Meet the amazing characters from Christmas past at Auckland Castle

There’s a chestnut seller with terrible teeth, there’s a Turk in a turban with a monkey on a chain, there’s an extremely buxom lady spinning thread at a table lined with bread, there’s a fat cat trying to dip its paw into a barrel of shellfish, there’s music from minstrels with pipes and drums and trumpets and sitars but still a lazy shepherd sleeps on blissfully unaware of the hubbub around him, and, round the side, there’s a wild boar being savaged most gorily in the neck by a toothy hound.

Plus, of course, centre stage but easily overlooked due to all the commotion, there’s baby Jesus (above) lying in a straw-lined manger with a cherub looking adoringly down at him while Three Kings with crowns on top of their turbans proffer their precious presents.

Away from the manger, Mary and Joseph are a little lost in the background amid the cattle, which are probably lowing, but overhead appears the Archangel Gabriel to inform the shepherds who are watching their flocks on the craggiest of cliffs. One startled sheep certainly looks to have been filled with mighty dread.

All these characters make up the 18th Century “presepe” – Italian for nativity scene – which The Auckland Project has recently acquired from Naples and placed at the centre of its seasonal display (below).

There are 421 items – 112 humans – in the crowded presepe, which were made between 1760 and 1820.

The presepe is at the centre of a Neapolitan Christmas in the way that a fir tree is at the centre of northern European Christmas.

And at the centre of the presepe is il mangiatoia – the crib scene.

For centuries, Italian and Spanish families have clambered into their attics on December 8, a national holiday, and got out their figurines which have been in storage for the year. They reassembled the scene and, just like we buy new baubles every year for our trees even though we’ve got cupboards overflowing with them, went out and bought a couple more characters.

Once they had a complete holy family, they could add a few kings and collect a mountainside of sheep and shepherds. Then they gradually built up the whole of Bethlehem around the crib, so there were musicians, markets and hunts as well.

The bawdy, buxom lady in the market in the Auckland Castle presepe

The figurines, which have terracotta faces, beady glass eyes and wire-framed bodies, were made by specialists and by the 18th Century had become an artform in their own right, full of exuberant detail. The artists of Naples in this period are regarded as the best figurine-makers, and the presepe in Auckland Castle is the best on display in this country.

The presepe would have evolved over the Christmas period, with Jesus being winched into his crib at midnight on Christmas Eve and the Three Wise Men arriving on January 6.

There are lots of individual touches in a family presepe. Modern presepes feature footballers from Napoli FC and politicians – perhaps in the dark caves beneath the Auckland scene, Silvio Berlusconi is holding a bunga bunga party.

The gory boar hunt in the Auckland scene (above) is believed to have been added because King Ferdinand IV of Naples (1759-1825), whose father was the king of Spain, was a fanatically keen boar hunter and this detail may have been added to amuse him.

All of the characters jostle for attention and each one, in flamboyant dress, has a story to tell. For instance, Benino the lazy shepherd (above) fell asleep and missed the archangel’s proclamation. The whole scene is said to be his dream and, if anyone should wake him, the complete presepe and its cast of hundreds will all disappear…

THIS is the first Christmas that Auckland Castle has been open to the public, with the exquisite presepe at the centre of its exhibition and providing the first look inside the new Faith gallery. It is approached through a Regency flower garland (above) which now fills the Throne Room.

The garland contains 30,000 dried flowers – teasel, salvia clary, opium poppies, helichrysum, bells of Ireland, lavender, ferns, hydrangea, ornamental grasses, hops and amaranthus – all of which have been grown in the castle’s walled garden.

Before the Christmas tree was adopted as the centrepiece of the season in the mid 19th Century, people decorated their homes with garlands.

The Throne Room in Auckland Castle was designed in the 1790s by architect James Wyatt, and the garland frames the bishop’s throne, which was designed by his brother, Edward.

James Wyatt was the favourite architect of King George III who had him remodel Frogmore House, at Windsor, for his wife, Queen Charlotte, as a country retreat.

“We know that Wyatt designed a similar garland of silk flowers for Princess Charlotte at Frogmore House, and we know that here in the Throne Room, they had balls and parties and social gatherings with flower garlands, so we have brought the two together,” said Catherine Hodgson, head of marketing at the castle. “For our first Christmas, we have tried to do something that is distinctive and different but that is also true to the place.

“The garland is an experiment. We didn’t know if it would work, but it fits the room so well, it is now hard to imagine it without it.”

THE third part of The Auckland Project’s Winter Experience is the town of Bishop Auckland transformed into gingerbread (above).

The castle’s kitchens have made gingerbread versions of all the buildings that the project owns: the castle, the chapel, the deerhouse, the tower, the Market Place buildings and art galleries… A toy railway engine runs among the gingerbread houses to represent the recent acquisition of the Weardale Railway.

The gingerbread models are extremely good, but the best part of this display is the smell. The Christmassy aroma of spicey gingerbread fills the Welcome Tower as you approach the models.

Back in the castle, the walkway to the presepe is lined with Christmas trees so that the air is full of the sprucey scent of the season.

So not only can you see all the detail of the Neapolitan Christmas, but you get the smell of the Bishop Auckland celebration – and, because admission includes a glass of mulled apple juice and a gingerbread person, you get the tastes of the season, as well.

The Auckland Project Winter Experience runs from Tuesday, December 27, to Saturday, December 31, next week. Entrance to everything is £14 for adults and £7 for children (under fives free) with family tickets also available. Entry to the O Little Town of Bishop Auckland gingerbread display in the Welcome Tower alone is £4 for adults, £3 for children with family tickets available. This price includes a hot spiced apple drink and gingerbread person.

OF course, monkey-mad Memories was delighted to spot a monkey right in the middle of the presepe, even if the poor creature was kept in chains (above).

It is very appropriate because in 1274, Robert de Insula, the Bishop of Durham, kept two monkeys in the castle “to drive away his cares”.

After dinner, he would keep the older monkey in its cage while the younger one was encouraged onto the table to stuff its face with almonds.

Then the older, hungrier, monkey was released.

The two monkeys would fight, with the older one usually coming off best. It would then pick the almonds out of the younger monkey’s mouth and eat them “amid roars of laughter proceeding from the Bishop and his guests”.

READ MORE: HOW A BRUTAL, BLOODTY BATTLE FOUGHT AT BISHOP AUCKLAND CHANGED THE FACE OF NORTHERN HISTORY

Auckland Castle and St Peter's Chapel in the moonlight on a postcard with a May 7, 1906, postmark on it. It was sent to MA Beeton at 49, East Howle, Ferryhill, with the message: "I am returning to canny Newcastle tonight, Jane"