Managing an estate

by Maria Grace

There were two major types of great landowners in the regency era–the aristocrats who were deeply involved in running the government, but rather less hands-on in regards to their estates, and land-owning gentry, who were very hands-on and represented the majority of land owners.

A country estate was a complex economic mini-state that typically included a residence of sufficient size to suit a gentleman with parkland, gardens, stables and paddocks. A large agrarian business extended out from this center, consisting of a home farm and gardens, numerous tenanted farms and cottages usually in a village near the manor. The survival of the resident family, household staff, tenant farmers and their families and workers depended on revenues from the estate’s agricultural enterprises and rents. (Laudermilk, 1989) A successful estate owner needed solid business acumen.

But why? Gentlemen did not work for their income, did they?

Technically, they did not. Their income came largely from rents and investments. Estates often had small villages within their boundaries including church and parsonage, stone, brick or timbered farmhouses, and cottages, even wind/water mills in a few narrow lanes, all surrounded by productive (and often leased out) meadows and fields. (It was generally considered a village, not a town because it had no market, the defining characteristic of a small town.)

Estate owners might also receive revenue from the sale of products from their land, including crops, animal products, timber and minerals.

Rent

Estate owners leased out various kinds of property, including tenant farms of various sizes, houses and cottages, and even small estates that might be part of their holdings. Rents rose dramatically between 1790 and 1830, in some cases increasing fivefold over that period, making rents a considerable source of income, especially for large estate owners. (Murray, 1998)

Since a gentleman did not dirty his hands with money, for him to collect the rents from this himself would have been vulgar. A steward, or in the case off smaller estates, a bailiff, would be hired for that task and others related to estate management. 

Stewards and Bailiffs

Whereas a bailiff might be an estate’s major tenant hired to simply collect rents, a steward was an educated man, often the son of clergy, a smaller landowner or a professional man, hired to assist in the running and management of the estate. A steward was not considered a servant, but rather a skilled professional. For this reason, he was addressed as ‘Mister’. Not long after the regency era, the term ‘steward’, having servile connotations, was dropped in favor of the more professional term ‘land agent.’

Stewards frequently had experience and training as solicitors which was particularly useful in their duties managing contracts and overseeing estate accounts. Beyond these duties, stewards also collected rents, leased land, supervised the tenantry, directed any work done on the land, settled squabbles that arose among the tenants or workers, purchased animals, seed and so on. (Shapard,2003)

The steward would often have a home of his own, but would on occasion stay at the manor. His duties might regularly take him to the family's other country houses, and to London, but he was unlikely to travel with the family on a regular basis. (Martin, 2004)

Farming

Tenant farmers

By 1790, three quarters of England's agricultural land was cultivated by tenants. (Day, 2006) The remaining quarter represented small yeoman farmers whose numbers would decrease through the ensuing century.

Tenants usually rented sections of land with farmhouse and outbuildings, paid their rents on the established quarter days: Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29), Christmas (December 25), sold the produce, and kept the earnings. Customary provisions required the landlord to supply materials, buildings and facilities such as drainage and hedging while the tenant provided stock, seed and tools. (Davidoff, 2002)

Farmers, including tenant farmers, made up the middling ranks of rural society. They could become quite well off with their sons and daughters educated as they moved up the social scale. Though the sons of tenants could not inherit the land their father’s works, they could inherit their farm leases. These leases, which traditionally ran for multiples of seven years, were often passed from father to son, with the land owners preferring to maintain the continuity of a known tenants and the relationships that went with it. (Davidoff, 2002)

It was not uncommon for a tenant farmer to rent extra land with additional farmhouses for adult sons to farm. The eldest son would eventually take over his father’s tenant farm when he retired or died. Widows might head a farm household, hiring help with the farm as needed until a young son was old enough to take over the tenancy. (Davidoff, 2002)

Tenants normally looked to their landlord for assistance whether for personal matters or for help in improvements to the land. Some of these improvements might include better ways to farm the land and improve productivity.

