While not all of us are lucky enough to reside in a stately home, having five or six rooms often feels like plenty when it comes to tackling household cleaning. Now imagine being faced with almost 800 rooms and your worst critics aren't just your kids, but the Queen of England or even the president! If you've ever wondered how royal palace housekeepers and White House staff keep these prestigious homes spotless, we have the insider tips and tricks from the real people who put in the elbow grease. Click or scroll on to read more...
Measuring 828,000 square feet and comprising a total of 775 rooms, which include 19 staterooms and 52 royal and guest bedrooms, along with 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms, cleaning Buckingham Palace is a monumental task. Plus, with a constant flow of distinguished guests—around 50,000 a year, who attend state banquets, lunches, dinner, and garden parties—the Queen needs an army of staff to keep it looking its best.
It’s a surprise to learn then that with so much surface area—and carpet—to clean, vacuum cleaners are banned at Buckingham Palace, according to the 2011 documentary Royal Servants: "Cleaners sweep carpets, lest royal ears are offended by vacuum cleaners. The best servant is one that is neither seen nor heard," says one former employee. Of course, this may no longer be the case since the Queen moved her permanent residence to Windsor Castle. The palace staff must be relieved.
Buckingham Palace has 760 windows and each one is cleaned at least every six weeks to keep the building looking spotless. Palace staff are expected to clean accessible windows—as seen here—but without scaffolding, window cleaners tend to use ladders and a special brush at the end of a 100-foot telescopic pole to reach those upstairs windows.
The palace employs more than 800 staff to keep every corner of the palace—like the White Drawing Room seen here—in working order. All potential employees undergo a tough selection process, according to head of recruitment Tracey Waterman. This includes the 'dead fly test', whereby a dead fly is placed in the fireplace or on the carpet to see if the candidate spots it. Those that do—and dispose of it—are deemed “special,” said Tracey in a report in The Daily Mirror.
Some aspects of the job can be less than glamorous, even if working at a palace means rubbing shoulders with high society. Peter Russell, a royal servant from 1954–1968 revealed in the documentary Royal Servants, that on occasion he was expected to stand near Princess Margaret at balls and banquets, and hold an ashtray so that she didn’t have to worry about where she flicked her ash.
In the same documentary, Paul Kidd, who served as royal butler from 1975–1982 recounted how the Queen took the blame when he accidentally spilt red-hot gravy on the Queen Mother’s cleavage, claiming she had elbowed Kidd. “She hadn’t touched me at all,” he says. “That was her gracious way of realising the agony I was in after putting the Queen Mother in extreme agony.”
One of the Queen’s favourite private residences—and where she spends Christmas every year—Sandringham in Norfolk exemplifies the monarch’s high standards in household excellence. With so many high-ceilinged rooms, furnished in lavish upholstery and priceless antiques, it must be a nightmare to clean. Yet the household staff at this stunning manor house, which dates back to Elizabethan times, are experts in keeping it pristine at all times.
If anyone can teach you how to be a domestic goddess, it’s Barbara Allred, who was head housekeeper at Sandringham for a decade. She is now a tutor for The English Manner, which trains butlers and household staff for billionaires and celebrities alike, but she used to keep the Queen’s Norfolk estate in tip-top shape for the monarch and her illustrious guests.
Barbara used a damp cloth to dust the antiques and ornaments and used an extended brush to get rid of cobwebs from the ceiling down. Meanwhile, attention to detail was key in the bedroom, as Barbara told The Daily Mail it takes 20 minutes to make a bed, plumping pillows, while the bedcover should be folded into thirds “concertina-style” in case you get chilly in the night.
The Queen loves a well-laid table and Barbara was meticulous about the finer details. The correct form is to position place settings an inch from the edge of the table, with the side plate at ten o'clock in relation to the main plate. Glasses are at two o'clock, while the sweet fork and spoon are normally positioned at the top of the main plate. The red wine glass is traditionally larger, and to the right. The white wine glass is smaller, to its left.
Despite her exacting standards, the Queen is a pleasure to work for, says Allred. On one occasion, the housekeeper used a new laundry service, who slightly overdid it on the starch, leading the Queen to comment light-heartedly: “Barbara, the napkins seem awfully stiff. One could cut one's lip!". "That is the kind of person you want to work for,” says Barbara. "She was a delight. Those who have been brought up with staff know how to treat staff."
Barbara knows all the tricks to keep things gleaming—like here in the drawing room. In the bathrooms, she makes her own paste to remove limescale on chrome taps by mixing 2tbsp salt with 1tsp white distilled vinegar, using a toothbrush to reach difficult areas. She also removes mildew with a mixture of equal parts lemon juice and baking powder, which she leaves on for two hours before rinsing.
Cleanliness is next to godliness as far as Allred is concerned and any food served in the Braemar green dining room here is prepared with high standards of hygiene in mind. A handy tip for keeping the microwave fresh and clean is to place half a lemon in a dish with some water before turning on the microwave at full blast for three minutes. The steam will loosen any dirt so it’s easier to wipe clean and the citrus will eliminate any nasty food smells.
There are a lot of wood surfaces at Sandringham. This image of the Queen taken there in February 2022 ahead of her platinum jubilee, displays the stunning veneer of the wood panelling. Proper dusting requires a squeezed-out cloth to collect all the particles, says Allred, and you should never spray polish directly onto the wood but onto a soft cloth first.
