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Life After Downton: How to Get Our Period Fix


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I just saw the Downton Abbey Exhibition in Palm Beach.  The Costumes & jewelry are amazing!  Being able to see the gowns close up I could appreciate the detail & beautiful fabrics & lace....I thought of the actresses wearing these beautiful gowns & how it would immediately make you feel like a "princess" when putting on such a beautiful piece.  They had Mrs. Patmore's kitchen set up, and the Downstairs area with the bells, and then the beautiful dining table all set.  We used the audio guides and they had the actors commenting on scenes and such.  And at the end they showed a clip from the show & Lord & Lady Grantham & Carson & Mrs. Hughes thanking us for coming to visit.  And there is a fun video game where you answer questions about applying for a job:  My answers told me I would be a Cook like Mrs. Patmore 🙂  and my Husband got Valet 🙂  I really enjoyed seeing the exhibit & now am even more excited about the movie

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Downton Abbey is set in the 1910s-1920s, in Yorkshire (though not actually filmed there), and a return journey to London in the same day would have been possible in that era. 

The exact location of Downton is not given in the series but it is implied to be close to York, and therefore it would be easy to access East Coast Main Line services to London with a journey time of 3-4hrs on a steam-hauled train. 

That's a bit of a long haul for a day trip but it was certainly do-able. Today's electric hauled trains manage the same journey in just 2 hours - and there are more frequent services. 

Percyqted says "Overall journey times were just as fast in the late 1800's as the are now, quicker in some instances." That's completely untrue in Britain, as you will see by comparing any timetable from back then to a modern equivalent. Today's York-London electric trains routinely run at speeds of up to 125mph, which would have been a completely impossible speed for a 1890s-1920s steam train. Please check my blog here.

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