Above & Below Stairs

Georgian Magnificence

The ability to employ a large staff was a key status symbol - as was being able to pay and support them well. We know that the servants here received excellent medical care, receiving visits from the family's own physicians. These visits can still be glimpsed in the bills within the Foundation's archives.

Changing fashions were also increasing the gap between servants and their employers, however. William Constable commissioned Brown to redesign the South Courtyard as a servant area, where the cooking, laundry and brewing could be done.

In 1769 William's sister Winifred was managing a household of 60. Wages cost £450 a year - £39,000 today. £200 of this went towards the extravagance of a male cook, with William Constable writing to his steward that "Women cooks, if good, [are] as conceited as men, equally extravagant, more troublesome”.

Today, the huge kitchen needed to feed family and staff is in the modern family's private quarters - a curious twist of fate.

Birth of the Burton Constable Foundation

 In 1992, John Raleigh Chichester Constable was forced to admit that the costs of maintaining the Hall and its parkland while conserving its historic furnishings were impossible for one family to manage. It was a hard decision to make - John had previously managed local band The Hullaballoos, hosted rock concerts and hovercraft races and held country fairs among many other activities in an effort to maintain the Hall and keep it within the family's care!

The estate passed through the National Heritage Memorial Fund to the Burton Constable Foundation who have run it ever since as a charitable concern. This would not have been possible without generous support from organisations such as the National Lottery, Association of Independent Museums and Museum Development Yorkshire, who would not be able to support a private property.

Today, the family lease the South Wing of the Hall and support the Charitable foundation as part of the board of Trustees.