Farming methods

With populations rapidly increasing, the best landowners sought out advanced methods of agricultural science to improve production (and profits.) The agricultural reports of the newly formed Board of Agriculture were avidly studied to learn more about advancements including crop rotation, scientific stock breeding, and new technologies including the seed drill and machines for threshing and chaff cutting. The installation of drainage in fields was another innovation practiced by many farmers during this era. Heavy clay soils where excess water made plowing more difficult and hurt the growth and root structure of plants would have rows of drains cut beneath the surface to move water away from the fields. (Shapard, 2012)

Four-course crop rotation, commonly called the Norfolk four-course system, increased fodder production. There were many variations of this system, depending on the region. Typically, fields would be sown with wheat in the first year, turnips in the second, followed by barley in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. This produced two cash crops and two animal feed crops.

One constant was the presence of livestock as part of the strategy. Sheep (or sometimes cattle) were turned out to graze the turnip tops. This kept weeds down and allowed the field to be fertilized by mobile manure factories. Turnip roots were stored for winter animal fodder. More fodder meant larger livestock herds and the ability to keep animals through the winter. Improvements like these could double one's income. (Laudermilk,1989)

In addition to increased agricultural production, estates began to enjoy profits from heretofore unexplored avenues such as mining and timber sales. Changes in technologies often fueled demand while improvements in transportation with new canals and steam engines made previously prohibitive production profitable.

Incomes

What kind of income could a landed estate provide? Naturally the answer depended a great deal on the size of the estate and the kind of management it had.

For a little perspective, the 1801 census found that the average income of the 287 peerage families (all of whom would have landed estates) was approximately £8,000 The top 2000 merchant families averaged £2,500, whereas the top 6000 esquires that Austen’s Mr. Bennet would have belonged to averaged £1,500. That suggests that the £2,000 a year Mr. Bennet had represents a very good income, compared to his peers.

To have an income above the average nobility as a gentleman estate holder, one did not spend a very great deal of time sitting about enjoying the social life of the town. While a man like Austen’s Mr. Darcy might take time to enjoy the finer things as it were, he would also have to spend a very great deal of time and effort in managing the massive agricultural enterprise that provided those finer things.

Technically a gentleman did not ‘work’ for his income. But planning how to keep an estate afloat through the long years of the French war, determining how best to manage the home farm and advise his tenants considering the price of corn, debating whether to invest in draining a new field or if rain will spoil the harvest or damage tenant houses that he will have to repair—and how to effect those repairs—seeking new hands to man the sawmill and cider press and what to pay them—all of that sounds a very great deal like what we today would call work. While there were inevitably bad landowners who put little into managing their estates, many, if not most put in a great deal of very hard work to manage estates that provided “livelihood and the stability for both the landowner and a vast army of workers–tenant farmers, gardeners, cowmen, sawyers and shepherds alike.(As well as providing employment for seasonal labourers like codders, harvesters, shearers…)” (Bennetts, 2012)

