Highclere Castle

Highclere Castle Review

Tucked away on 1,000 acres of parkland, the family home of the Earls of Carnarvon since 1697 reveals the changes of taste that swept England in the prosperous 19th century. Its haute Victorian transformation, inside and out, made Highclere the perfect setting for filming Downton Abbey, the hugely popular period television drama. The stone house gained its imposing central tower and bristling neo-Gothic pinnacles in a rebuilding begun in the 1830s by Sir Charles Barry, architect of London's Houses of Parliament. State rooms display luxury upon luxury, including leather wall coverings, massive fireplaces under soaring ceilings, tapestries, and notable paintings. Family history gets attention in the Egyptian Exhibition, with displays on the archaeological adventures of the 5th Earl and Howard Carter, who together discovered the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. You can get good views of the house and countryside by walking the gardens and grounds. The house is 25 mi north of Winchester and 5 mi south of Newbury; there's train service from London and Winchester to Newbury, and taxis can take you the 5 mi to Highclere.