Hello I am Doctor Annie Gray and I’m here in the kitchens at Audley End House. You might
well recognise them. Now we’ve been absolutely blown away by your outpourings of love for
our Victorian Way videos and especially for the character of Mrs Crocombe. But you have
also frequently expressed interest in the amazing actor that portrays Mrs Crocombe - Kathy
Hipperson. We haven’t wanted to introduce you to Kathy in person before because we thought
it might sort of destroy the magic. But so many of you have asked for a video with Kathy
in person that well, we couldn’t really deny you could we?
So without much further ado, here is the face of Mrs Crocombe. The brilliant Kathy Hipperson!
We asked you for the questions you most wanted to ask Kathy and over 400 of you responded
which is just brilliant. Now unfortunately we can’t answer every single question, and
many of you did ask quite similar things. Just to say, none of the food on the shoots
goes to waste don’t worry. Also some of your questions you’ll find have been answered
in our behind the scenes videos so if you click on the link above me now you will find
that you can go and find out all sorts of tasty titbits about Mrs Crocombe - everything
about what she wears to a little bit more about her life to a really fascinating probable
photograph of Mrs Crocombe herself in later life. However, we want to give it our best
shot so Kathy - are you ready for your adoring public and their most burning questions.
I think I am.
Kathy, do you have a natural English accent? And, what were the challenges of bringing
to life a character such as Mrs Crocombe?
Urm...well. The challenges with bringing someone like Mrs Crocombe, a servant, to life are
such that not much was written about her so a lot of the research that we did to bring
her alive has been based on the house research and research done about servants generically
from that time in history. Nothing specific about her apart from what’s in the census
which obviously is only ever ten years so it’s quite challenging but we brought together
what a servant would do and to be able to get to her position, how she must have behaved
and what she must have been like.
Have you ever cooked Mrs Crocombe’s recipes at home, what’s your favourite recipe and
have you incorporated any of Mrs Crocombe’s recipes into your everyday life?
Not into my everyday life, no. Urm, I definitely cook some of her recipes at home. Her recipes,
some of them, are very popular with my family. My favourite one is gingerbread cake.
Yeah.
I make that quite a lot.
Yes so do I weirdly enough. It’s really nice isn’t it?
And there’s also the wider world of Mrs Crocombe as well. So what about, I mean because
there is her book but obviously both in the videos and also when you’re on site her
at Audley End you cook other recipes that aren’t in Mrs Crocombe’s book. Her book
is just a snippet - what about other Victorian recipes?
Urm...we love here working in the kitchens we love using Eliza Acton. So anything pretty
much in her book we are ready to cook. Mostly cakes and sweet things because I’ve got
a sweet tooth.
Do you think you relate to Mrs Crocombe in any way?
Urm...I’m not a cook. So I’m not sure I do in that way. And I’m not a Victorian
servant and I’m not alive in the Victorian age. But I suppose that I like to think I’m
quite hard working and she must have been to have got to her position here at Audley
End House. She must have been fairly fair otherwise it is unlikely she would have got
this position. And she comes from a farming background - I come from a farming background.
Was Mrs Crocombe a real woman?
Urm…
We get asked this a lot.
As in was she a real a real person?
I assume so because quite clearly you are in fact real.
Yes. I’m real. And Mrs Crocombe was real. Yes. A simple answer to that.
Again, if you watch our behind the scenes videos you will find out all about the real
Mrs Crocombe.
What’s your favourite part about being a historical interpreter?
I love finding out about people like Mrs Crocombe. So about people who aren’t known and who
are what I would class as ordinary. So whilst kings, queens, dukes, famous people are interesting,
it’s always nice to get a chance to play someone who isn’t so well known. And also
a huge part of what I do is in schools and with children so I do a lot of education and
that’s what’s really important.
What do you do apart from historical interpretation do you have a regular job?
