All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
For Downton Abbey fans—and there are many at Traveler—the magic of the show is as much about the locations as it is the characters.
As we get closer to the movie's long-anticipated September 20 release date, a number of tour packages have been announced to get travelers to the filming sites. Viking recently announced that cruise guests can get access to Highclere Castle as part of a special Great Homes, Gardens & Gin excursion, while next year, Belmond's British Pullman train will begin ferrying Downton die-hards directly from London for private tours of the mansion.
To help Downton followers better plan their movie-inspired excursions, we sat down with Mark Ellis, the location manager for both the series and the film, to find out where the most beautiful scenes were shot, how locations are chosen, and why traveling through England by map is better than using GPS.
Highclere Castle
As most Downton fans are aware, this is the grand estate that started it all. Highclere Castle, which in reality is the home of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, is located in Hampshire (a two-hour drive from London) and stars as the namesake estate in the Downton Abbey series and movie. Although it's hard for fans to picture the beloved Crawley family's lives unfolding in any other location, Ellis says the team scoured castles all over the U.K. before going with Highclere. "At the start, my team traveled all over the country looking at hundreds of different houses," Ellis says. "What’s amazing is, Highclere Castle was the first house they ever went to! They then went all over England, but in the end they decided the first was pretty great. How could you not?"
Over the years, the cast and crew have become close with Highclere's owners, Lord and Lady Carnarvon. Still, Ellis's ambition to make the movie into "Downton on steroids" definitely made the owners a little nervous. "In the series we set fire to a bedroom—I know the Lord and Lady were nervous we were going to flood or burn the whole thing down for this [movie] script. You’ll have to see it to find out what we did!"
The Lord and Lady aren't the only regal residents in the area. Queen Elizabeth II keeps her racehorses next door to the castle. According to Ellis: "People on the estate once saw a lady with a headscarf minding her own business walking the grounds. They went to talk to her, and it was the Queen!"
Lacock Village
This Wiltshire hamlet is no stranger to the silver screen—locations here have also been featured in Harry Potter movies and Pride and Prejudice. But the scenes in this charming town are some of Ellis's proudest shots of the film. "We were filming the horses and soldiers are coming through the parish, and got so lucky," he says. "The sun was setting behind them, and suddenly that lovely evening dust began just rising up off the floor. You could pay millions and still not get that kind of effect. It reminds me of a scene in the film where Edith is walking around to the back of the castle at sundown, and bits of Bullrush fairy dust are just flickering around her in the evening light. I remember watching the monitor as it was being shot and thinking 'We don't have to do anything to that.' It was over in two takes."
Alnwick Castle
The location that Ellis is most satisfied to have featured is Alnwick Castle. The Downton crew were the first-ever film unit to get inside the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland's home, and Ellis says he still gets emotional when he thinks about it. "With the weather it receives being on the North coast, it gets battered relentlessly and just stays strong. There aren't many houses like that in the world, and they deserve to be seen."
And while the interiors of these homes are stunning, Ellis says he often pushes to change scenes in the script to an outdoor setting. "If we’re in these amazing locations anyway," Ellis says, "Why not?"
Wentworth Woodhouse
One of the greatest filming challenges is what to do when a grand exterior doesn't quite deliver on the inside. For the scenes at Harewood House, the location team needed to find a ballroom (Harewood has a large gallery instead). Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, proved the perfect solution. "I think it’s the biggest facade of any stately home in Europe," Ellis says. "We uses cranes just to get our camera equipment in, rather than coming up the staircase, because we were so nervous about damaging or putting any pressure on this incredible building."
Even after all of the elegant locations he's scouted, Ellis says Wentworth Woodhouse stood out. "I've never seen a ballroom like that in any home I've visited."
As soon as the script came in, Ellis and production designer Donal Woods immediately got to thinking about where to shoot. "We spend weeks traveling the country looking for locations, using old maps, not a GPS," says Ellis. "We have this one giant map where we mark which roads we’ve been down in England, and now there aren't many left! To think we get to do these two-week road trips looking at estates, roads and ruins, and get paid for it. It's a real joy."
Cogges Manor Farm
This Oxfordshire farmstead (and petting zoo) is the setting in the series for Yew Tree Farm. According to Ellis: "It was on its knees when we discovered it, and now it's so popular with a newly built tearoom. I'm not saying it was entirely us, but it's lovely knowing it's back on the map. Whenever I drive past it gives me the warmest glow." The National Trust—the British organization that restores old homes as rentals—has released data showing that Downton has been wonderful for visitor numbers, but Ellis says some properties are stretching the truth a little bit to keep up with the hype. "Sometimes you read in the newspaper that a location is telling journalists Downton was shot there. I'm like, 'No it wasn't!'"
Still, Ellis understands the appeal entirely. In the end, it's the charm of the locations that keep viewers—and Ellis himself—coming back to Downton again and again. "If every job was like Downton, you’d never want to retire," he says. "I must have driven up that driveway 800 times, but the approach on the angle, when the sun is shining on that sandstone—it blows me away every time."
