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The Guardian - UK

Lifestyle

Sally Howard

From ratcatcher to keeper of the snow: royal servants enter the spotlight in new exhibitions

Min Britain KENSINGTON PALACE United States

Downton Abbey cast members lined up in a row outside the house — The below stairs cast of Downton Abbey, ‘a reversion to honeyed attitudes of service’. Photograph: ITV

Bridget Holmes, the “necessary woman”, scrubbed royal chamber pots through the reign of five Stuart monarchs. As “keeper of ice and snow” at Hampton Court Palace, Frances Talbot hewed great blocks of ice with a 6ft-long saw so palace guests could enjoy fancy iced desserts and chilled champagne through the summer of 1775.

And William Hester, a Kensington Palace rat-killer in the 1690s, chased vermin in a crimson and blue coat embroidered with depictions of wheat sheaves and rats.

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