Urm...well historical interpretation is my regular job. I work every day in a costume
from some time in history. So as I mentioned I do quite a lot of education - I work a lot
in education in museums and in schools. But I also work - I’ve got my own theatre company
and we specialise in producing plays based around history - little known history, British
history. And I work for other historical interpretation companies, as well as Past Pleasures who I
work for here at Audley End House. I ride horses, I fly birds of prey in the medieval
era…
I think you’re being a bit coy Kathy. You ride horses side saddle dressed as a Tudor
with a falcon on your arm. Come on…
I have been known to do that, yes.
Tell us a bit more about your theatre company.
Well our theatre company that I have with a friend of mine called Simon Kirk is Time
Will Tell Theatre. And as the name suggests we specialise in sort of history and time
- telling times gone by. We like to make a drama out of history and we do lots of unknown
stories. A lot of female stories in history.
And they are plays aren’t they? They’re really lovely showpiece plays most of them
which are quite immersive and involve an audience as opposed to what you tend to do here which is
much more ad-hoc and tends to be sort of talking to two or three people in small groups.
Oh yes and we play lots of different characters. Sometimes in our plays we are specific historic
characters, other times I’ve done a play that Simon (who writes them) created with
myself and another female actress and we didn’t play a lady in them at all
Was that the one which I saw, the one where you all had mustaches?
Yes and strange beards, yes that's the one, yes.
Who was Mrs Crocombe married to and did she ever have children?
Well actually the title Mrs, in Mrs Crocombe, is a title of honour, respect really because she’s a cook in such an important household.
But she didn’t get married until she left. As a woman in such an important job she couldn’t work and be married
So although we don’t technically know the year that she left working at Audley End House
we do know that once she left she was married.
And that was in 1884 wasn’t it?
That was right, yes, and she married Mr Stride and she then, being quite elderly at this point
She was what 40, what was she 43 in 1881 so she was what 45?
She isn't going to have children at 45 in the Victorian age
So she didn't have any children, no.
I just feel like between the two of us we shouldn’t say elderly.
Alright, middle-aged.
But he had children and it's because of those children and his relatives that we have the cookbook.
Yes, and again, you can find out more about Mr Stride, about his relatives and about Mrs Crocombe's
later life by going to the link to The Victorian Way - Behind the Scenes videos.
Is there anything that you hope people will take away from these kinds of videos and the other projects that you do?
Um, I would like them to take everything away, everything that I say really.
I'd like them to take away certainly here in the kitchens, while we're working here in the kitchens
certain facts about what life was like in this kitchen, facts about Mrs Crocombe and then facts about
servants in general in the later Victorian age
and perhaps to get them thinking about what life, not just for them but the whole country, the whole world in that era.
So I'd like to give them lots of things to think about, to get them to think about what being a servant was like
and that actually some of the things they've been told aren't quite true
myth-busting
Yes, I mean we used to get people come in and go 'ooh, I wouldn't have liked to have been a servant,
it was so hard you started life at 12-years-old, scrubbing floors' and of course here, Mrs Crocombe shows you
were, if you made it to a house like this, really, really good and certainly not some form of underpaid slavvy
I think the statistic is something like 25% of servants - and that's it - worked in houses of more than two people
so to be working in a house like this with 24, 25 servants, you were good - and you could demand a decent wage as well.
Exactly, and if you think about it, she as a 13-year-old when she may have started, the options were going to work on the farm
and in some areas of the country working in a factory. I think this was definitely a better job.
Yeah, I mean full board and lodging, a pound of meat to eat every single day, you're doing quite well.
Do you love your job? Do people recognise you on the street?
Um, no, I don't get recognised on the street. I absolutely love my job most of the time.
What's not to love? Generally I get to dress up, I get to talk to some really lovely visitors
I get to share knowledge that I have found interesting with people who mostly find it interesting
I don't get recognised, I don't think, mostly because in history women wore a lot of hats
and covered their hair and their heads and it does dramatically change you.
My voice gets recognised occasionally, mostly at English Heritage sites
Is a historical interpreter an actor or do you have acting training or a degree or are you just really interested in history and also in acting?
