Behind the scenes of a country house, meet the staff who keep the past alive

The plants are not prime specimens, but then Dan spends so much time maintaining the public gardens he has little time to tend his own shrubs.

After deciding a planned career in civil engineering was not for him, he followed in his father's steps and, having completed a course in horticulture at Askham Bryan College, near York, he joined Brodsworth nine years ago as a trainee.

"I wasn't sure what career I wanted, but I knew it wasn't civil engineering," says Dan. "I landed a contract doing basic maintenance work. Most people would have thought it was a really boring job, but I really enjoyed it. My dad worked in the parks department for Rotherham Council and he said if I liked working with my hands and doing something practical, then I might like gardening. I haven't really looked back."

Dan took over as head gardener a few years ago. With a full-time team of five, along with 15 volunteers, he is now in charge of 15 acres which have gradually been brought back to their Victorian heyday.

"When English Heritage took over Brodsworth in 1995, the first thing they concentrated on was the restoration of the house," he says. "The aim was to show how the rooms would have been used when it was built in the 1860s and now we want to carry that same ethos through to the gardens."

Brodsworth's grand gardens in miniature are a complex mixture of herbaceous borders, topiary and Victorian pleasure grounds, which sit along later horticultural additions to the estate.

"There are a couple of areas which were landscaped between 1910 and 1920. The style of the planting is very different and we are keen that they should continue to reflect the age in which they are first created."

The unpredictable British climate can be Dan's best friend and his greatest enemy. The knock-on effects of the long harsh winter are still being felt and if predictions of an ice-cream summer come true, Dan and his team will be braced for long hours.

"The prolonged snow killed off a few of the more delicate plants and delayed the flowering of others, but we've come out of it okay," he says. "What every gardener now wants is a summer of hot days and rainy nights, but I guess that would be too much to ask for.

"During the recent spell of good weather, one of the gardeners had to spend all day watering the plants. With high temperatures forecast throughout the summer, we know that we may have to contend with a hosepipe ban, but we've got a water butt which should see us through a couple of months of hot weather."

Dan now spends much more of his time in the office. However, he tries to make sure he gets his hands dirty at least two days a week and he knows creating established gardens will be a long and slow process.

"You can't restore gardens like these overnight, not least because of the funding needed," he says. "It will probably take at least another couple of decades before the restoration project is complete, but every year another little part of the jigsaw falls into place."

Dan Booth, head gardener, Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster.

Sarah Taylor, house steward, Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley.

AT the first sign of woodworm or when the historic curtains show signs of fading, the first person Nunnington Hall's conservation team call is Sarah Taylor. In the course of a normal day she can spend the morning organising workmen to fix a leaking roof and in the afternoon can be talking to furniture experts about the best way to preserve the Hall's historic collection

Born in Canada, Sarah initially did a degree in archaeology, but when war broke out in Jordan, the country which had been the focus of her studies, she understandably decided on a change of career.

Moving to England, she completed a qualification in museum studies and after a spell at the Green Howards Regimental Museum, she moved to Nunnington Hall as house steward. "Clothes moths are our biggest enemy, they like the natural textiles," says Sarah, who admits house steward is a very "National Trust title". "It basically means taking care of the fabric of the building and all the furnishings, some of which are incredibly delicate.

"Visitors often ask why some of the rooms are so dark, and the reason is to protect these ancient fabrics from being bleached by the sun. People often don't realise just how much work goes on behind the scenes and I see part of my role as raising awareness of maintaining a property like this."

A team of conservationists keep on top of the cleaning to reduce the chance of damaging infestations, but with visitor numbers increasing, Sarah's job is likely to get even more demanding.

In recent years, Nunnington has carved out a reputation for holding contemporary photographic exhibitions, showing work by the likes of Mary McCartney, Bryan Adams and Police guitarist Andy Summers. Last year, they also turned the rooms over to contemporary artists, which saw a Tracey Emin quilt spread over a four-poster bed and a video installation of people pretending to be horses playing in the nursery. Not all the visitors were impressed, but the event, and others like it, have successfully attracted a new audience to the Hall.

"It's been great to see the visitor numbers go up. Over the Easter weekend, when we had a Beatrix Potter exhibition, 1,400 people came through the door when we would normally expect 500. But increased footfall inevitably means the Hall is subjected to more wear and tear and it inevitably puts more pressure on the time and money invested in maintenance. We put the house to bed in the winter and that's when we do a thorough inventory and clean, but it's a quick turnaround. We close just before Christmas and open in the middle of February so it really is a question of everyone pulling together.

