[C: New section, 31 October 2026, at Philip’s suggestion. The paragraphs on the coachman, the groom and the gardener (with the editors’ notes) have moved here from Below stairs. The rest is an outline for the editors to fill in, with a list of the outdoor workers already researched in the house chapters.]
Outside the house
This section will introduce the men, and occasionally women, who worked outside the Five Houses: coachmen and grooms, gardeners and garden servants, and the bailiffs and labourers of the farms attached to Bolingbroke House and Dent’s House.
[C: To discuss: how many outdoor servants each house kept; who lived in (over the stables, in a lodge or cottage) and who came in daily from the neighbourhood; wages and liveries; what became of them when the houses were sold.]
Coachmen and grooms
Of the outdoor male staff, the coachman had the highest status and was the most senior of the liveried servants. Sometimes the coachman, rather than a member of the indoor staff, headed the servant’s hall [I've changed the phrase order]. A good coachman was expected to drive smoothly and not too quickly. [Where should this sentence go?] He was expected to get the coach ready within twenty minutes. A typical day would see him rise at 6 a.m. and spend the first ninety minutes getting the stable in order and dressing the horses. Washing and cleaning the carriage and harnesses took up the rest of the morning. The horses had to be fed and groomed, plus he had to order hay, corn, straw etc., but often they had the assistance of one or more grooms.
[Do we know anything about how frequently horses or carriages were taken out? To where? Presumably to work in the City, and socialising? Most days of the working week or just to and from the City at the start and end of weeks?]
A groom might also be tasked with assisting indoors, for example by waiting at table. From sales particulars of the Five Houses, it has been established that each had one or more coach houses and stabling for around six horses, so more than one carriage would have been kept, certainly in the heyday of the houses.
Gardeners
The gardener was the most commonly employed male servant in the 19th century. He would be in charge of a lot of glass – [in the form of] hothouses, greenhouses, conservatories. He produced vegetables [And flowers] for the household and grew [luxury fruits] such as strawberries, pineapples and melons, both in season and out. A gardener at the Five Houses may well have had under-gardeners working for him as live-out servants from the local area.
[add something on exotic..extending season etc..stoves in hothousesg Or is this all covered in Henrietta'ss ections?]
[Adjust sentence order so it's clear that growing luxury fruits and flowers (and extending growing seasons) meant glass structures, which proliferated i th C19).]
[C: Gardens (Part 1) describes the glasshouses, kitchen gardens and planting these gardeners would have looked after: see Gardens.]
The farms
[C: To write: Bolingbroke Farm (with Bolingbroke House, 1797 onwards) and Dent’s Farm, their bailiffs, farm lads and labourers, and how the farms supplied the houses. The material is in Chapter 1A (Bolingbroke Farm) and Chapter 2.5 (Dent’s Farm).]
Outdoor workers in the house chapters
[C: Drawn from the census entries and servants’ biographies in Part 2, to help with writing this section. Follow the links for the details.]