Um, I think a historical interpreter can have all sorts of different backgrounds.
Well absolutely you have to have an interest in history and a lot of really talented historical interpreters I know
have degrees and masters in history. It certainly helps. If you have some natural acting ability I think that helps too.
It's just being personable actually with the public is the most important thing. I actually do have an acting background
that's what I trained in.
But you do also have a degree in pure maths, Kathy.
Which doesn't help me in my historical interpretation
No, but it's pretty impressive.
Unless we're going to do some interpreting maths
Enigma.
I was about to say, which would only involve modern history because obviously women didn't do maths in the olden days.
There are lots of historical interpreters out there who have got technically neither of that training
but they've got such a passion for history and a lot of them are teachers, so because they're naturally good
at speaking to people and explaining things that makes them equally as good.
Do you wish modern life was a bit more like Mrs Crocombe's?
What like living in the Victorian times?
Complete with syphilis and polio and rickets and malnutrition and really low birth rate
Massive sexism, no women's rights
Um, no.
Right ok, bring on the antibiotics and the birth control pill.
Right, next question.
What is one recipe that Mrs Crocombe refused to make or simply couldn't get right - and I think this is talking about
you as Mrs Crocombe.
That was going to be my first question.
Um... um... um... um...sheep's head.
I knew you were going to say that. I've apologised so many times.
I won't be making sheep's brain croquettes again
Oh you enjoyed that
Ever
You were there with your fingers in the brain going this is great, I really love the fact that I'm making sheep's
brain fritters and I want to do it every week.
I won't be doing that again. Annie once made me cook a sheep's brain.
Not again.
And the ears.
Is the costume comfortable? Well, historic clothing rather than costume because it is very, very accurate
and does it take a while to get into the kit for Mrs Crocombe?
It doesn't take long to get into it. She's a servant so her clothes are fairly practical.
It's comfortable. It's a corset that's been made specifically for myself that I wear underneath and it would be quite a different thing
I think, if you were asking me, and I was playing Lady Braybrooke, because naturally as a lady of status and
her corsets would be quite tightly laced.
And she'd be changing clothes five times a day.
And doing all her hair and all that stuff. So no, I think it's quite easy and I find it relatively comfortable, yes.
Kathy, were you a fan of the Victorian era before you accepted this role or did you really come to it through playing the character?
I didn't know anything much really about the Victorian age before I started working here
I knew quite a bit about the Tudors, that's a very popular time and the Civil War was quite an interest for me
Oh yes I've seen the pictures
So yes I came to the Victorian age really through working here, through you, working with you
and through Mrs Crocombe. Absolutely.
How does live interpretation change when you're interpreting to a live audience versus interpreting to a camera,
so a media outlet? And do you have any tips for people doing the latter?
Well naturally it changes because the live audience interact with you. And here in the kitchens we aren't performing as such,
we are generally talking, often one-to-one with the audience. So I will talk about anything
So an audience member might have a particular interest or the conversation we are having might take me off into talking about all sorts of things
music halls or museums or anything. So you never know where you're going to end up with a live audience.
I suppose people ask questions and it's very much led by them into where you want to go as well as you
gently steering so you can make sure that they come out with what you want them to know as well
it's quite a sort of iterative process
And also we are led by what we are actually physically doing. So if we are cooking we're led by someone's questions about that but also
how that is going, you know if we're making soup or whatever.
When we're doing something in a recorded way then that changes completely
You're more of an education format you're just standing and presenting, there's less of an interaction with it
I prefer to have an audience personally. So I'm not so keen on the recorded stuff, I prefer having an audience to respond to.
So my advice is just imagine there is someone there in the room with you when you're talking to your camera or whatever it is.
Imagine there is one person there, or two
I used to just imagine hundreds of little sofas whenever I was presenting to camera, just little tiny sofas with people sitting on them.
Exactly. You need an audience I think.
This is clearly someone who knows the 19th century word for recipe.
Normally are there any adjustments to the receipts before filming?
Urm...no not really. We try and keep the filming within a certain time period.
So we might prepare things beforehand. Like we might have made the pastry beforehand,
or we might have lined a mould beforehand.
But no we try and follow it as a close to the letter. Word for word there might be alterations because
when you write down a recipe you might miss out bits that are obvious to you so certainly with Mrs Crocombe's
cookbook there are a few bits of instructions that are missing because she didn't need to write them.
She understood what she meant.
And even in printed recipe books you can find that. Even in modern day you can find that.
And there also massive bits where the recipe is wrong as well in modern and indeed old books.
Yes. So we might change it to make it more practical but we can get all the ingredients so we don't need to
change anything for that that aspect.
Apart from Isenglass.
What fashion era do you prefer besides Victorian of course?
At the moment, because it changes with whatever I'm doing most of, at the moment it is Edwardian.
Which isn't so far away.
Isn't that really uncomfortable?
I don't find it uncomfortable at all. But then I play lower class, practical ladies who do work and things like that.
So probably if you'd asked me four or five years ago I might have said Tudor. It varies.
I suppose you also have the advantage that you've studied ballet and dance so you've got quite a poise.
Whereas the one time I wore an Edwardian corset I found it forced me to stand in
a horrible way.
What, like properly?
Yeah something like that.
What is your favourite Victorian dish? And have you ever tried anything from Mrs Beeton's cookbook?
Well Mrs Beeton is something isn't she? It depends on which one you want to talk about.
Obviously she has been re-written and re-presented...
Let's go for the 1861 plagiarised original shall we?
Oh alright then.
The only one that legitimately you can use in the kitchens in 1881 because the 1888 edition isn't out yet.
Yes. We've done recipes from her book.
I don't know that necessarily they are any of my favourites.
I don't know what my favourite Victorian recipe would be. Probably the gingerbread cake.
Am I allowed to say that again?
Yeah I think so. It's a pretty good recipe.
Gateaux du Pomme is also quite good.
I like Eliza Acton's Christmas Pudding.
Eliza Acton's Christmas Pudding...
Francatelli's fruit cake with a big wadge of cheese.
(Exhales)
Larded sweet bread is pretty good as well. Actually there is quite a lot that's good.
Am I completely stupid for thinking that this entire thing was real all of the time or are you just the most
amazing and experienced actor?
Yes.
If you could go back in time to any era or place where would you go? Also where would you
definately not go?
I think as long as I could only go for like half an hour, I would like to go to something that was really
emotive and with lots of people because I quite like the idea of being involved and picking up the emotions
of lots of people gathering. So something like the parade or the funeral of Emily Wilding Davison.
And to be one of those suffragettes all in white and to feel part of that and the emotion that was involved around
that. So I'd like to be that. Any battle ever for the other one.
Any war zone.
Fair. What's your favourite historical interpretation moment while playing Mrs Crocombe?
Oh that's easy to answer. So the project had been going for about a year I think.
And I was here playing Mrs Crocombe, I think you were Mary Anne. And a gentleman walked in
called Bob Stride with Mrs Crocombe's actual notebook cookbook. So receiving that
and perhaps the actual moment that was the most favourite was looking at her handwriting and seeing her
actual writing. So someone I had been playing for the time about a year, but really we were on
a lot then.
Nearly every day it felt like.
Yeah the first year we were in all the time.
And it was amazing.
Yeah I mean I think I probably, well I am sure I squealed. I have a suspicion I may have shed a tear or two.
It was very fraught.
It was very powerful wasn't it.
Yeah, yeah.
On one of the behind the scenes videos it is mentioned that there are other people that play Mrs Crocombe.
Is this true and how do you feel about it?
Yes there's a team of about twelve of us who work here at Audley End and six of us, I think, play Mrs Crocombe.
