Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle is an elegant country mansion with landscaped grounds in Hampshire. Once the home of a famous Egyptologist, it has recently becoming one of the most popular stately homes to visit in England. This new-found status is due to its starring role in the smash-hit British television period drama Downton Abbey.
The foundations of Highclere Castle date back at least 1,000 years. The Tudor architecture of its Elizabethan rebuilding was in turn re-modelled into an Italianate style during the Victorian era by Sir Charles Barry, famous for his designing of the Houses of Parliament. The interiors were redesigned by three masters of the same period, Thomas Allom, William Butterfield and George Gilbert-Scott.
Since 1679, the castle has been home to the Carnarvon family and a fascinating little exhibition inside the castle reminds us that it was the 5th Earl of Carnarvon who in 1922, along with the archaeologist, Howard Carter, famously discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun in Egypt. The main collection is in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. The 1,000 acre park, based on a design by the famous landscape architect Capability Brown, contains Cedar of Lebanon and a native hybrid known as Highclere Holly.