Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain under the microscope.欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

Now let's use a magnifying glass and go into these stately homes or manor houses and look at the rooms and also look at the servants.

Absolutely.

So, what is a typical country house? All that I know it’s huge.

Yes.

There will be lots of bedrooms. There will probably be a drawing room.

Hang on a minute. I always wondered this, what is a drawing room? It's not for people to actually draw there.

No, no. In ordinary houses, it's like a living room. But a drawing room is probably a little bit more formal, so you'd have living rooms or drawing rooms. So, some would be for guests, some would just be for the family themselves.

I don't know if I remember this correctly, when I first visited Buckingham Palace, there's a drawing room there.

Yeah.

So that is a very typical thing for those huge like palaces or huge houses.

Exactly. So you have different types of drawing rooms. So, some were more formal, some were a little bit less formal.

But it's the living space.

It's the living space.

就跟我们的客厅一样, 只不过是 much much bigger.

Yeah. In big houses, in the UK now, you might see we don't call them drawing rooms anymore, but you might see there's like a guest living room where if people come to visit your home, you might entertain them in there.

But normally at the back or in another room, there’s a room where you would spend time just as a family.

I see. I see. I'm sure there's like the normal the usual dining room.

Dining room, libraries, studies, a gallery for art as well.

Yes, because they would collect pieces, wouldn’t they?

Yeah. Of course, there will be servant quarters as well.

Servant quarters which is usually the downstairs part.

Yeah. It's the bedrooms for the servants.

Umm, 就这种upstairs, downstairs.

Exactly.

我们之前聊到过的就是在英国那种老的大宅子里面, 等级森严的, 有所谓的楼上楼下upstairs, downstairs, upstairs for the lord and lady.

And downstairs for the servants. Apart from that there would normally be huge gardens, land for farming, as well as conservatories and something called an orangery.

Actually, just put orangery aside, which is a word I've never heard until this topic. Even conservatories, I think it's difficult for a lot of people to understand, or I don't think they've heard about this before. I only got to know the word conservatory when I was looking at the house listing, the real estate listings in the UK. Conservatory, 如果你是在英国租房或者买房的话, 你就会经常看到这个词, 就what is a conservatory?

A conservatory is almost like a type of greenhouse. It's a room that is part of the garden. So, it's normally mostly glass. People would have plants in there, people would sit in there, particularly if it's not a very nice day. So it's like being in the garden, but without being cold and wet.

所以就有点像半温室, 但有点半阳光房的那种感觉。

There are places for people who sit and enjoy the garden.

Exactly, when it's a bit too cold to enjoy the garden.

Yeah. What is an orangery? Is not a place just for oranges, is it?

It is.

Okay.

Well. Oranges and lemons. So, you have to think in the 17th 18th century oranges, pineapples, lemons were incredibly expensive. So some rich people, what they used to do was create an orangery. So, they could grow this type of fruit that comes from Italy and other hotter places.

So they need a greenhouse for that sort of thing.

Yeah. Exactly. And it used to be part of the decoration.

Interesting, little bit of the tropical paradise that you guys were like aspiring to have.

Exactly. You have to think that most of these rich people, they would travel to Italy and France when they were young, and they used to bring things back.

Yeah, I can totally see the charm of that. So that's about the anatomy of the house itself.

Now let's talk about the servant quarter. Let's talk about all these roles that they fulfill. If you remember Downtown Abbey, you're going to hear a lot of the words that you saw or you heard in that particular TV series.

Yeah. So there's lots lots of different jobs. Let's start first of all, with the housekeeper.

Housekeeper is usually a woman.

It’s normally a woman. And she's in charge of the households, domestic operations, including managing staff, organizing meals and maintaining the cleanliness of the house.

Basically, the head of female servants essentially. Well, in that, I forgot the name, because it's been so long since I watched it, but she never married.

No.

She was just devoting her entire life to Downtown Abbey.

Yeah.

So, imagine her as the chief of operations.

Yeah. 就是运营主管, 对。

There is a male position that is the head which is called the butler.

Yes. Now the butler manages the dining room, the wine cellar, and he's in charge of the footman and other servants.

所以刚才的housekeeper是女管家, butler是男管家.

Yeah.

You said butler is someone who's in charge of the footman and other servants. Footman is like a lower grade of servants, isn't it?

They are assistants in serving meals and looking after guests. So footmen were normally dressed a little bit more smartly than other members of the household. They would be given much of the brighter uniforms they were expected to stand out.

Yeah, they were kind of like the face of the servants.

Yeah. So, they would be in the dining room and they will be serving food.

They’ll be serving food. I see. I see.

And then there's the cook.

Yes.

So you have the cook who's in charge of preparing meals for the household and managing the kitchen staff.