"It's not a big grand house, there's something quite cosy about Nunnington and I hope that comes across to visitors."

David Driffield, train driver, Newby Hall, near Ripon.

IT was a little serendipity which led David Driffield to Newby Hall.

Five years ago, he was working as a mechanic and desperate for a new challenge. Arriving home from work one day, he began to light a fire when he noticed an advert for a train driver in the crumpled pages of a newspaper he was about to use as kindling.

"The closing date had already passed, but I called the Hall and they said it was still worth sending in an application," says David. "I wasn't an expert on trains, but I reckoned that they were probably not so different from cars. You're looking at roughly the same components, just not necessarily in the same order."

David got the job and has been manning the miniature railway, which first opened in 1971, ever since. Working outdoors brings its challenges, but the days when dark clouds hang in the sky or when the rain proves relentless are more than compensated for by the busy summer weekends.

"Everyone at some point in their childhood remembers going on an miniature railway," he says. "There are people who come here with their grandchildren who remember riding the train when they were children. The youngest passenger I've had on was an 18-week-old baby, the oldest was 92. That's one of the great things about the job, you never know who you might meet and I like to think I can talk to everyone."

The miniature railway runs from July to September and when the Hall closes during the winter the painstaking maintenance work to the locomotives, carriages and track begins. David is also responsible for ensuring the miniature timber buildings which sit alongside the track as it wends it way past the River Ure are also given a regular lick of paint.

"When people ask what I do, I tell them I have the most perfect outdoor job in the world," he says. "I've learnt such a lot, it's been a massive learning curve. The locomotives and carriages are so old that replacement parts often aren't available so we sometimes have to make our own. It's an expensive business, just to replace 250m of track costs 9,000, but the railway is a really important part of Newby.

"However, you can never be complacent when you work somewhere like this, you always have to remember that without the visitors none of us would have a job."

'i know i'm still a newcomer to castle howard, but it feels like i've been here forever'

Claire Tarrant, head of building services, Castle Howard, near York.

In the five months or so since she has been in post, Claire Tarrant has already ticked a lot of boxes.

Under her watchful eye the roof of Castle Howard has been insulated

with sheep's wool, disabled access has been improved and a major refurbishment of the estate's 188 cottages has got underway.

"I know I'm still a newcomer to Castle Howard, but honestly I feel like I've been here for ever," she says.

"I have a board in my office which has details of all the projects we're working on and looking at how much we've done and how much there is still to do isn't for the faint-hearted."

One of the most high profile projects was the restoration of the Atlas Fountain. Forever associated with Brideshead Revisited and the series' infamous skinny dipping scene, the fountain was a casualty of the winter, when freezing temperatures caused cracks to appear in the stone.

Experts were called in and earlier this month, the work to restore the fountain to its former glory was completed at a cost of 30,000.

"The fountain is the absolute centrepiece of the grounds and we simply couldn't stand by and let it fall into disrepair," says Claire, whose job involves maintaining all Castle Howard's historic statues and buildings

"It's a real challenge working on such a wide range of buildings from the fabulous grandeur of the house itself to the little estate cottages

which are spread across five villages.

"It's a real mix of ensuring small jobs like rehanging a curtain are done as soon as possible to overseeing major projects are delivered on time and in budget. The refurbishment of the cottages is a big undertaking. Some of them haven't been touched by us for 20 or even 50 years."

Claire brings a decade's worth of experience of working in conservation to Castle Howard, but admits working behind the scenes of a stately home, can feel like painting the Forth Bridge.

"It's a never-ending cycle and when you look at some of the statistics, it can be pretty frightening," she says.

"It costs 9m a year just to keep up with basic maintenance and the improvements we need to make to ensure the mausoleum and bridges are safeguarded for the future will cost a further 25m.

"There's definitely an idea that stately homes have access to a bottomless pit of money, but sadly that couldn't be further from the truth."

Claire had never been to Castle Howard before applying for the job, but had studied its architecture through books. Now living in nearby Malton, she admits even the best photographs can't do justice to the real thing.

"I love it up here, I get to come each day to a brilliant stately home and work with a fantastic group of people. What more could anyone want?"