Bodices & Blockbusters

There was a time when it seemed that movies and TV shows were only ever made in Hollywood. Nowadays, really rather a lot are made right here in the UK. Newspapers last year were full of sightings of major global superstars – Tom Cruise spotted in a Birmingham curry house, Nicole Kidman declaring that she wants to move to Belfast and Harrison Ford found strolling down Newcastle’s Quayside.

Whatever is happening? It’s quite simple really.

Filmmakers come here now for an expanding number of world class studios, talented fi lm crews and production teams, a favourable tax regime and top notch locations. Location work has become big business for some heritage places. The result is not just a boost to short term income but, for a lucky few, a sort of global fame that is hard to achieve through other means. It also sparks a curiosity with groups of fi lm fans who might have only a tenuous interest in heritage itself and, in particular, reaches out to younger fi lm goers, building a relationship which may last for a long time to come.

More than any other film, Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 masterpiece Barry Lyndon marked a change. The film, based on a story by Henry Fielding (and the real life story of the scurrilous John Stoney Bowes), broke new ground by being shot entirely on location in Britain and Ireland and went on not only to be awarded four Oscars but also to develop cult status over the decades since. The historic houses which were caught by Kubrick’s cameras were Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard, Corsham Court, Petworth, Stourhead, Longleat, Wilton House and Dunrobin Castle, a roll call of some of the grandest country houses in Britain.

For some of these places, the income from filming has since become an important and recurring part of their business. Wilton House, home of the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, has been able to attract a series of important filming contracts which are generally managed outside its May to September period of opening to visitors. As a result, Wilton’s grounds and magnificent interiors have had a continuous and varied film career. The house can be seen in a string of costume dramas from Jane Austen to Graham Green, in action films, including Tomb Raider and Johnny English Reborn, in blockbuster TV shows like Outlander, The Crown and Britain’s Next Top Model, as well as the usual run of Antiques Roadshow, Flog It! and Bargain Hunt. Its showstopping interiors are often well disguised, so it was particularly pleasing to see Inigo Jones’ Double Cube Room, perhaps the most beautiful room in Britain, instantly recognisable as a stand in for Kensington Palace in Netflix’s hit show, Bridgerton.

For a few historic places, the arrival of a film crew has proved transformative. Top of the list is probably Highclere Castle in Hampshire, now known to millions around the world as Downton Abbey. The second fi lm in the series, Downton Abbey: A New Era, is released in Spring of this year following a television run of 52 episodes. Its global fame has made the Victorian house, designed by Houses of Parliament architect Charles Barry in the 1840s, instantly recognised from Sweden to South Korea. NBC Universal, who make the programme, estimate that 120 million people worldwide have watched the series though, by her own admission, this number does not include Dame Maggie Smith who plays the waspish Dowager Countess. The level of international fame has meant that, before the pandemic, Highclere was able to attract around 1600 visitors a day to its pre-booked tours. The regular fl ow of income this produced has allowed the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon, whose home Highclere is, to undertake an extensive restoration programme at the house to future proof it for the next generation. “We’ve never got any more cash in the bank than before, you simply spend it at a faster rate”, explained the Countess in an interview with Hudson’s.

Watch excited children (and adults) bouncing on and off broomsticks at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland and it is clear that every one of them wants to be Harry Potter. It is undeniably thrilling to enact the broomstick training scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the courtyard at Alnwick, the exact same location as the boy wizard himself. Although a non-disclosure agreement prevents the castle from promoting its Harry Potter pedigree, the building is immediately recognisable and the ‘Alnwick on Location’ tours run at the castle have proved enormously popular, where visitors learn not just about the castle’s Harry Potter connections, but also about its role in other productions including Blackadder, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and, of course, Downton Abbey. “The impact of Potter is comparable to the likes of Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes or The Beatles; something intrinsic to British culture that international visitors want to experience for themselves”, explains Daniel Watkins, who leads the tours at Alnwick Castle.

For the National Trust’s Castle Ward, on the shores of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland, it was HBO’s Game of Thrones which brought a change of pace. Global streaming networks have transformed the range of television audiences, so a series like Game of Thrones was successful enough, not just to bring in a few British fans of George R R Martin’s series of fantasy novels, but to create an entirely new tourism industry for the region. At Castle Ward, dedicated fans follow signposts to the farmyard and ancient clocktower that was transformed into the stronghold of ‘Winterfell’, stroll around in wolfskin cloaks and hone their archery skills. These visitors have a noticeably different profile from the visitors to the Georgian house at Castle Ward. They are younger and come in friendship groups, looking for an interactive experience rather than a tour and they come from many of the 207 countries in which the series was screened.

