Downstairs Tours

Downstairs Tours are coming to Belton Estate on Tuesday 24 November, and if you've spent any time at the house before, you'll know exactly what's usually off-limits. These tours take you into the servants' areas—the kitchens, the sculleries, the corridors and the quarters where the staff actually lived and worked—rather than the state rooms and grand galleries you see on a standard visit.

It's a part of the house that hasn't been opened to the public in this way for ten years, so if you've been to Belton in the last decade, this is a side of it you haven't seen. Most of us only ever get the view from the top of the stairs; this lets you see what was happening underneath, in the rooms that kept the whole place running. It's the functional, working half of the house, and it tells a completely different story from the one told in the drawing rooms.

Belton is just outside Lincoln, so it's an easy trip for anyone in the city. The tours run on 24 November, and since they're focused on the servants' quarters, they're a good way to get a proper sense of how the house functioned as a working home, not just a monument. If you're interested in the social history of the place—the lives of the people who worked there rather than the family who owned it—this is the one to go for.