Principal Tutor
Mr. Haynes is an experienced private service butler who has been employed in a variety of households for over 20 years.
In the 1980s he worked for 2 years at Barnwell Manor, the Northamptonshire home of H.R.H. Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester.
This was followed by 3 years (seasonally) at a villa in St.Tropez in the South of France as butler to a French lady who kept a staff of six, and then as a London based live-in butler & chauffeur to Mr. Christopher Shaw, an Old-Etonian gentleman whose residence was at Albany on Piccadilly.
After 3 years in London he was offered the position of head butler at Mr. Shaw’s Hampshire manor house that became renowned in social circles for its lavish formal country house weekends, cocktail parties & Christmas festivities.
From organising shoot lunches in the winter and picnic meals at Royal Ascot and Glyndebourne in the summer, to maintenance work, PA work, buying estate vehicles and all the hiring and firing of a full complement of other household staff his role grew to that of full house manager and he remained there for 12 years.
Moving in 2006 with his wife and 2 children to Somerset he bought and restored a Victorian house as a family home whilst working as butler and occasional chauffeur in the employ of Mrs Dugdale, a lady who keeps a Georgian rectory locally as a weekend retreat from London.
Whilst in Hampshire he drew on his experience to carefully formulate the outline and detail of the butler training course and fortuitously became acquainted with the Duke and Duchess of Somerset, old friends of his employer, and their house at Maiden Bradley as the perfect setting for it.