While Northern Ireland has, become for some, Game of Thrones, Scotland has become Outlander. Starz’s time travelling Jacobite drama was a particular hit in the US. Even though the action switches from Scotland to Colonial Virginia after the third series, the filming is still located in Scotland. The castles and historic mansions of Scotland, however, had already achieved fame with fans of the books in the first two series and Outlander tours have proliferated ever since. Visit Scotland produce an Outlander locations map listing 42 locations including Doune Castle, Gosford House, Hopetoun House, Arniston House, Drumlanrig Castle and Drummond Castle Gardens. With series 6 of Outlander on our screens in 2022 and three more books in the Outlander series still to use as source material, this popularity is only set to grow.

It’s not just another series of Outlander we have to look forward to. In the battle for ratings, screening services are all pursuing drama which can be expanded into repeated series to capture our loyalty as viewers. Netfl ix did it again with The Crown, the fi ctionalised story of the reign of HRH Queen Elizabeth II,, a natural opportunity for historic locations. Four seasons in, many of the locations are becoming quite familiar. The Queen meets her series of Prime Ministers at ‘Buckingham Palace’, in reality the Music Room at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire. Most of the interiors of ‘Windsor Castle’ are actually fi lmed at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, perhaps the perfect stand-in, since Belvoir’s appearance today is largely thanks to the work done by James Wyatt for the 5th Duke and Duchess of Rutland, just after he had completed work for George III at Windsor. Giving both castles battlements and neo-gothic fl ourishes that make them quite similar. For Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, the Scots baronial towers of Ardverikie House near Inverness are a perfect substitute, particularly since Ardverikie was where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed when they fi rst fell in love with Scotland on a visit in 1847. They went on to build Balmoral for themselves, meanwhile, Arverikie burned down and was replaced, in 1877, by a building much closer to the new Balmoral in style than the original had been. For the Balmoral interiors in The Crown, Netfl ix went, not to Scotland, but to Knebworth House in Hertfordshire where the Victorian gothic rooms pass more than adequately for the Highlands.

And of course, there is Bridgerton, due at least another two seasons after the release of season 2 this year. This refreshingly ‘modern’ Regency drama was watched on 82 million Netflix accounts and is another perfect fi t for historic locations in the UK. You can identify the settings quite easily as Wilton House, Ranger’s House in Greenwich, Painshill Park Gardens and Castle Howard, which starred in Season 1 as Clyvedon Castle. Castle Howard has a special status as a location having been chosen for 1981’s ITV Granada production of Brideshead Revisited, listed by the Daily Telegraph as ‘the greatest TV adaptation of all time’. The house, a paradigm of the English Baroque, became so firmly associated with ‘Brideshead’, home of the fictional Marchmain family in Evelyn Waugh’s novel, that the 2008 fi lm version of Brideshead Revisited was also shot at Castle Howard. Last year closed with the announcement of a BBC remake of the classic series to be made in 2022, starring Andrew Garfield. Good news surely for Nick and Victoria Howard at Castle Howard?

2022 promises a rich crop of film and TV for heritage location seekers. For a start, the release of many productions has been delayed by pandemic restrictions, Downton Abbey: A New Era and Bridgerton: Series 2 are just two examples. Many are eagerly anticipated. Matt Smith, who will play Daemon Targaryen in the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, has been spotted on the beach near St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. The castle, accessible only by a tidal causeway, has been home to the St Aubyn family since 1650 but for a while in 2022, it will be a fictional home to the Targaryen clan and perhaps a few dragons as well. Winterbourne House and Garden in Birmingham will get some welcome TV exposure in Sky Cinema’s The Colour Room, a biopic of the British ceramic designer, Clarice Cliff. Historic locations from Burghley House in Lincolnshire to Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland have been busy hosting film crews and film stars and there is a long list of promising costume dramas slated for release during the year.

So, if you are looking for blockbuster cinema screen entertainment or a bodice-ripping period drama on your TV, just sit back and spot the locations in 2022.