References

Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen's England. Viking, 2013.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Sense and Sensibility. New York: Anchor Books, 2011.
Austen, Jane, and Edward Copeland. The Cambridge Edition of Sense and Sensibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bennetts, M.M., “At the heart of a great estate is… .“ M.M.Bennetts. April 11,2012. Accessed May 20, 2014. http://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/at-the-heart-of-a-great-estate-is/
Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy. London: Hambledon and London, 2001.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780-1850. London: Routledge, 2002.
Day, Malcom. Voices from the World of Jane Austen. David and Charles, 2006.
Ellis, Markman "Trade." In Jane Austen in Context , 269-77. Cambridge: University Press, 2005.
Girouard, Mark. Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Gornall, J.F.G. "Marriage and Property in Jane Austen’s Novels." History Today 17, no. 12 (December 1967). Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.historytoday.com/jfg-gornall/marriage-and-property-jane-austen%E2%80%99s-novels.
Hitchcock, Tim, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, " Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor Account Books ", London Lives, 1690-1800 (www.londonlives.org, version, 1.1 17 June 2012). https://www.londonlives.org/static/AC.jsp
Laudermilk, Sharon H., and Teresa L. Hamlin. The Regency Companion. New York: Garland, 1989.
LeFaye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. New York: Abrams, 2002.
Martin, Joanna. Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House. London: Hambledon and London, 2004.
Morris, Diane H. “Mr. Darcy was a Second-Class Citizen.” Moorgate Books. August 10th, 2014. Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.moorgatebooks.com/10/a-true-regency-gentleman-had-good-breeding/.
Ray, Joan Klingel. Jane Austen for Dummies. Chichester: John Wiley, 2006.
Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. London: Hambledon Press, 1999.
Seven Trees Farm, “Norfolk four course.” Seven Trees Farm. April 30, 2012. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://seventreesfarm.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/norfolk-four-course/
Sullivan, Margaret C., and Kathryn Rathke. The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2007.
Swift, Deborah. “Law & Order - Duties of the Constable in 17th Century England.” English Historical Fiction Authors. May 24, 2017. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2017/05/law-order-duties-of-constable-in-17th.html
Trevelyan, George Macaulay. Illustrated English Social History. New York: D. McKay, 1949.
Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.
Watkins, Susan. Jane Austen's Town and Country Style. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.
Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789-1837. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.

~~~~~~~~~~

Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. 

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.

Inheriting an Estate

by Maria Grace

For most, land ownership came about as the privilege (or right depending on how you looked at it) of being the eldest son (or otherwise designated heir) and inheriting the family holdings. Since, during the era, social standing and power was all about land, those who possessed it enjoyed considerable perks as a result. But there were commensurate responsibilities that went along with those advantages

Primogeniture

The law of primogeniture guided most estate inheritance of the era. In short, the law required that a family’s eldest surviving son would inherit the family’s estate in its entirety. Only in the case of a family with no sons, would the estate pass to a daughter or daughters. If there was more than one daughter, the estate would pass to all of them equally, not just the eldest. Since, if any of these daughters married, their share would then belong to their husbands, the ownership of the estate could become very complicated very quickly. So when multiple daughters inherited, the estate was often sold and the money divided equally among the sisters.

What about widows and younger children?

Widows did not inherit estates. Instead, marriage settlements would establish a jointure—an allowance normally based on one tenth of the dowry she brought into the marriage—to be paid by the estate annually for the remainder of their lifetime. These arrangements would have been made at the time of the marriage and might or might not permit her to maintain the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed during her married life.

Primogeniture did not require any inheritance be passed to younger children. When a man wanted to provide something for his younger children, the total legacy allowable was based on the amount his estate could support without harm to its capital value. In England this sum was calculated customarily by estimating the amount available at twelve and a half per cent of the capital value of the estate. (Copeland, 2006) This total amount could be divided among all the younger children, equally or not, according to the father’s wishes. This amount would usually be separate from the money for daughter’s dowries, which would have been established in the marriage articles.

Merchant families were not bound by the constraints of primogeniture and typically left fortunes to all their children, including their daughters.

Strict Settlement and Entailment

Since females inheriting estates generally mean the loss of estate to the family line, many—estimates place it at half or more during the eighteenth century—used strict settlement entailment to ensure an estate would pass down a family’s male line, usually for three generations.

A strict settlement could be done in two ways, each featured in Jane Austen’s writing: a fee tail and a left estate. Sense and Sensibility featured a life estate. The senior Mr. Dashwood inherited the use of Norland estate during his life time, not the actual ownership of the estate. After Mr. Dashwood’s death, the estate would go to the individual designated in the original will, in this case, his son by his first marriage.

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen featured a fee tail estate. In the simplest of terms, a fee tail meant that a man would leave his estate not to his heir but to his heir’s heir. The man’s heir would receive a ‘limited life tenancy’ to the estate, after which the estate would pass to the life tenant’s heir. The inheritance could be further limited to male heirs or ‘male heirs of the body’ which would ensure patrilineal inheritance, keeping the estate in the family for two more generation.

