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Downton Abbey is one of Britain’s great media successes. The TV series was first broadcast in 2010 and has gone on to win three Golden Globes and be dubbed into more than 150 languages. The small-screen series concluded in 2018 – and continues to be broadcast on TV in many countries – but the movie launched on the big screen in cinemas in 2019.
Book a Blue Badge guide for a Downton Abbey tour in many parts of England – there are more than 80 locations for the committed fan to visit! Your guide will take you to the heart of the series with a visit to Highclere Castle, the country house in Berkshire that is home to Earl and Countess of Carnarvon and has been the location of Downton Abbey’s aristocratic stately pile since the series began. As a footnote, it was also a filming location for the British comedy series Jeeves and Wooster, which starred comedians Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.
Near Highclere Castle, Basildon Park in Berkshire doubles as the interior for Grantham House, the family’s London residence and was the grand setting for the preparation for Lady Rose’s coming-out ball and her wedding to Atticus. Your guide may also show you the village of Bampton in Oxfordshire, where the public library served as the entrance to Downton cottage hospital and the rectory featured as Isobel Crawley’s house. You may also visit Hall Place in Buckinghamshire which was used for interiors, Cogges Manor Farm (Yew Tree Farm in the series) in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds or Horsted Keynes station on Sussex’s Bluebell Line that serves as Downton Railway Station.
Many of the new movie scenes were shot in London. York Minster was filmed in the capital, and a naughty weekend at the fictional Grand Hotel in Liverpool features the transformed entrance to the former London HQ of a prominent political party. The distinctly upmarket Somerset House was transformed into the dingy side of York, and interior scenes of Buckingham Palace are filmed yards away from the Queen’s London home inside a well-known 19th century venue. Rules restaurant in Covent Garden features three times in the TV series.
Let a Blue Badge Guide show you Downton Abbey as you have never seen it before with a fun and informative locations tour.
