Highclere Castle
(Notting Hill) as Robert, Earl of Grantham; and Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime) as his American wife, Cora. It flows from the pen of Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) and is the most expensive British TV drama ever made, costing about a million pounds an hour to film. Mr Fellowes is pretty posh himself and – icing on the aristocratic cake – has recently earned a peerage of his own. Followed by more than 11 million viewers, Downton has been dubbed “the best thing since Brideshead Revisited.” Small wonder then that the sumptuous Highclere Castle
he Crawleys, Earls of Grantham since T 38 BRITAIN
1772, occupy the upper floors of their stately home, Downton Abbey. Below, an army of domestic staff runs their household with military precision. Among them there are those who are loyal, those who are opportunists, those who seek profit
and those who pursue love and adventure. Status may be pivotal upstairs but never assume that rank is irrelevant downstairs and, while the servants are privy to many a Crawley secret, the Crawleys know little of their world. As World War I approaches, perhaps it is not just the troops who must brace themselves for battle. It’s all in a day’s filming at Highclere Castle. Downton Abbey stars the inimitable Maggie Smith as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham; Hugh Bonneville
Above left: The 8th (and current) Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. Above right: The Drawing Room, designed by the 5th Countess in the 1890s, in the then-fashionable rococo revival style
in Berkshire was selected as the main location for this period drama, despite the fact that the stories unravel in and around a fictitious Yorkshire estate and village. Other locations were also used but Highclere, which has passed through multiple incarnations since the Domesday book and been home to the Caernarvon family since 1679, is the hub and heartbeat of the action. Its present-day appearance is that of an exceptionally
beautiful Victorian castle, deep in the Downlands of Northamptonshire and flanked on all sides by acres of spectacular parkland. Viewed across swathes of rolling pasture and Capability Brown landscape, and accessed by a sweeping approach lined with 230-year-old Cedars of Lebanon, Highclere’s exterior might be mistaken, at a cursory glance, for Westminster. Indeed, the architect, Sir Charles Barry, also designed the Houses of Parliament.
www.britain-magazine.com
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