When a landowner suffered a failure of issue—that is, he failed to produce sons—a paternal nephew would normally be made the sole heir. If he were somehow unavailable, then a descendent would be determined according to ancient heirship rules. (Designations other than ‘male heirs of the body’ could be made. Wills could designate a daughter or daughters as life tenant with the fee tail held for the first (legitimate) male heir produced among them.)

A strict settlement of either variety gave the life tenant limited use of the estate during his lifetime. He might enjoy the income of the estate and the responsible use of its facilities. However, he could not dispose of the estate or any part of it. Moreover, he was often limited in the ways he could use the resources of the estate. A life tenant might be prevented from selling timber from the land because it was considered as belonging to fee tail holder of the estate and would deplete the capital value of the estate. Similarly, he might not be able to mine resources on the estate and even if he could, he might not be able to raise the money to do the mining because he could not obtain a mortgage on the land.

All of this meant that the life tenant had limited access to capital to repair or improve the estate, leading to estates falling into severe disrepair. To avoid this problem, in many cases, a small portion of the estate was granted outright to the current owner to give him some flexibility to deal with unexpected problems. (Shapard, 2010)

Even with all these difficulties, entailments could continue for many generations through the process of resettlement. Typically, this would occur when the heir or eldest son reached the age of twenty one, or at the time of his marriage. Essentially, the life tenant would offer the fee tail heir—usually a father offering this son—a lump sum of money or an annuity from the estate. In order to acquire the money, they further agreed to end the current entail, fund the amount from the estate, and create a new settlement whereby the land would go to the father for his life, to the heir for his life and then in fee tail to the heir's heir. Thus a new entail would be created, but the estate would now be depleted by the lump sum or encumbered by the annuity pair to the original fee tail heir.

So, if the Dashwood family had done this, when Mr. John Dashwood reached twenty one (or married Fanny) he and his father, Henry Dashwood, would have sat down together and decided how much Henry would have to offer John to see the entail continued. Next, they would visit the solicitor to have the original entailment barred (discontinued). A trip to the banker would follow to juggle the finances in whatever way necessary to provide John’s money. The process would end with another visit to the solicitor to redraft a new entail, naming John’s (not yet born) heir as the fee tail heir of Norland. John would have money to fund his lifestyle, Henry would know the estate would be preserved in the family for two more generations, and the heir to be of John Dashwood would have to deal with an estate, now depleted of a possibly significant portion of its capital. The estate might be impoverished, but it would remain in the family, which was after all, the most important thing.

This system of inheritance flourished between the mid-seventeenth century to the later part of the nineteenth century, when an act of parliament gave the life tenant greater powers to dispose of the estate.

References

Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen's England. Viking, 2013.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Sense and Sensibility. New York: Anchor Books, 2011.
Austen, Jane, and Edward Copeland. The Cambridge Edition of Sense and Sensibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bennetts, M.M., “At the heart of a great estate is… .“ M.M.Bennetts. April 11, 2012. Accessed May 20, 2014. http://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/at-the-heart-of-a-great-estate-is/
Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy. London: Hambledon and London, 2001.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780-1850. London: Routledge, 2002.
Day, Malcom. Voices from the World of Jane Austen. David and Charles, 2006.
Ellis, Markman "Trade." In Jane Austen in Context , 269-77. Cambridge: University Press, 2005.
Girouard, Mark. Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Gornall, J.F.G. "Marriage and Property in Jane Austen’s Novels." History Today 17, no. 12 (December 1967). Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.historytoday.com/jfg-gornall/marriage-and-property-jane-austen%E2%80%99s-novels.
Hitchcock, Tim, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, "Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor Account Books", London Lives, 1690-1800 (www.londonlives.org, version, 1.1 17 June 2012). https://www.londonlives.org/static/AC.jsp
Laudermilk, Sharon H., and Teresa L. Hamlin. The Regency Companion. New York: Garland, 1989.
LeFaye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. New York: Abrams, 2002.
Martin, Joanna. Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House. London: Hambledon and London, 2004.
Morris, Diane H. “Mr. Darcy was a Second-Class Citizen.” Moorgate Books. August 10th, 2014. Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.moorgatebooks.com/10/a-true-regency-gentleman-had-good-breeding/.
Ray, Joan Klingel. Jane Austen for Dummies. Chichester: John Wiley, 2006.
Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. London: Hambledon Press, 1999.
Seven Trees Farm, “Norfolk four course.” Seven Trees Farm. April 30, 2012. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://seventreesfarm.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/norfolk-four-course/
Sullivan, Margaret C., and Kathryn Rathke. The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2007.
Swift, Deborah. “Law & Order - Duties of the Constable in 17th Century England.” English Historical Fiction Authors. May 24, 2017. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2017/05/law-order-duties-of-constable-in-17th.html
Trevelyan, George Macaulay. Illustrated English Social History. New York: D. McKay, 1949.
Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.
Watkins, Susan. Jane Austen's Town and Country Style. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.
Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789-1837. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.

