Copyright @Jane Austen’s World. Written by Tony Grant, London Calling.
2010 Upstairs Downstairs cast
Last night, Tuesday 27th December, saw the final episode of the three-part revival of Upstairs Downstairs (2010). It was shown on BBC 1. This new reincarnation saw the action move on in time, from the final years portrayed in the original series, to the years between the two World Wars.
Front door. Image @Tony Grant
Upstairs Down stairs was the idea of two actress friends, Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins. Eileen Atkins was not able to take part in the original series because of acting commitments in the West End at the time. In this new version she plays the part of Lady Agnes, the dowager head of the household. Jean Marsh reprises her role as Rose from the original series. Now she has become the head of a servants letting agency.
Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh in Upstairs Downstairs 2010
The series portrays the lives of people from two different strata of society, the servants and the aristocracy. One of the main themes reveals how these two social groups are closely entwined and rely on each other. It is interesting to note the period, between the two wars, when the action takes place in this new series was the time when the relationship between the classes and indeed the classes themselves changed. One class serving another class that intimately was near its end. A new world was being born out of the necessities of war.
Harrods truck
My own roots lie with the working and servant classes of that era. My Great Aunt Kate, my Great Grandmothers sister, worked as a nanny for the Chamberlain family and lived in a flat in one of the Chamberlain family houses in Cheney Walk, Chelsea. Neville Chamberlain was the prime minister at the start of the second world war. Neville Chamberlain himself lived in a house in Eaton Square, the main square in Belgravia.
Transformation of Clarendon Square in Leamington Spa for Upstairs Downstairs 2010
My grandfather, on my father’s side, had been a guardsman fighting in France during the First World War. After the First World War he became the head barman of the Cunard Line, serving the famous and the elite on the transatlantic ships crossing to New York in the interwar years. My other grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a skilled draughtsman and worked in shipyards on the Tyne River in Newcastle upon Tyne and later, because of the depression, moved south to work in a shipyard in Southampton.
Belgravia and park. Image @Tony Grant
The action to Upstairs Downstairs is set in a house in Belgravia, number 165 Eaton Place.
West side of Belgrave Square, 1828. Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.
Belgravia, is the most salubrious address in the United Kingdom and one of the top addresses in the world to this day. The Duke of Westminster owns the land and many of the freeholds and leaseholds on the property in Belgravia. In the 1820’s the then Duke of Westminster, Richard Grosvenor, had as one of his titles, Viscount Belgrave, and it was this name he gave to the area.
Belgravia House. Image @Tony Grant
To the north is Buckingham Palace but to the east side is Victoria Railway Station with it’s grand railway hotel looking like an old French Chateaux. This symbol of steam and industrialisation represented the Victorians desire to see and conquer the world. From here the boat trains would leave London for the ferries at Dover and Folkestone and the route to Europe. Many of the rich who lived nearby in Belgravia would leave London on the Orient Express for Paris, Rome, Athens, and Istanbul, and take tours to The East. Victoria Station is a symbol of the growing desire for travel and to see the world. The Belgravia set got there first.
St. Peters, Eaton Square, Belgravia. 1827.
The Duke of Westminster employed Thomas Cubitt – who built mostly grand terraces with white stuccoed fronts – to develop the area. Construction was focused around Belgrave Square and Eaton Square.
Thomas Cubbitt, 1788-1855
From the start the super rich and the aristocracy bought properties in this area and used the land for their town houses. This part of London has remained exclusive to this day. The Queen lives in Buckingham Palace bordering the north part of Belgravia; and Roman Abramovich, the Russian oil oligarch, has a property in Lowndes Square. He is the owner of Chelsea Football Club and one the richest men in the world. The average price of a property in Belgravia today is £6.6 million pounds. But prices going up to and above £100 million pounds have been known. Apart from the very rich, many famous actors, film stars, writers and politicians have lived and still choose to live in this area.
Image @Tony Grant
Margaret Thatcher lives in Chester Square and Joan Collins lives in Eaton Place. Elle MacPherson, the model; Arcelor Mittal, the Indian Steal producer magnet; and Christopher Lee, the horror film star, all live in Belgravia.
Dame Edith Evans' house in Belgravia. Image @Tony Grant
In the past, both Mozart and Chopin stayed there. Other more recent tenants include: Dame Edith Evans;Vivien Leigh; Ian Flemming, the writer of the James Bond books and, indeed, Sean Connery himself; Roger Moore; Tennyson, the poet; Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein; Noel Coward; Henry Gray, famous for his Grays Anatomy; the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein – the list could go on.
