunton somerset, 09/9/2013 08:13

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Get a life

- Vashnie , UK, 09/9/2013 08:13

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And no sign of the ketchup bottle either. What is the world coming to???

- TJYW , London, United Kingdom, 09/9/2013 08:12

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What I cant stand is seeing people hold the knife in their right hand and the folk in the left. Ive known two people to swap them over. Also, a knife should be held like a knife and not a pen!!!! I think table manners are so important and sadly most people are never shown correctly by their awful parents.

- Someone , Australia, Australia, 09/9/2013 08:11

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If they want to be accurate with the clothings and speech then the accuracy should apply to dining table, chamber pots, etc. Anyway look at the accurate arrangement. No wonder they needed so many servants! Washing the cutlery is enough trouble, then there's polishing, etc. Chinese much better. Chopstick, spoon. Done.

- SF , KL, Malaysia, 09/9/2013 08:11

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If only my life was troubled by such trivialities. The gentry shall have no more to worry about than the guillotine and that the cheese knife is the right way round. - Rupert, Perth, 09/09/2013 05:07 It really doesn't matter if your house has one room or 200. Having to open it to the public to do the decorating is bound to be stressful. Having a heating bill more than the average cost of a house is going to be stressful. Many of these people can no longer make money from the land they have left. There is no job they could do that would make the slightest difference. Furthermore the law requires them to maintain the house! Whichever family member mortgages the place to stay afloat leaves the next with zero and becomes responsible for the "end of the line" I genuinely wouldn't want that existence no matter how privileged it may appear to be.....

- Spencer , Nottingham, 09/9/2013 08:09

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What about the etiquette of critisising those that are giving one the opportunity to hang on to one's home??

- Disgusted of TW , Tumbridge Wells, 09/9/2013 08:07

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For goodness sake, ITS NOT REAL. It's just a made up drama for entertainment not a factorial historical record. Get a grip people!

- Ian , Fareham, United Kingdom, 09/9/2013 08:04

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So, you eat cheese AFTER pudding?! Talk about a faux-pas...

- Magda , Paris, France, 09/9/2013 08:04

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