~~~~~~~~~~

Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. 

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.

Joining the Gentry

by Maria Grace

The Regency era gentleman was a fairly rare bird. During the era, the gentry class only made up about one and one half percent of the British population. When the rising merchant class had the means to join the elite group, they jumped at the chance. Still, the process was not as easy as simply buying their way in. The transition into the gentry class could take several generations to complete since inherited wealth, especially that related to land ownership, still offered higher social standing than earned wealth.

The Pathway to Gentry Standing

For those not gently born, the pathway to gentry status began with earning money, ideally a very great deal of it. However, wealth alone did not offer real status. It had to be turned into the trappings of the gentry: land, education, and connections.

Arguably, the most significant of these was the purchase of land. And by land, not just a small parcel would do. A yeoman farmer’s plot of fifty acres or so would only grant the status of a “respectable farmer”, not a gentleman. To be part of the gentry, a man needed at least three hundred acres, preferably already fashioned into an estate.

Photo credit: amandabhslater via Visualhunt / CC BY-SA

What is an Estate?

Through the Georgian era, estates were largely self-sustaining economic entities. The most obvious feature of an estate was the grand house where the master of the estate and his family lived and conducted their business. Houses might stand for generations, but changes in fashion, architecture, and gardening meant an estate owner might spend a great deal on bringing the house and grounds up to modern, fashionable standards.

While the house might be the most obvious feature, the more significant ones were those that provided income and sustenance to the owner. A home farm provided food and necessities for the family in residence, as well as the servants who lived with them. Tenant farms and rental properties provided the majority of a gentleman’s income. Natural land resources like trees (lumber), coal, fishing, etc. could supplement incomes. These passive forms of income separated the gentleman from the working class whose hands were soiled by paid work.

Acquiring an Estate

Large land owners were a very exclusive group. By the end of the eighteenth century, half the farm land of Britain belonged to only about five thousand families. (Lane, 2005)

How much did it take to acquire an estate?

In 1801, a one hundred acre estate (not enough to make one part of the gentry, though) in Sussex sold for £3,500. (Donnelly, 2012). In general, an estate would be priced at about thirty times the income it produced. So, an estate producing £1000 a year would sell for approximately £30,000.

To put these numbers in perspective, during the era, the edge of poverty was approximately £50 a year. A shopkeeper might make £150 a year. A comfortable middle class income was £250 while just a quarter million families made a very comfortable £700 pounds or more per year. In 1801, only the top one percent of the population made more than £800 a year. (Morris, 2014)So, it was just a very small fragment of the population who could aspire to land ownership.

