Highclere Castle is the Real Downton Abbey
By Richard Marion
In June, my husband and I went on our vacation to the UK and France. During that trip, we saw many castles and other sights. One of the highlights for me was having a chance to visit Highclere Castle which is the set of the popular television show, Downton Abbey.
This would be the time to hear the familiar music of the show as the opening scene shows the estate and the show’s cast members. While we did experience the view of the castle that many experience on the show, our experience is more about Highclere Castle itself.
Getting to Highclere is not easy when you are traveling outside the summer season. During the spring, there are limited openings for small groups to tour the estate and have tea and snacks in the castle. Therefore, I did have to do some research on how to book one of these tours so we could make it part of our trip to the UK.
Because there are no group tours that leave London by bus in June, we had to take the train to Newbury and then take a taxi to the castle. (I will talk more about the British train system in my post on transportation and accessibility later on.) In order to book a tour of the castle, I did have to join the Friends of Highclere organization to get access to tickets. This was after finding out that there were limited tickets available to the general public in June and they were sold out at least six months before our planned trip. After joining Friends of Highclere, I was able to purchase tickets for the afternoon tea and tails tours offered during the month of June.
Like many of the historic sights we visited in the UK, Highclere dates back to the 17th century, when it was first constructed as a smaller estate house. It became a castle after many renovations and expansions. The building that is seen today was completed during the 19th century. Highclere Castle was never meant to be a defensive fortress. It was always envisioned as a residential estate home for the Earl of Carnarvon.
The experience of visiting the castle was quite impressive. While the castle did not have as many objects visitors could touch as other royal palaces, experiencing the fragrant scents of the gardens surrounding the castle was one of the highlights of visiting the estate. The current Countess of Carnarvon is very fond of gardening, which is evident in some of the elaborate arrangements throughout the gardens. It was shocking to see that many of the rooms in the castle appear much smaller than we might expect them to be based on what we see on the Downton Abbey show. For example, the Great Hall, as it is called on Downton Abbey, was just big enough to hold our tour group of about 40 people. In fact, because the rooms are small and the halls can be narrow, the group was split into two. Our tour guide was very good at explaining the history of the castle and details about objects that couldn’t be touched.
Mary’s bedroom did not exist in the castle. Her bedroom for the Downton Abbey show was in a studio in London. Lady Edith from the show did have a bedroom in the castle, but we could only look in as it was not open to the public at the time of our visit.
The Earl of Carnarvon did have a connection to Canada. In the 19th century, Sir John A. Macdonald spent time at Highclere working on the documents that became the British North America Act which was the basis for forming the country of Canada. The sixth Earl of Carnarvon was fascinated by Egyptian history and financed the excavation that led to the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. As a result, the castle does have some Egyptian objects that were discovered prior to finding the tomb. None of the objects from the tomb are at the castle. They remain in the care of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Highclere Castle is definitely more than just the show Downton Abbey. However, it is because of this show that people are now including it on their trips to England. The fact that the show made the castle so popular is not lost on the owners. Therefore, as you visit rooms in the building and explore the estate, it is pointed out to people what scenes from the show may have been filmed there. If joining friends of Highclere is interesting to you, links to Friends of Highclere are included for reference.
The last article for this series will focus on our transportation and accessibility issues we experienced on our trip.
Friends of Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle
