Fictional Downton Abbey and the "real story"

Masterpiece Theater, KQED, in San Francisco, has a new series continuing with "Downtown Abbey" .  Last evening, I watched an interview with the current Earl of High Clear Castle, in Hampshire and his current wife, Fiona J.M Aitkin,  whom he married in 1999.  His heir is his son, George, born in 1992, by his first wife, Jayne Wilby, marriage of 1986.  He now has a son, Edward by this wife, Hon. Edward Herbert, born in 1990.   George Herbert, the 8th Earl, is the godson of Queen Elizabeth II.  He went to Eton, and graduated St. John's at Cambridge.   He has done a remarkable job of renovated all the follies in the picturesque landscape designed, by none other than Capability Brown.  They have also restored the glass roof, and early skylight, which is over their heads during the interview.  Lady Jayne goes out riding each morning.  The documentary follows the Earl in his rover over the 5000 acres of land, which is farmed with wheat oats and barley.  It has many acres of woodland as well.  A gameskeeper still maintains the pheasants; now businessmen pay to "shoot"...whereas in the early days hunting parties were held here.  Twenty used to manage the kitchen but now two chefs and a host of modern equipment enables them to prepare the meals for the Earl and his wife each day, as well as for visitors, some 60,000 in the past months.  The Earl regards the author of "Downtown Abbey" as a friend, as it has earned them considerable revenues.  He shows us the drawing room, where they have drinks each evening, which is a popular meeting room on the show.  He also shows a room, that is not available to the public, which used to be a smoking room, but is now a private gathering room in the family.  Lady Jayne is a historian and has a biography of Countess Almina, the daughter of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild, who marries his grandfather and adds her fortune to the assets of the house.  Most of what has been accomplished in the home was arranged by Almina.  Her husband was responsible for funding the Thebes expedition, in having become very fond of archaeology; he, with Howard Carter, as his assistant gained permission to dig in the Valley of the Kings in 1914 and in 1922 opened King Tut's tomb.  in his youth, he had loved driving fast cars and suffered a bad accident.  He established Highclear for stud breeding of race horses, and became a steward at the Newbury Race trak.  The 7th Earl was the racing manager to Queen Elizabeth in 1969. ( I was at a race which the Queen attended, as her horse won, when I was at Oxford; the hosts of the house in which I lived raced in the same race and took me along so I could join them in the winner's circle and see the Queen's horse.  Of course I have not ever forgotten the occasion in my 21st year. . The details are all available on Wilkipedia and you can buy the tape of the program.  I hope I have gotten it straight!  It was a wonderful documentary, intimate and warm, and truly brought the spirit of the family and the real house to the fictional series, which I enjoy immensely, though it is no longer an "upstairs-downstairs' separation; it tends to spend more time on the downstair...as the times, they are a changing...