The Queen’s longtime dresser and close companion, Angela Kelly—seen here in black on the far right next to Anna Wintour, the Queen and Caroline Rush of the British Fashion Council, at London Fashion Week in 2018—revealed some of the tricks of her trade in her book The Other Side of the Coin: the Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe, where she disclosed that she cleans the Queen’s diamonds and tiaras with a simple mixture of gin and water.
Behind the famous façade of the White House, an army of maids, florists, valets and chefs work from dawn to dusk ensuring the smooth running of the most recognisable home in the world. Arranged over six floors, with 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, three elevators and a floor space of some 55,000 square feet, it takes a full-time staff of 96 to maintain the second and third floors that make up the private quarters of the US President.
A team of 90 people were on hand to clean up before President Biden moved into the White House in January 2021. Transition teams usually have just six hours to prepare the property for the new incumbent, but were pushed to the limit on this occasion as an additional deep clean was required due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Biden administration spent a reported $127,000 (£92k) on a scrupulous deep clean of the executive mansion before taking up residence.
First Ladies are known for their high standards, but in the 2020 biography The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, two former housekeepers revealed some curious domestic secrets of the former First Lady, who instructed them “to leave perfect vacuum tracks in her white carpet and not to touch the six cinnamon-scented candles she kept near her computer.” According to a report in The Mercury News, however, the most challenging task was cleaning up her tanning spray in the bathroom.
White House staff are used to picking up after presidents, but according to Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Donald Trump did not like them touching his things, particularly his toothbrush, before asking first. The former president was apparently fearful that he might be poisoned, which is why he frequented McDonald's. He also used to strip his own bed and instruct housekeepers when to wash his sheets.
Jimmy Carter—39th US President—called his staff at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue “the glue that holds the house together” and nobody embodies this more than Stewart Calvin Stevens Sr, who kept the White House ship-shape for more than three decades. “I cleaned everything… except the dishes,” he says in his memoir The White House Chandeliers: My Experience While Working for Seven U.S. Presidents.
Housekeeping standards are high at the White House, just as you would expect. Former chief usher Timothy Harleth, who was previously rooms manager at The Trump International Hotel in Washington, ran the White House like a world-class hotel, according to The New Yorker, but was dismissed just hours before President Biden took office in January 2021.
Many staff have served multiple presidents and call themselves ‘lifers’. Their binding ethos is loyalty and discretion but they are expected to adapt to the changing style and needs of the First Family. Their jobs are never guaranteed, however, although historically, according to The New Yorker, many residence staff jobs have been passed down through generations.
As a hotelier himself—and resident of Trump Tower in New York—Donald Trump was in a unique position to comment on household matters. Few former presidents, however, can claim to have walked in the shoes of their housekeeping staff. But Donald Trump got down and dirty back in 2011, when he undertook a variety of low-level jobs at one of his hotels. The video, which was produced in response to a request from The Oprah Winfrey Show, went viral.
Trump was put to work at a variety of menial tasks including making the beds, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom, seen here—but he was reticent to try his hand at cleaning the toilet. Still, it probably gave him a good insight into how hard his hotel staff—and those at the White House—work to meet his exacting standards.
Trump’s personal housekeeper, Sandra Diaz, gave us an insight into her employer’s household in 2019 when she told The Washington Post that Trump employed many undocumented immigrants like herself at his properties—including his villa at Bedminster—despite denouncing them when he ran for President. She relates how she had to wear latex gloves and paper shoe coverings before entering his villa at Bedminster and would check his liquid face make-up had not dried out before his arrival.
With all the cleaning products and state-of-the-art gadgets at our fingertips these days, it is much easier to maintain a clean home than it was in the past. Back in the era of Downton Abbey, staff had to rely on homemade concoctions and a lot more elbow grease to keep the family mansion pristine—but we have a thing or two to learn from them!
There were no hoovers as we know them today in the early 20th century, so the chamber maids would have had the back-breaking work of beating the dust and grime off the household's rugs outdoors by hand. Just 20 minutes of sunshine a day is enough to kill germs and bacteria. Meanwhile, floors were best cleaned on hands and knees with a bucket of water and a drop of ammonia and household soap. These days, we're more aware of the health risks associated with ammonia and are generally more careful with its usage.
When it comes to cleaning a house as big as Downton—or Highclere Castle in Hampshire as it is in real life—always start at the top since dust will fall as you work down. Odours, meanwhile, tend to rise, so a good way of keeping the house fresh was to create a spray from water and fresh lemon, and giving it a good spritz. This can also be used to clean windows, which can be wiped dry with old newspaper. Houseplants dotted around are also a good way to banish unwanted smells.
There were no dishwashers at Downton, but according to the original domestic goddess, Mrs Beeton, the best way to remove stubborn stains from utensils was by rubbing on a solution made from warm water and baking soda. Meanwhile, burnt-on food can be removed by boiling water in an affected pan with a tablespoon of baking soda. When the burnt-on material is loosened, rub with a steel wool pad and rinse.
If all else fails, check out the handy advice from former housekeeper at Chatsworth House, Christine Robinson, who kept the Derbyshire stately home in pristine condition for decades. Her top tips involve putting tennis balls in the tumble dryer with your feather pillows to plump them up, and even removing dirty stains on wallpaper with stale but slightly moist bread.
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