English Heritage and Audley End House

Audley End House in Essex is one of London’s grandest 17th century county houses. During the 1880’s it belonged to Charles Neville, 5th Lord Braybrooke. Charles, his wife Florence, and their daughter, Augusta, mostly divided their time between their London residence and Audley End. By 1881, Charles and Florence lived at Audley End and were supported by nearly 30 servants within the house and service wing.

English Heritage researchers have delved deep into the archives of Audley End to find out about the people who worked there in the 1880’s. How did a great county house function during the Victorian Era? How many staff were needed to keep such a house and its estate running smoothly and how did they live? Using the 1881 census as a starting point, English Heritage were able to uncover the fascinating details of their lives and build up intimate portraits of many of the staff, their personal stories, as well as an overall picture of life below stairs at Audley End.

One member of the 1880’s staff, Avis Crocombe the cook, has even become an unlikely YouTube star, nearly 100 years after her death.

In 2008, a multi-million-pound project to restore the kitchens at Audley End came to a finish. As part of this project, English Heritage also introduced historical interpreters into the service wing, the characters, the people who were there in 1881 according to the census: Avis Crocombe and her staff.

Through this project, Audley End House and English Heritage have created a wonderful opportunity allowing guests to step back in time and wander through a world ‘below stairs’ to discover the life of a Victorian servant. During selected weekends, visitors can meet costumed interpreters as they bring Audley End back to its heyday. Guests can even come face to face with Mrs. Crocombe as she prepares a meal for the family, bump into the stable hands while they’re grooming the horses and meet Mr. Vert the gardener as he tends to the lush and sprawling gardens of Audley End.

English Heritage historian, Andrew Hann shares that “we really wanted to bring the kitchens and service wing to life. We wanted to do something different.” The Below Stairs experience at Audley End paints an intimate, eye opening, and immersive snapshot of life at a Victorian country house in the 1880’s.

What’s more, due to the Below Stairs project, something extraordinary happened. A man named Bob Stride was visiting Audley House one day and recognized the name Avis Crocombe. He recalled that it was the same name escribed on the front cover of a book left to him by his aunt, which turned out to be the real Mrs Crocombe’s recipe book.

“It could have been a manuscript belonging to any cook here at Audley House and that would have been brilliant.” States Food Historian, and former member of the Below Stairs staff at Audley, Dr. Annie Gray. “But the fact that it was Avis Crocombe’s, who we had been interpreting as a character to explore the history of the house, it was unbelievable.”

Inspired by the recipe book, English Heritage created a YouTube series named The Victorian Way, filmed at Audley End House. In each episode, Mrs. Crocombe, played by historical interpreter Kathy Hipperson, demonstrates how to cook a myriad of dishes from roast beef and plum pudding to cherry pie and gingerbread, all done exactly how it was back in the 1880’s.

The YouTube series caught the attention of countless people, attracting hundreds of thousands of new visitors to Audley End. In fact, the series received so much love that English Heritage were able to make The Victorian Way Cookbook, with modernized versions of Avis Crocombe’s recipes, together with a transcription of Avis’s original manuscript.

“It’s a brilliant thing when you hold the book in your hands.” Describes Dr. Gray. “Complete with yellowing pages and the handwriting of a chef who died 100 years ago. You do really think to yourself: This is history and I’m eating it!”

Discovering Mrs. Crocombe’s recipe book was truly monumental for English Heritage and Audley End. It reveals so much about Avis, her work, and what life was like at the time through little notes she’d write in addition to the recipes themselves. For example, one such note reads: ‘Copied from The Field Newspaper, courtesy of Lady Braybrooke.’

“When you read something like that as a historian, a tremor goes through your whole body, a chill up your spine.” exclaims Dr. Annie Gray. “It gives us an insight into not only Avis and the life she led and the sources she had access to, but also what her employers wanted. Little things like this tell us so much about aristocratic life that we wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

From The Below Stairs project to The Victorian Way series and cookbook, it’s clear that everyone at both English Heritage and Audley End House have the utmost passion for history. The attention to detail and the determination to portray the staff at Audley End as real people is truly incredible. Andrew Hann believes that “the interactions between the characters is very important, getting them to be seen as real people, not just faceless cooks.”

Hann goes on to state that “if it hadn’t been for us portraying genuine people, then we wouldn’t have discovered the cookbook, because it was through portraying Mrs.Crocombe that Mr. Stride got in touch with English Heritage and donated the manuscript to us.”

This demonstrates the power of interactive and immersive experiences like the kind found at Audley End. They have the power to bring us together through our shared histories, to teach us something new about previous generations we may not have known ourselves. But, with projects like Below Stairs and The Victorian Way, we can come to know a little better than we ever thought possible.

The immersive world at Audley End showcases the perfect kind of engaging experience the hospitality and tourism industry need to see more of in the coming years. Projects like these don’t just teach us about history, they bring it to life right before our very eyes, culminating in something extraordinary and unforgettable. Audley End House illustrates the power of creating engaging narratives. They not only allow us to connect with our audience, but also reflect the stories of the past for us, so that we may connect with and understand our heritage.

How wonderful would it be if we could grow this passion for discovering the secrets of the past and share it with more people? ?