Land Ownership was not Enough

Simply owning an estate was not sufficient to grant entry into the upper classes. A family was not part of the gentry until members of the gentry accepted them as part of their social equals. Socializing together was important, but intermarriage was the surest sign of acceptance. Before that could happen, all financial ties with the business that brought in the wealth—commerce, colonial endeavors, manufacturing, military, finance—had to be severed and the family seen to live in a “good sort of way.”

A man aspiring to the gentry class would ensure his sons, especially the eldest, received a gentleman’s education. At Cambridge or Oxford he would be taught the classics, at the not insubstantial sum of £300 a year. Perhaps more significant, the exposure to his social betters would allow him to develop the necessary social graces to mingle with the upper crust.

Photo via Visualhunt.com

While his expensive education would not actually provide useful instruction in how to manage an estate, it would afford him the opportunity to rub shoulders with others sons of the gentry, establishing connections that could serve him well throughout his life.

Not surprisingly, a daughter’s education was secondary, but if there was money available, she might be sent to a “finishing school,”  or girl’s seminary, to complete the education her mother would have begun at home. Training in French and Italian, dance, music, and deportment would be aimed at making her a “social asset” for her future husband—a man whom she might well meet through a brother’s connections. For a daughter, good manners and an excellent dowry were even more important than a pretty face and figure for social mobility.

Once the next generation was sufficiently acceptable to be marriageable to the gentry class, and an estate (and hopefully fortune to go with it) were inherited, the transition to gentry class could be considered complete.

The Importance of Owning Land

To the modern perspective, the emphasis on land over actual wealth seems perplexing. What made land so significant?

In the centuries leading up to the Regency era, people existed in a largely subsistence economy. Crops were difficult to grow and, for most, producing enough for personal use was an achievement. To grow more than one needed was truly a show of success and required a significant amount of land.

Growing crops for market helped shift the economy from a subsistence to a market economy, and helped solidify the mystique of land ownership. Land ownership became a prerequisite for social power. Only land owners could vote. Masters of large estates often served as local magistrates, presiding over civil and certain criminal complaints. They also frequently served as church wardens managing tithes to the local rector and maintaining the parish church.

Thus, land afforded not only economic power, but social standing and influence as well, making it the natural vehicle of the upwardly mobile nouveaux riche to make their impact upon society.

References

Colburn, Henry. A new system of practical domestic economy: founded on modern discoveries and the private communications of persons of experience. London: Printed for Henry Colburn and Co., 1823.

Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Donnelly, Shannon. "Regency Coin — What Did it Cost?" Shannon Donnelly's Fresh Ink. January 14, 2012. Accessed March 2, 2017. https://shannondonnelly.com/2012/01/14/regency-coin-what-did-it-cost/.

Jones, Chris. "Land Ownership." In Jane Austen in Context , 269-77. Cambridge: University Press, 2005.

Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen's World: The Life and times of England's Most Popular Novelist. 2nd ed. London: Carlton Books, 2005.

Morris, Diane. "Mr. Darcy Was a Second-Class Citizen." Moorgate Books. August 10, 2014. Accessed March 20, 2017. http://www.moorgatebooks.com/08/mr-darcy-was-a-second-class-citizen/.

Savage, William. "The Path to Landed Gentry Status." Pen and Pension. October 05, 2016. Accessed March 10, 2017. https://penandpension.com/2016/10/05/the-path-to-landed-gentry-status/.

Sullivan, Margaret C., and Kathryn Rathke. The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2007.

