Highclere Castle
Highclere Park RG20 9RN
Channel your inner Lady Grantham at Highclere Castle, where hit TV show, Downton Abbey, is filmed. The castle is open over the summer months and will be seem very familiar to fans of the show, who can follow the paths where Lord Grantham walks his dog and peer into the bedrooms of the Crawley girls. But even if you’re not a Downton aficionado, the 5000-acre estate, with its beautiful gardens designed by Capability Brown, is impressive, as is the house itself. Still the private home of Lord Carnarvon and his family, it’s an interesting mixture of grandeur and homeliness. The castle cellars house an atmospheric Egyptian Exhibition dedicated to the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. Fascinated by archaeology, it was the fifth earl who was with Howard Carter in 1922, when he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, and who put up the money for many of Carter’s expeditions.
