Comfortable, on the other hand, it was not.

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 33.

Comfortable, on the other hand, it was not. It had no central heating of any kind. Its six bedrooms boasted two bathrooms between them, the second being distinctly primitive; my parents, in the master bedroom, were as far as it was possible to be from both. The water was gently warmed by a minute coal boiler, always referred to as “the donkey,” which if continually stoked produced about two tepid five-inch-deep baths an hour. Both double bedrooms were of reasonable size, but two of the singles were little more than wagon-lits. (One day my mother received a telegram from an old friend, reading “Delighted accept invitation weekend as long as don’t get room at top of stairs.”) I look back with astonishment at the house party my parents always had for Goodwood Week, when the house was full of members of the smartest racing set, most of whom in those days would bring their valets and personal maids with them as a matter of course. The latter were accommodated in a local bed-and-breakfast, where they were probably a good deal more comfortable than their employers; but it is strange indeed in our modern age think of gentlemen who would expect to have their evening clothes laid out for them every night and ladies whose dresses were ironed before each wearing, cheerfully trudging down a chilly corridor in their dressing gowns and waiting outside the bathroom until another of their number emerged, only to find that he or she had taken all the hot water. The queues after breakfast—there were only two loos—must have been even more embarrassing; but nobody ever seemed to mind, or even to notice.

Having live in Britain in the mid-1960s, I can confirm the paradoxical juxtaposition of class elegance and near primitive domestic niceties.  We frequently travelled within England a stayed at old hotels which were most often converted landed homes.  You would enter a palatial hall scented with wax of the hardwood floors.  The dining rooms were large, tables laid with white cloth covers and serviettes, eight piece settings of silverware and the serving staff in elegant uniforms.  

When you retired for the night you mounted a grand staircase into an upper corridor and located your room.  Which was minimally heated, if at all.  The bathrooms for each floor were down the hall and limited in number.  Sometimes you had to keeping opening you door to peer down the corridor every fifteen minutes to see if the bathroom was now available.  

I recall one such extended manor house hotel in which we stayed while visiting the Lake District in the autumn of the year.  A year when winter weather arrived early.  No heat in the room.  You could see your breath inside.  You stripped off and hopped into bed, waiting for you body heat to warm a cocoon under the eiderdown.  In the morning, I got up and spread the curtains to see the dawn.  What I saw was the frosted windows.  Frosted on the inside.