Servants

Our Upstairs Downstairs display tells the stories of some of the people who found employment as servants locally, either as domestic servants or as garden or estate workers.

Many middle-class households employed a general servant, as there was a ready supply of people who would work for low wages.

Wealthier families employed a variety of indoor and outdoor servants, as this photo of Thornbury Castle staff in 1882 shows. Our display gives the names of everyone here.

There are some instances of local servants who stayed with the same family all their working lives and their gravestones testify to that.