Highclere Castle : Secrets and Lies

                       Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey        By Fiona Carnarvon    Hodder & Stoughton (2011) A REVIEW OF THE ABOVE BOOK BY WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT  We should know our betters :  know that the toffs will not ever be transparent.  They will only tell you what they want you to know and to minimise the scandal they will painfully minimise the accuracy.  The book does have an attractive front cover but it’s the content that counts.  It’s all another instance of Herbert history repeating itself.  There is already a less than honourable pile up of Carnarvon-family scribes who put their heavy-handed gloss on the accuracy regarding past members of the clan.  Elsie, the second  4th Countess of Carnarvon, rigorously controlled and censored the posthumous biography of Henry, the 4th Earl of Carnarvon, a notable Victorian politician ...

    The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon  A candid biography of Almina, 5th Countess of  Carnarvon  of Tutankhamun Fame (1876-1969)    By William Cross, FSA Scot   Today, 14 April 2026, is the 150 th anniversary of the birth of Almina, Victoria, Marie, Alexandra Wombwell, later 5 th Countess of Carnarvon, chatelaine for almost 30 years of Highclere Castle, famous as the backdrop to film and TV’s Downton Abbey. The book “ The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon” is a full length, remarkably candid, biography of  this lady, the widow of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, co-discoverer with Howard Carter of the great Tomb of Tutakhamun, in 1922. Written chronologically in time scale straddling Almina's nine tumultuous  decades of life, from the 1870s, until the 1960s, the book is based on a close study of newspapers, letters, diaries, testimonials, and references to the Countess, and her circle in s...