Fiona, Lady Carnarvon, is planting a garden of blue geraniums and white lupins in memory of her ‘extraordinary’ late mother-in-law Jeanie, Countess of Carnarvon, who was one of the Queen’s dearest friends.
‘She loved pastel colours so I’m going to do a white Rosa rugosa edging because of the scent and also because the deer don’t like them. It’s got to be practical,’ she says in her part affectionate, part no-nonsense way.
‘There’ll be three shrubs. Geordie [Fiona’s husband George Herbert, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon] and I planted one of them together – a smoke bush called ‘Golden Spirit’, because I thought it’s a lovely autumnal plant and I like the name because it just reminds me of her.’
Lord Carnarvon has joined us in Highclere Castle’s spectacular grounds, familiar to millions as the setting for Downton Abbey, for a rare interview. His mother Jeanie, the American widow of the 7th Earl of Carnarvon, died in April 2019.
Lady Carnarvon, 56, and Lord Carnarvon, 64, (pictured) turned to gardening when Highclere Castle had to close during lockdown
‘My mum always loved the autumns in the mountains in Wyoming [her home state],’ he explains. ‘My father [who died of a heart attack on 11 September 2001, the day of the Twin Towers terrorist atrocity] had begun a little arboretum over there.’
He points to trees beyond the wild flower meadow.
‘We’ve done more work on the other side of it in memory of my mum. Even at my age, when you lose your other parent and you haven’t got someone to talk to like that any more, it’s a change in life – a loss.’
Lord Carnarvon, 64, is a stay-positive-and-keep-pushing-on sort of man. You have to be when you have a vast castle, a thousand acres of parkland and a further 4,500 acres of farmland, downland and woodland to stay on top of. There are memories of his spirited mother throughout this remarkable place.
Take the time she issued orders to a Downton Abbey set hand as he moved an invaluable antique chair. ‘You lift a girl in your arms and a chair by its bottom,’ she instructed.
Back in May the cast and crew of the period drama returned to Highclere to film a sequel to the Downton Abbey movie. Hugh Bonneville, who plays Crawley family patriarch Lord Grantham, took up residence in the castle throughout the shoot.
‘We had one hysterical dinner when we had Lord Carnarvon and Lord Grantham at the same table,’ says Lady C, as her lovely ‘team’ of staff call her.
Lord Carnarvon is Lord C. Neither of them seems to mind.
‘I look back at that surreal moment every so often. It was quite funny, but Hugh is charming. His wife is lovely too. His son Felix was here as and when needed to drive him to and fro.’
Lady Carnarvon shares her love for the soil in a new book featuring recipes, secret gardens and flower beds planted as memorials. Pictured: Lady Carnarvon in the garden at Highclere
Lord C continues, ‘Obviously my mum didn’t know about Covid. I thought about her a lot during that filming period and I thought it would have been so tough for her because she’d have wanted to say hello, but she’d have been very nervous about people coming here.’
Later Lady C, 56, walks me barefoot through the gardens. We’re here because she has shared her love for the soil in a beautifully illustrated new book, Seasons At Highclere: Gardening, Growing And Cooking Through The Year At The Real Downton Abbey.
A gifted cook, she shares numerous recipes – from an irresistible roast beef salad to Lord C’s favourite cocktail His Lordship, which you can find at the back of this magazine – and writes with infectious enthusiasm about secret gardens, follies, ancient ash trees, wildflower meadows and the flower beds planted in memory of those who have walked before her.
Working with the soil rebalances your soul
‘I think of my mum and dad in some of what I plant,’ says Lady C, whose father Ronnie died in 1993, six years before her mother Frances.
‘The rose aisle was in memory of Mum. It’s a lovely way of trying to understand how we go through life with our parents and friends, that they leave us while we’re still here and how we cope with that.
‘It’s a way of stepping forward out of memories that trouble you and into memories that make you smile.’
Lady Carnarvon said she and Geordie would focus on gardening when they felt tired and low. Pictured: Lady C mucking in with the gardening
She stands still for a moment in the scented garden with her bare feet in the cool grass.
‘In a sense my book has come out of this: of treading lightly on this earth, of standing and staring. Last winter I was turning round the idea of the cycles of the year here – of growing and cooking.
‘I’ve done so much research, reading books on the trees I love and going for walks, but it’s the standing and staring I love. Geordie and I are so lucky.’
GROWING UP WITH THE QUEEN
Jeanie, Lord Carnarvon’s mother who died in 2019, was the stuff of which period dramas are made. The daughter of an American heiress who died when she was just eight years old, she met Geordie’s father Henry, the 7th Earl of Carnarvon known as Porchie, at a cousin’s house and married him in 1956.
They raised three children in Highclere’s Milford Lake House, where the Queen and Prince Philip were regular guests.
The Queen with Geordie’s parents at his christening in 1956
Indeed, they were such dear friends that the Queen, who is Geordie’s godmother, attended Jeanie’s funeral.