As you mentioned earlier, all of them bring a different element to what we think her character
would have been and to how a women who had managed to climb to the heady heights of
working for a Lord's household. And where she was in her life. So for some of them it is "I've been
here forever and I know what I'm doing" - type. Practical elements to it. Some are like "Ok I'm thinking about
moving on and what I might do with my future". That kind of thing. So they bring
lots of different elements to it. I think it's really interesting to have lots of people play the same person.
I'm obviously quite a practical Mrs Crocombe.
Yeah you used to tell me off a lot. A lot.
Bossy I think.
I was going with bullying.
Oh.
Yes, just terrible.
The time I cut my finger and you made me sit in the corner. For however long it was.
I just remember telling you to be quiet. A lot.
It's not gossip Mrs Crocombe. It's being aware.
Apart from Mrs Crocombe, what other roles do you really like playing?
I love playing characters that you don't know much about. Although having said that
I have also loved playing Anne Boleyn at Hampton Court. Particularly like you mentioned, riding.
One of my favourite characters at the moment is to play Florence Nightingale Richards who was
also a Victorian and she was the keeper of the keys at Tintagel Castle which is also another English Heritage
property and what was great about her is we do have photographs, more photographs of her than we have of
Mrs Crocombe. A little, not much is known about her apart from her language was apparently
quite blue and she drank quite a lot.
Good for family friendly activities then?
Yes we have had to change some elements of her character but she's great fun because she doesn't
have any of the control that Mrs Crocombe has. So it's quite nice.
She is the lady who you found her grave?
There is an amazing lady who has done all the research on Florence who works at
Tintagel Castle and she found out the location of Florence's grave and it was unmarked
So we had a campaign and raised money and we've put in a little gravestone this year to mark where she lays.
That's lovely.
It was very moving.
Could you cook really well before you started playing Mrs Crocombe?
Uh no. I couldn't. I had no actual interest actually. I had managed to orchestrate
situations where I didn't have to cook for most of my adult life.
No I have no interest in cooking food, particularly savoury food. And I couldn't particularly cook.
When I first met you you said "I'm not a cook, I don't cook, I'm not interested in cooking, I can't cook at all."
And I said, if I remember rightly you don’t have to be able to cook you just have to be able to play a cook.
Yes.
Because I’ll do the cooking.
Yes.
And I still remember, I think it was probably a year after you started at Audley, I met your brother for the first time
and he came up to me and I said “Oh hello I’m Annie” and he went “Annie! You’re the person responsible
for Kathys’ Christmas Pudding! She’s cooked Christmas Pudding!” and it was the Eliza Acton recipe.
And you’d cooked it for all your family hadn’t you?
Yeah I had. Most of them don’t like Christmas Pudding and so she’s the perfect antidote for that isn’t she?
Yes because her pudding is great. I suppose from that point of view Mrs Crocombe has really had a genuine
impact on your own life.
I cook more strange dishes, yes, and cook at random times. So yeah, I do cook a lot more now. I like the science of cooking, I like the
concept of cooking, but I am not interested in the taste unless it’s got lots of sugar.
What are the steps in making a video like the Victorian Way videos?
Well first of all English Heritage decide that it’s about time there’s another
Mrs Crocombe video and so they contact me and Jonny at Kaptur Creative
and his sound friends like David and we get together a date, which in itself is quite challenging.
And then we cram as many recipes as we can into one days filming.
And obviously you come along and give us advice and help write the scripts.
I think we’d struggle to limit ourselves to Mrs Crocombe’s cookbook itself because a lot of her dishes are sweet.
So we know for a fact that she liked Eliza Acton so we use Eliza Acton. We’ve also got a copy of Francatelli
so we use some of his and any other recipe books that you are reading at the moment and recipes that you quite like
the sound of and discover. We like to have a balance I think between things that we think other people,
or the viewers would like to cook and might want to try but also interpreting the time and the house and the
family and the fashions. And we also want to pique people’s interest and encourage them to comment
and interact with us.
