How to Host a Downton Dinner

The etiquette of dining at Downton Abbey is a mixture of experience, written guidance, and the needs of shooting a fast-paced drama. Every country house had slightly different habits, but the general outline was the same, and a solid knowledge of how to behave at dinner was drummed into children as soon as they were old enough to eat at a table. Aristocratic dining was invariably slightly at odds with the middle-class rules laid out in etiquette books, and was in a state of constant flux to keep it exclusive to those brought up to it. As one commentator put it, “a manual of etiquette in the possession of a diner is virtually a pièce de conviction.”