Free Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey by Emma Rowley

outfits.
    In reality, this location is miles away from Yorkshire. Hoxton Hall, a nineteenth-century dance hall located in East London’s Hackney, was chosen for its period columns, flooring and fire mantels. The exterior was filmed at historic dockyards in Chatham, Kent.
    The high-society version of such a club would have been rather different, as scenes at the Lotus Club, frequented by the Crawleys, show overleaf. The location for that venue was the sumptuous ballroom of the Savile Club, a gentleman’s club in London’s ritzy Mayfair. Still, Rose is happy to be at either venue; at heart the attractions are the same: music and dancing.

    SECRET TREASURES
    Filming inside London’s Savile Club, in its spectacular ballroom, has the advantage of offering a visual freshness to the audience as it will be unfamiliar to most viewers. ‘The room is not very recognisable as a location on television, because it doesn’t get used for that purpose very much, but it is a beautiful, totally unique space,’ says Gareth Neame.

    SPLIT LOYALTIES
    Shooting at the Savile meant split loyalties for Neame, who is a member of the club. Asked by ‘Sparky’ Ellis if he could get a discount on the filming fees, the producer had to weigh up his keenness to get a good deal for his show against his desire for his club to get its dues. ‘I said, “I’m going to duck out of this. I’m not getting involved either way!”’

    ‘The Savile Club is a beautiful building that’s been kept true to its original designs. The club has been at the same location since the 1920s and its elegance remains intact. The members are rightly proud of their building, so to be able to show it off is really pleasing.’
    Gareth Neame
    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Inside the Prop Store

PROPS
The Details that Make the Scenes
    Downton Abbey
demands an enormous number of props to dress the sets and create the feel of the 1920s. But while the Abbey may be modernising – slowly – the props team are not replacing the old with the new.
    ‘With design, there is one school of thought that says that if a show is set in 1922, there should be nothing in the house from before that date. It creates a look like the set of some Bertie Wooster musical, whereas real life isn’t like that,’ says Julian Fellowes. ‘You also have all the things in a house that the family already posess.’ So when the props team bring in items to dress the rooms at Highclere, for example, they may add pieces of art or furniture that look as if they were acquired by its residents decades, if not centuries, ago to give a sense of heritage.
    ‘It’s not just about dressing the homes of the rich, but getting good character dressing into the poorer environments, too.’
    Gina Cromwell
    Set Decorator
    A set may demand more contemporary items – for example in Gregson’s London flat the art department are conscious that they need to place the location precisely within its time.
    By 1925 the term Art Deco had been coined, and by 1928 the building of the iconic Chrysler Building – the pinnacle of that design movement – had begun in New York. But in series four, all this is yet to come. ‘With her costumes, Caroline [McCall] is ahead of us in terms of design,’ says Donal Woods, the production designer. ‘After the war nothing really happened until 1925, when the French exhibition in Paris marked the explosion of Art Deco. Fashion was taking off, but in terms of furniture, design, colours, wallpapers and fabrics it was pretty staid from 1914. We are slowly edging towards a slightly brighter world, but it’s a gradual process.’
    The key people working for Woods in the props team are the set decorator Gina Cromwell, who is responsible for the detail on set, and the buyer, Sue Morrison, who obtains the necessary items. In terms of sourcing period props, many items are bought, as they are used repeatedly, and kept in the department’s vast garage-like store at Ealing. Traditional and antique markets at