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It turns out that there is a right and a wrong way to perform even the smallest task: angling a broom, or slicing loaves. (“Ten years at Oxford and she can’t cut bread.”) “Economy of movement,” urges Baker. With me as the sole labour-saving device, the most banal chores become Herculean: rendering butter spreadable in the Arctic kitchen taking 40 minutes; learning how to spit on the iron with which I will smooth The Times another 20.

I am preposterously bad at thankless, monotonous, practical tasks (sweeping the entire façade of the house, say), yet really rather good at anything involving aggression, force or danger (fire-lighting, when my heavily starched pinny almost becomes a wall of flame).

I may blanche at the reeking deadness of the fowl I must pluck, yet rapidly fall into a rhythm that has its plumage a distant memory in ten minutes. I remove its claws, cockscomb, head, neck, and innards. Singeing its remaining down removes the fine hairs on both my arms, compounded by having to scrub my hands raw with coal-tar soap to ward off salmonella.

Despite my war wounds, I can see how a few years of this sort of thing might have proved tolerable, because there was a system for advancement. One might start as a scullery maid at 15, become a kitchen maid in one’s twenties, first kitchen maid at 25 and cook in one’s thirties; or follow a course from housemaid via lady’s maid to housekeeper. Avis Crocombe, the house’s 43-year-old cook in 1881, was born in rural poverty in Devon, going into service at 13. She came to Audley End via positions in London and Norfolk and left to marry and set up her own business as a Paddington lodging-house keeper, complete with her own servant.

“An analogy would be the public-school fagging system,” contends Hann. “You toed the line in the hope that you’d be on top later on.” Another analogy would be the hard-working East European au pairs, who pay their way through college and English classes so that they can return home and better themselves.

After a nifty cheese roll, I find I have been (undeservedly) promoted. I dispense with my cuffs, tidy my hair and set about my chores as first housemaid: dusting, polishing, carpet-beating, making beds, checking linen and seeing to the odd (strategically covered) chamber pot.

The role I really have my eye on is housekeeper, which gets me out of my pinny and into a plush blouse and skirt. In 1881 it was a role occupied by 53-year-old Elizabeth Warwick, a widow with 20 years’ managerial experience. Permanently in residence, Warwick was arguably the real lady of the house. Self-governing, she held the power to dismiss without references anyone who crossed her. “It was more the housekeeper’s house than anyone else’s,” explains Hann. “She was its custodian.” I develop a persona for myself as (eighteen) Eighties power-bitch: playing dress-up in the absent Lady B’s finery, being served tea in her sitting room, and knocking up St John’s Wort and lard unguents for the palms I have ravaged clawing my way to the top.

My slog ends at 8pm in the aftermath of the servants’ dinner. My time team awards me a bottle of pale ale, and it has never been more welcome. I have jelly limbs and cannot remember my own address. The chaps tell me I have done well: I develop a certain Barbara Taylor Bradford-esque tilt to my chin.

A couple of days later, I am waiting for a bus when I absently pick up a broom that a sweeper has left by his wagon while making desultory motions with another. “Economy of movement,” I find myself tutting.

Though you can’t participate, there are 40 re-enactment days at Audley End this summer you can attend. Admission is free for English Heritage members and costs from £5.30 for others (01799-522399; www.english-heritage.org.uk)

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