And they are also in charge of kitchen maids.

Yes, so maids are responsible for cleaning, laundry and helping with cooking.

But what about those servants? You know, they are so so so so close to the lord and lady. They help them get dressed and all of that the very, very personal needs.

So for the lady of the house that would be the…

Lady’s maid.

Lady’s maid. Yeah. And for the master of the house, they would have a valet or valet.

Do you pronounce it as [?v?le?] or [?v?l?t]?

I've heard both.

就是现在代客停车, 就是好的餐馆门口有代客停车那个事, 那个是valet parking。就是用这个词来的, valet is someone who is responsible for the master's clothes and personal needs.

Yeah.

就是男主人的贴身男仆叫做valet, 然后女主人的贴身女仆叫做lady’s maid.

So you have to think that those particular servants were incredibly close to the lord or lady of the house.

Yeah.

They would be granted access to the bedroom and they would spend a lot of time.

They also know all the secrets, all the dirty secrets.

They were, exactly, they're almost like personal assistants.

对, 就是有点像现在的那种私人助理的感觉。It's not just like a保姆, it’s more than that.

Yeah.

It’s their confidant basically.

In some cases.

In some cases. Yeah and what else? I believe there is something what about you know those teachers like a tutor they hire to teach their kids?

Well. They would have a governess.

Oh, yes, that's the word, a governess.

I first learned this word from Sherlock Holmes. Governess就是家庭教师.叫governess, 因为当时都是女的教师, 很少会让男老师住进来,我觉得。

Well, yeah, pretty much for the men it will be a tutor, but by the time that they actually need a tutor, they probably have gone to school already, but women were educated within the house.

They were educated at home. So obviously they needed a female teacher, just the governess.

So nowadays if you want to talk about hiring a tutor for your kid, you look up in dictionary, please don't choose the word governess. Because if you say, “I have a governess for my kids”, people would think you live in manor houses and have multiple servants.

You don't say governess anymore. We would say maybe a live-in tutor.

对。这个也是住在他们家的, 对吧? 就是governess. They will be live-in tutors and then they usually are really well educated. They speak multiple languages, they’re great piano players and …

Yeah. They wouldn't be teaching things like math or science. They'll be teaching things like language. So, maybe for example, French and German. They'll also be teaching things like needlework and how to play music.

And what else? I remember they used to go hunting.

So manor houses, as I said before, usually have a lot of land with them. And the man responsible for the land is called the gamekeeper.

Game as in playing games?

Game as in meat.

哦, 对的, 就是打的野味, 也叫做game。So gamekeeper, basically the animal keeper.

Yeah. So they were responsible for hunting, managing the animal populations, making sure that there are enough animals on the estate and also protecting the estate’s wildlife as well.

It’s kind of like the head of a private zoo so to speak like a zoo keeper.

Yeah, pretty much and in some cases these big houses still have gamekeepers, but now that people obviously don't go hunting anymore. They're more sort of environmentally focused. They more focus on maintaining the biodiversity of these big houses, because you have to think they come with a lot of land. So there's a lot of animals and protected species that live on these estates.

And I bet some of these estates are no longer private. It's probably now belonging to some National Trust.

Exactly, so many surviving country houses are now used as either hotels or museums. In some cases, they've even be made into zoos.

This is what I've heard. Actually, the one, the house in Downtown Abbey is now actually I believe a hotel or a museum.

It is a museum. The house used in downtown Abbey I believe is in National Trust. So National Trust is a charity responsible for preserving historic buildings and areas of natural beauty.

So in some cases, they just own the entire house, enough cases they own part of the house, and the lord and lady just live in a very small part of it.

They had to downsize.

Pretty much.

他们也消费降级。

So, lots of these people what they do is they don't live in the big country house itself. They normally live in a smaller house on the estate.

Because it's going to be exorbitant to keep those houses. And as we know, the lords and ladies, they do not really work for a living. Most of their income is just from these estates.

Yeah, so sometimes you can even rent them out for private parties.

I believe there will be popular for some sort of special occasions like weddings.

Yeah. You can actually rent some of these country houses for weddings. They are expensive but if you got the money.

Yeah.

So next time if you have a chance to go to the UK, check out some of these manor houses, maybe you can even stay in those ones that were converted into hotels or at least go for a visit in those ones that were converted into museums, like the Downtown Abbey house. And on that note we're gonna wrap up here. Leave us comment in a comment section. Tell us what you think about this episode about manor houses in general, or if you're just a Downton Abbey fan, or if you have any request that you want us to talk about in this segment “Britain Under a Microscope”, let us know. Thank you 安澜 for coming to the show.

Thanks, Lulu. Thanks, everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.