‘She hardly ever goes to friends’ funerals so that was rare,’ says Lord Carnarvon.
‘She has always been a very kind, warm person to me. She’s always very easy to talk to and understanding of whatever’s going on.
‘I have extraordinary memories growing up because of this amazing friendship the Queen and Prince Philip had with my parents from when they were young. They had a shared love of thoroughbred horses [Porchie was the Queen’s racing manager] and the countryside.
‘Of course, Prince Philip was an extraordinary proponent of the countryside and farming, just like Prince Charles is. So I was lucky enough to have been with them as a boy when they came to visit. It was an amazing time.’
Indeed, Lord and Lady C are very much a team. During lockdown, with a reduced staff, they worked all hours maintaining the castle and grounds into which they have put their hearts and souls for most of their married life.
There was also the ‘massive stress’ of contacting the 30,000 visitors who’d booked tickets to a stately home that couldn’t open and upon whom their livelihoods depend.
‘There were definitely down periods but as long as we weren’t down at the same time that was the key,’ says Lady C, who was not too grand to pick up a Hoover and muck in.
‘Everything had been stripped away from us, everything that makes us people, our ability to see people, talk to people, eat with people, drink with people, laugh with people, be together. I haven’t seen my sisters [she has five] since March 2020.
‘Gardening has been a huge help. Often, if Geordie and I were both feeling tired and low, we would take our gardening gloves and our forks and the dogs [they have eight] and spend two or three hours weeding or planting irises.
‘It’s much better, rather than sitting and worrying. Working with the soil helps rebalance your soul and imagination.
‘I realised in lockdown how much I do love Geordie,’ she says. ‘And I hope he’s still in love with me.’ She laughs in a way that tells you she jolly well knows he is. ‘That’s at the centre of everything.’
The couple met in 1996, two years after Lord C’s first marriage to Jayne, the mother of his two eldest children Lord Porchester and Lady Saoirse had broken down. ‘We met by chance at a historic house dinner and ended up talking about poetry. I got you that book of First World War poetry,’ Lord C says.
‘He got it cheap at a Christmas fayre, which was so Geordie,’ she laughs. ‘Later on he was far too honest and said, “Oh it was only 50p or something.” It’s not about money. It was the thought. I’ve still got it.’ She wrote a thank-you note and they soon began seeing each other.
‘When he came round to take me on a first date I was late, naturally, so I said to my mother, “There’s this chap who’s coming to take me out. Can you please look after him?”’ recalls Lady C.
‘She said, “Oh darling, for goodness sake, I’m about to watch EastEnders. Don’t be long or I’ll miss it.” So Geordie went into the drawing room with my mother while I was freshening up. When I came in she’d poured him a corker of a gin and tonic.’
‘There was a spaniel who was being very firm with me,’ says Lord C.
Lady C laughs. ‘So he had to sit on a chair like this.’ She pulls herself up rigid in her chair to demonstrate.
Lady Carnarvon (pictured), who met Geordie in 1996, said her mother adored him and she’s unsure why she hesitated when he eventually proposed
‘It looked like he was a young man on his first-ever date being interviewed by a mother – and a spaniel. But my mother adored him. He came and stayed with us in Cornwall [where one of her sisters lives], which was quite a thing.
‘You know, meet one sister and get five for free. He ended up dancing on the table between the candles. My sisters thought it was quite fun. But it’s always a test, isn’t it, seeing a different side to people?’
But when Lord C eventually proposed, she hesitated.
‘He had two small children, so I just… it was lovely to be asked to marry but I wanted to make sure. I don’t know why I did think about it actually, probably just to make him wait.’ She laughs. ‘I’ve always been late for most things.’
As it was, the first years after their marriage in February 1999 were tumultuous. Lady C’s mother died of ovarian cancer when she was pregnant with their son Edward, who was born that October.
Two years later Lord C’s father died suddenly. The 7th Earl was ‘77 years young’ and they thought he’d live for years.
Lady Carnarvon (pictured) said lockdown has been a ‘huge reset button’, making you realise how luck you are
‘It was quite a somersault into life here,’ says Lady C. ‘We lived partly in London and partly here and, in all honesty, I hadn’t cast my mind forward beyond living in each day.
‘Then Geordie came back from the hospital. I just saw his face and knew what had happened. Then it’s personal grief – the loss of somebody you spoke to, had supper with. We’d gone for a walk only the day before.’
‘It was this sudden void really,’ says Lord C. ‘But he would expect us to get on with it and make the best job we could. We said that, didn’t we?’ He looks at his wife.
‘Sometimes I think your father would have thoroughly enjoyed Downton,’ she says. ‘He would have been smiling.’
‘He’d like the theatre and showbiz,’ Lord C agrees.
‘I can still see Geordie’s father coming round the corner saying, “Hello darling!”,’ says Lady C.
‘Lockdown has been a huge reset button but I feel we’re all sort of happier understanding that there is a huge value in standing and staring. That’s when you ask yourself these questions about life and those you love. That’s when you realise how lucky you are.’