I’m writing this during one of the hottest days London has had all year, which is exactly when I start thinking about autumn. So here's a trip I went on two years ago that I'd do again the moment it cools down.
I share a healthy obsession with Downton Abbey with my mum. She still lives in the south of France, and having a series we both love is one of those small things that keeps us close across a distance. For her seventieth birthday, I planned a getaway at Highclere, and it remains one of our favourite trips.
If you’ve never watched it and you like a period drama, start now, because it will make this whole thing better. It follows the Crawley family from 1912 onwards, through the war and everything that came after it.
The castle is real, and someone still lives in it
Highclere Castle
The castle you see on screen is a real house in Hampshire, and the family it belongs to still live there. George Herbert, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon, and Fiona, the Countess of Carnarvon, split their time between the main house and a smaller cottage on the estate, and tend to move out of the house during the busier visiting seasons.
Knowing that changes the visit a bit. It isn't a museum built to look lived in. It's someone's actual home.
📍 Highclere Park, Newbury, Hampshire RG20 9RN
What the tour is actually like
Real Lives and Film Sets Guided Tour
This is the one I did and the one I’d recommend. It runs on set dates between September and November, and at the time of writing there are still some in October and November.
They split you into small groups, which makes it feel less like being herded. Ours was every age and nationality, united by a fictional family. You go through the house including the library, which was my favourite room by a long way, and the bedrooms upstairs. The guides tie everything back to the series and give you the filming details you actually want.
The one that stayed with me: the furniture is old and fragile enough that the cast had to sit on the library sofas very carefully, and not for too long, to avoid damaging them.
Oh, and Mrs Patmore's kitchen doesn't exist. The whole downstairs was built on a set somewhere else.
Photography isn’t allowed inside, which I only realised looking back at my camera roll and finding nothing. Outside you’ll get plenty of the castle.
Also included: the Egyptian Exhibition in the cellars, which has nothing to do with Downton and is still worth your time. The 5th Earl was obsessed with Egypt and spent years funding excavation work out there, which ended with the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.
On lunch: a small meal is included at the end of the tour. It won’t be the best meal of your life, but it will do the job before you head outside.
Afterwards there’s a shop and the grounds, which are genuinely beautiful.
Where to stay
The Carnarvon Arms
A former coaching inn that has been putting up Highclere visitors for a very long time. Our room was small but comfortable, clean and well decorated. They lean into the Downton thing, which I found made the weekend more fun rather than less.
It’s a proper pub underneath all that, with breakfast and dinner both served. Around £100 a night when we stayed. Dogs are welcome in some rooms.
📍 Whitway, Winchester Road, Newbury, Hampshire RG20 9LE
Getting there, and a warning
You don't need a car for this. We took a train from Paddington and were in Newbury in 40 minutes, then got a local cab to the hotel.
On the day of the visit we decided the cab felt ridiculous for such a short distance, so we walked. Big mistake. We spent a stretch of it on the verge of a road with no pavement, my mum entirely unbothered, having spent the seventies hitchhiking around France, and me, a millennial, quietly convinced this was how it ended. We took a cab back.
Once that bit was behind us, though, the walk was lovely. Fields, sheep, the estate opening up in front of you. If you want to do it, ask the cab to drop you a little short of the castle and walk the last stretch. Thinking about it now, that walk was my favourite part of the whole weekend.
I went last year with my fellow Downton loving girlies. We had the best time!
As an unapologetic Downton Abbey devotee, this is the absolute ultimate autumn mood board!🤌🏻 There is something deeply grounding about pairing the turn of the season with the rituals of the Crawley estate crisp estate walks, drawing-room fires, and the unspoken rule that tea solves almost any existential crisis.
As the Dowager Countess would say, 'What is a weekend?' especially when you can spend it wrapped in early-20th-century Scottish highlands escapes or cozy Yorkshire mornings. Which Crawley storyline or estate season do you find yourself re-watching the most when autumn rolls in? If you could spend an autumn weekend with any character at the abbey, who are you sharing tea (or a scandalous secret) with in the library?