Yeah I mean the time period we’ve always used at Audley End has been roughly around the time
that Mrs Crocombe was born because she would have grown up with certain recipes - through to about thirty years
after the house is set because there is often a time lag between recipes appearing and then appearing in print.
So I think the recipes we used on the videos and also on the ground in interpretation have been from between
about 1830 to about 1910 so it’s quite a broad span. But it gives scope to do everything
from quite sort of Georgian feeling recipes like, I don’t know, Parmesan ice cream through to something
that’s really quote Edwardian like things in aspic. And even in Mrs Crocombe’s cookbook - they're not actually her original recipes are they?
No I think that was for you particularly that was one of the pleasing things about when the cookbook arrived
is that you could see that many times Mrs Crocombe had literally copied word for word some of the recipes
from Eliza Acton and we were already cooking from her, so that was almost as if it was sort of proving that your
ideas were right when it came to the recipes we cook and inside you can see, just as we’ve been talking about,
how recipes are collected. We all collect recipes and Mrs Crocombe was the same. She was either given recipes
by her employer or by friends or ones that perhaps she had read about or seen somewhere.
There’s one where she puts “the Field Newspaper, courtesy of Lady B-Brooke, Audley End House”.
You see. Perfect isn’t it.
It’s another recipe for ginger beer. There’s so many recipes for ginger beer in that book.
Does that mean that she couldn’t make ginger beer? Or that she just used to forget them?
I don’t know, I think it may well mean that the Braybrookes really liked ginger beer and that they had -
because presumably if it’s Lady Braybrooke’s copy of The Field she had suggested and found the recipe
herself and said there’s a recipe for ginger beer. Or maybe, like you, Mrs Crocombe really liked sweet gingery things.
Finally I’ve got two things that are not questions. Merely comments.
Firstly, not a question. Just a statement. My six year old son loves these videos and gets so excited to see them.
He’s autistic and doesn’t have much of a concentration span. These are just about the right length for him.
He’s so interested in history so perfect for him. Do please keep them coming. There’s been more than one
occasion when we’ve been in public and I can sense he is struggling, so out comes the iPad and I thank my lucky stars
for How to Make a Victorian Curry or Gingerbread. Kiss kiss
Oh that’s amazing. Hello!
And very last thing, just let her know that if she starts a cult, I will join.
Who? Me or Mrs Crocombe?
I think we already have the cult of Kathy Hipperson don’t we? And the cult of Mrs Crocombe. It’s these videos!
Thank you very much for your patience and thank you very, very much for watching.
Kathy. There’s one final thing. English Heritage and indeed all of your YouTube viewers absolutely love you.
And on behalf of English Heritage we got you a present.
Oh! Thank you. Do you want me to open it?
Yes.
Awww! Thank you!
Thank you!
Another cookbook.
It’s a copy of Jules Gouffé’s Royal Cookery. His brother was the pastry chef to Queen Victoria for a very
very long time and translated the cookery book so these are a mixture of recipes that would be suitable for a very,
very upmarket household but he also has a section at the front for more bourgeois cooking which is absolutely
right for this. It was published in the 1870s so it’s entirely appropriate for you as you go forward
playing Mrs Crocombe. And it really is quite a joy to flick through.
Omelette with Apricot Jam. Followed by Omelette with Rum. Oh I might try that one,
maybe we can make another video.
Don’t forget that you can visit Audley End House throughout the year. The kitchens team will be here
on some of the weekends. Do check ahead on the events page before you come if that’s why you’re coming.
Kathy unfortunately can’t be here to play Mrs Crocombe every single time that the team is in, so you may well find
that someone else is playing your beloved Mrs Crocombe but don’t worry everybody who works here is
absolutely brilliant.
Thank you to everyone who sent us questions for Kathy. We’ve been absolutely overjoyed to see so many of you
engage with us and keep asking the questions because perhaps one day we’ll do it again. Some of your
comments were really interesting as well and we might just build on a few of them to make future videos.