Dress shop in Belgravia. Image @Tony Grant
After the Second World War many of the houses in Belgravia became embassies, company offices or the headquarters of charities, and the number of houses owned by a single family reduced. However, since the year 2000 many houses are now being converted back into family homes, a visible sign that the number of rich in the world has increased.
Mews houses in Belgravia. Image @Tony Grant
Mews houses sit behind the great terraced houses fronting the squares. When the properties were originally built in the 1820s, these were the stables that once housed the horses and carriages used by the rich for transport. As cars became fashionable, the mews were turned into garages. Nowadays many have been converted into very desirable homes. To own a mews house in Belgravia is nearly as posh as owning one of the grand terrace houses.
Belgravia through the trees. Image @Tony Grant
The area has not changed much since it was developed in the 1820’s. Except for modern transportation, the streets and house exteriors are the same.
Leamington Spa street transformed for Upstairs Downstairs 2010. Image @BBC
As you walk around Belgravia today, try and imagine the area as it was in the 1820’s. In your mind’s eye, you can still imagine the servants disappearing down the stone stairs behind the black ornate iron railings into the basements. You might be lucky enough to glimpse a Lord or Lady, or even Margaret Thatcher mounting the steps to her front door and seeing it opened by a starch-collared butler. Pick a door yourself, take the large black, iron hoop suspended from the jaws of an angry looking iron lion’s head, rap it smartly, and the door might be opened by Mr. Hudson himself.
Mr. Hudson, 1970s series
Upstairs Downstairs 2010 will be aired on PBS Masterpiece Classic in April, 2011. It was recently aired on BBC One in the U.K.
Jane Austen's World 
I have learned that if Tony Grant is posting it’s going to be really interesting. Thanks for all of the info and the pictures.
Tony, thanks for the glimpses into Belgravia! It makes it all the more interesting to watch the show when you’ve got a personal connection to the area and to the people who used to work as servants in these grand houses.
A very interesting post. I think I will revisit my DVD collection of what I think is arguably one of the finest programs ever produced. It was so well-written and acted that one had a real window into a significant time in history.
I have watched the new series (which has been posted on YouTube) and am sorry to say I am disappointed. While relations between upstairs and downstairs did change after WWI, I don’t think (according to my reading) that things were as “chummy” as portrayed in the show.
It’s sad to see beloved Mrs. Bridges – who had a fierce, motherly love for everyone “up and down”, replaced by a chain-smoking cook who wears red lipstick on the job and seems to have no more interest in anyone other than as a wisecracking observer. So far I have observed her stirring a bowl here and there but otherwise the food seems to emerge from within the bowels of a pristine kitchen in which the staff stands and chats most of the time.
We don’t see the struggles of the maids and footmen – who, though somewhat less constrained during the pre-WWII period, still performed backbreaking work and did not hobnob with the upstairs folk. In this version, they do a lot of standing around and talking, interrupting and glaring, sniping and whining…no loving or dreaming or yearning….their main concern is sex. We have the tired cliche of the spoiled, rebellious younger sister getting it on with the chauffeur – yawn.
Drama upstairs meanwhile focuses on the meddling mother-in-law, which seems trite when one considers all of the other possible issues these characters could be involved in. The lack of basic respect these people show one another is disconcerting and, in my opinion, highly unlikely in a family of this social standing during that period of history. While it’s true that social lines became more blurred during the 1920’s, there were still basic rules and guidelines to follow, and not everybody was a rebel. Even the way they slouch around the table is ridiculous.
But my biggest disappointment is in the deconstruction of Rose Buck. Beloved Rose – who became almost an icon as the hard-working, dedicated, respectful, sacrificing, caring, compassionate, woman….born into the servant class, proud of her work and protective of her employers, longing to be independent while loving her up and down family…..has been reduced to HEAD HOUSEKEEPER. Just a job. No reference to the struggles, hopes, disappointments and rich experiences of which she was the pivotal point. She simply appears, takes over and rushes here and there with a snarl here and a snarky comment there, shrugging off everything like: WHAT-EVER.
As with a lot of the current re-makes of period classics which were so richly produced in the 1970’s, this program is an amalgamation of a smattering of history trivia with lavish costumes, a pronounced favoritism toward political ethics at the expense of the truth – which was the gradual disintegration of moral values for SOME PEOPLE during that era. Even the interiors look art-deco, which is highly unlikely in a town house of Belgravia owned by a member of The Foreign Office.
Mr. Hudson would be seriously dispeased.
