Well thank goodness SOMEONE has the presence of mind to agree with us!! They all demonstrate what I would have expected to hear from a woman like Cora Crawley. Thank you for any help! Although Downton Abbey was supposed to be located in Yorkshire, almost none of the characters really had a Yorkshire accent, I believe. In addition, the one accent closest to Estuary is spoken by a Welsh actor. I’d think “Estuary” (or “Estyary” as I think of it), would be much less RP influenced and more Cocknified (or at least a general London and points east (Kent?) Both can be heard (and seen) speaking in separate videos on youtube. It could just come from us hearing English people say it. But I do recognise that “oi” vowel”, when what I want to hear is a nice clear, clean open “I” (“eye”) – Not quite Julie Andrews, but better that than Jeremy Clarkson, or the excruciating pronunciation of Victoria Coren – more “oi”s and “moi”s and “whoi”s….the funny thing is, you could extract those and insert them into my local Oxfordshire (or nearby Berkshire, or even Gloucestershire) and they would fit perfectly, but they don’t belong anywhere near RP. Fuct.” See what I mean? Oh, and I am also aware that Lady Grantham and her mother are American. Although I have no formal training in this area, I have always been fascinated by accents and seek to study it more seriously. Maybe it’s a technique I am unaware of, but I feel it distracts from the scenes immensely. Can somebody tell me: What about the accents of Anna and O’Brien? the upper crust adopted this accent… which has all but died out. Ridiculous! From this description, it reminds me of the dialogue in Wuthering Heights. I admit I’m rather ignorant in this regard: in a country manor a century ago, would the servants have spoken traditional dialects among each other downstairs? I have lots of relatives and friends in England, and when I visit I am always embarrassed by my American accent and find myself morphing into British the longer I stay, but with my musical ear and gift for accents and imitations can pull it off. Bentley, Downton Abbey is a great source of difficulties and pleasures for me! Great blog! Me three on Cora’s irritating and ridiculous accent. The difference between Mayfair Cockney speakers and true Estuary speakers is (I think) that the latter have basically grown up speaking it, or it developed in them as they were growing up, and they’d have to make a real effort to speak in any other way. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke with an aristocratic blue-blood dialect which prevailed in her day, as did her husband, FDR, and it was genuine. At the height of the British Empire, the nation was sending regional-accent speakers around the world, and they were not clearly understandable. Katherine Hepburn was an exception. Thank you for beginning this conversation. Ms. Mcgovern fills the role perfectly. Would be great if you did. Media-ese is the homogenization of speech seen in American newscasters…the goal being to eliminate any trace of regionalism in dialect; the result being they all sounded pretty much the same apart from personality ( the announcer’s voice being an extreme example of this). As ‘Lady Mary’ Michelle Dockery does a haphazard job of concealing her ‘natural’ Estuaryspeak but it slips from time to time. Perhaps; it is a work of fiction, after all. Many thanks for your trenchant observations, and best wishes. The show was made for UK audiences; I think it helps explain why the American accents are what they are. Extremely helpful information particularly the last part It has completed 3 seasons and fourth season is being aired from January 9, 2011. In the distant past, the BBC was the bastion of RP (Received Pronunciation), verging on the unpleasantly affected Oxbridge (Robert Morley, Noel Coward)–“fraightfully naice.” But after WWII, when Clement Attlee became Prime Minister, a drive started to eliminate ‘elitist’ RP, which had been taught in public schools for more than a century as a way to make British civil servants around the Empire understandable to the locals. There, I’ve said my piece! Yes, indeed. that could be helpful for me. Great post. I will tell you later, first we shall discuss its story so that a novice can keep up with the story in the fourth season, hopefully. Besides the locals speaking Yorkshire accents, there are some other accents downstairs. What I'm wondering about is what accents the characters have. Well with your permission let me to grab your Highclere Castle, filming location for 'Downton Abbey' (Photo: Richard Munckton).