Wilson, Richard, and Alan Mackley. "Founding a landed dynasty, building a country house: the Rolfes of Heacham in the eighteenth century." In Counties and Communities: Essays on East Anglian History: Presented to Hassell Smith. University of East Anglia: Norwich: Centre of East Anglian Studies, 1996.

~~~~~~~~~~

Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful.

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.

Downton Abbey (or, Highclere Castle in sheeps clothing)

By Karen V. Wasylowski

Unless you've lived under a log for the past year or so you will recognize this sweet little English house.  It is Highclere Castle, or as we Downton Heads like to call it - Downton Abbey.

The history of this family, as well as the house, is very well known.  It was the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon who financed the Howard Carter expedition into Egypt that resulted in the discovery of none other than King Tutankhamen's tomb.   The house itself, designed by Sir Charles Barry, who also designed the Houses of Parliament, is situated on one thousand beautiful acres, an area roughly the size of Central Park in New York and has been in the Carnarvon family since 1679. 

There are over two hundred rooms, fifty to eighty bedrooms, some cellars, a really keen gallery and, unfortunately, only one ladies room.  But isn't that always the way.

I thought I would dig up some other, lesser known, tidbits about the Abbey.  Like, why is it called an Abbey? Well, as many other of the great English Estate houses, "Highclere is on the site of a former ecclesiastical property. (When then-king Henry VIII turned against the Catholics in the 16th century, he appropriated lock, stock, and barrel.) Used by the bishops of Winchester in the 12th century, even now, it boasts a 'monks’ garden.'" Can a bingo  room be very far off?  (I'm beginning to sound like the Dowager Countess.)

Another fun fact - if there ever was a fire "the evacuation procedure from the upper floors would have resembled an emergency airline deplaning. The maids would have had to slide through tunnels of canvas spread over iron hoops, reports Tom Sykes in the Daily Beast. As such, the danger of getting caught up during escape was significant, and so in case of fire, maids were urged to don sweaters before popping into the chutes."  I would imagine the family could just walk out the doors.

The row of bells we see every week to summon the servants to various aristocratic bedrooms, or to the family parlor or the library or, well, to wherever it is servants need to go, each have individual tones, so that the servants could tell, without looking at the words over the bells, which of the family was summoning them and to where.  My husband believed this to be a brilliant idea and attempted to install a similar system within our own home. The fire is nearly out now.

This last fun fact is my favorite.  Apparently, in the Carnarvon family's never ending quest to meet the unbelievable expense of running a home of this size (can you imagine the heating bill alone?  Energy saving tip - seal off all but 199 rooms and get a space heater.) But I digress...where was I?  Oh yes, well it seems they would like to sell off a bit of the land, develop fringes of the estate.  Now you and I wouldn't think twice about unloading the extra lot next door to us, but these poor folk are forced to butt heads with their neighbor - Andrew Lloyd-Webber, or Baron Andrew Lloyd-Webber now.  Imagine the repercussions.

If my neighbor objects to a Walmart being built on land I sell, or the odd Starbucks, he would have to take me to court - I suppose.  I don't really know, not having anyone actually interested in either my house or my land.

The poor Carnarvons, however, are going mano a mano with another peer of the realm. Or should that be Peer?  Does the problem now go before Parliament?  Is Cameron to be informed?  Must Will and Kate be forced to take sides? Two hundred years ago they would settle it like gentlemen - bet the entire SHE-bang on one hand of Vingt-et-un, or better yet - a duel at dawn in Hyde Park.  Ooh, ooh, better yet again, a hundred year's before that someone would have lost their head, be drawn and quartered - or worse.  I'm nearly certain of my facts.  Well, one can dream can't one?

Today I believe the worst that may happen is this - either Andrew Lloyd-Webber's land will touch a housing development filled with upper middle class Mrs. Bucket's attempting to introduce their various and vocally challenged offspring to him.

Or...the Carnarvon's may be forced to listen to Evita.

Beheading is not sounding so darn bad now, is it?

Karen V. Wasylowski is the author of the Pride and Prejudice sequel, "Darcy and Fitzwilliam".

Featured in June 2011 by the Orange County California Register as one of six books

They selected for a "Great Summer Read"

(also may be read in Spring and during several

week-ends in Fall.  Contact a

physician for Winter reading)

Finally, please visit my blog, The League of British Artists, to catch the latest news regarding your favorite handsome British actors and - occasionally when we must so that we don't appear to be stalkers - actresses.   (You can buy Darcy and Fitzwilliam there too)  (Buy two.)