Karen, the reviews are out and many agree with you: the new Upstairs Downstairs does not measure up to the original series.
Your comments, plus Tony’s below, makes me quite eager to see the series.
I can’t wait. Vic
Tony, love the photos, especially “Belgravia through the trees.” I’m so looking forward to seeing this in April.
Merry Christmas Vic and blessings to you and your family in the New Year!
I’m really looking forward to this series! January always means at least 6 months of wonderful Sunday nights on PBS! I lurve it!
Thank you all for your lovely comments.
That is a great review of the new series, Karen.
As you can tell I didn’t intend to write a review but rather set Belgravia and it’s meaning into context.
However, Karen I feel I must disagree with you on a couple of points. The 1920’s in London was a vibrant time. The Bloomsbury Group with Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West were in full flow. New ideas in art, psychiatry and relationships generally were being experimented with. Vita Sackville West and Virginia Woolf were trying out lesbian relationships. Freud was developing psychoanalisis in Vienna and later in London when he arrived here in the 1930’s. The politicians and the top civil servants of the time were hob nobbing with these people. Harold Nicholson, a foreign office minister, was Vita Sackville Wests husband.He was bisexual himself .He knew the Bloomsbury set well. I’m sure Harold’s and Vita’s house in Belgravia, that is where they had a home, was influenced in it’s decoration by the new ideas. I think it very possible the new ideas could be taken on by the new inhabitants of 165 Eaton Place.
In the final episode of the new three part Upstairs Downstairs, Lady Agnes whisks their ward off to a clinic for psychiatric treatment and a forgotten member of the family is discovered who happens to be downs syndrome.The possibility of Freud’s ideas being implemented , the new ideas in art and relationships are all introduced in this new version. They are very much up with the times. ( The 1920’s that is.)
I think it would be retrograde and a death knell to the new series if the downstairs lot had focussed on the intricacies of preparing meals, no matter how interesting that might be. Red lipstick!!!! And why not?
I thought it was quite good that Rose had become a business woman in her own right. The suffragettes would have been proud.
Vic, I have not read the reviews you refer to,
“Karen, the reviews are out and many agree with you: the new Upstairs Downstairs does not measure up to the original series.”
I think time will tell if the critical reviews are a case of the new version not having the same emphasis as the previous series. A copy of what went before could never work. People are going to have to refocus and look at this series for what it is, not what they remember the last series being.
This new series has some excellent acting. Eileen Atkins is one superb actress and she shows her full talents in these three episodes. There are some very intriguing plot threads that fit the 1920’s brilliantly, that are there, ripe for development in further episodes when a full series is made.
Tony, Your positive comments and assessment of this Upstairs Downstairs has me salivating to see the new series. I have only read two reviews by critics, and the comments that readers left below them are all over the place.
But how can any series miss with such a sterling cast? As you say, Eileen Atkins is superb and I love the idea that Rose now owns her own agency!
We viewers in the US have to wait until April to view this series. Bummer.
Thank you for this special peek at Belgravia. Happy New Year!! Vic
Thank you for a very interesting post and wonderful pictures! I remember watching the original Upstairs Downstairs when it first came on PBS and enjoying it very much. I’m looking forward to this new series.
Thank you for informing us about it..
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[…] Upstairs Downstairs: Belgravia and the Rich and the Servant Classes […]
[“But my biggest disappointment is in the deconstruction of Rose Buck. Beloved Rose – who became almost an icon as the hard-working, dedicated, respectful, sacrificing, caring, compassionate, woman….born into the servant class, proud of her work and protective of her employers, longing to be independent while loving her up and down family…..has been reduced to HEAD HOUSEKEEPER. Just a job. No reference to the struggles, hopes, disappointments and rich experiences of which she was the pivotal point. She simply appears, takes over and rushes here and there with a snarl here and a snarky comment there, shrugging off everything like: WHAT-EVER.”]
HUH? That is not what I saw.
Had Mr Grant’s grammar, orthography and syntax been on par with his knowledge about the history of Belgravia, this would have been an excellent read.
Also, there is a slight but unmistakable whiff of social envy to the article. Pity.
Arta B, I have no social envy. I’m describing things from my social view point.I don’t imagine my writing is perfect by any means. I enjoy having a go.
You, however, are just rude.
I support you on this, Tony. Why the grammar police think they can be rude in public to a complete stranger mystifies me. I think such a crass social faux pas is worse than a stylistic mistake or two.
In addition, I can spot social envy from outer space – your article fails the whiff test.
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