UK: Hampshire – Highclere Castle

Highclere Castle: More Than Just Downton Abbey

If you’ve ever watched Downton Abbey and found yourself wishing you could step into the screen, you’re not alone. Like so many others, we made the pilgrimage to Highclere Castle—now as synonymous with Julian Fellowes’ grand period drama as it is with British aristocracy. But beyond the instantly recognisable exterior and those familiar state rooms lies a home with genuine depth, long history, and the odd surprise thrown in.

A Familiar Grandness

Approaching Highclere Castle, there’s no denying the cinematic déjà vu. The honey-coloured stonework, the distinctive silhouette, and the sweeping lawns all feel plucked directly from a TV frame. Yet despite its fame, the castle isn’t a set—it’s a working family home. Albeit the kind of family home where “working” might involve choosing which oil painting to hang above the grand piano and deciding whether the drawing room cushions have seen enough decorative fluffing for one day.

Inside, the effect is oddly uncanny. We wandered through the very rooms where the Crawleys once fretted over Edwardian dinner parties and entailed estates—the drawing rooms, the saloon, the smoking room, and the library with its towering bookshelves and deep red leather armchairs. There’s a sort of preserved elegance about it all. The furniture is polished to a quiet gleam, the paintings sit precisely where you suspect they’ve always sat, and the carpets—if they could talk—would doubtless whisper tales of polite conversation and hushed scandal. It’s all very stately, but not sterile. There’s a warmth to it, even if one suspects no one’s dared move a cushion since 1897.

Unfortunately, and understandably, photography is strictly forbidden inside. So, for all of us snap-happy visitors hoping to smugly Instagram the dining room table where Maggie Smith delivered withering one-liners—you’ll have to settle for memories. Or the gift shop postcards.

A House with Real History

Of course, Highclere Castle wasn’t built just to play host to fictional drama. It’s been the seat of the Carnarvon family since the 17th century. And the current residents—the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon—still live in part of the house. One has to assume their side of the castle comes with fewer tour groups and slightly more reliable heating.

As with many English country estates, there’s a long history of slow architectural evolution. The house you see today, redesigned in the 19th century by Sir Charles Barry (yes, the same chap who gave us the Houses of Parliament), is a solid piece of Victorian-Gothic bravado. It’s built to impress, and it does so with considerable flair.

But the real gem of the house, at least for us, came not in the grand rooms upstairs, but in the exhibition below.

Egypt Beneath the Stairs

Tucked away on the lower level of the house—beneath the grand corridors and imposing portraits—is the Egyptian Exhibition. And frankly, it was a surprise. Not the sort of thing you expect to find under a stately home in Hampshire.

The exhibition tells the story of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist who had the good fortune—and the good sense—to back a man named Howard Carter in the early 20th century. Their partnership led, in 1922, to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The story has been told many times, of course, but seeing the story unfold in the home of one of its principal characters adds a rather personal layer.

The exhibition itself is well presented, featuring replicas of many of the tomb’s iconic artefacts alongside original pieces from the Earl’s collection. There’s a certain charm to it—a mix of scholarly enthusiasm and slightly eccentric curation. You get the feeling the Earl would have enjoyed explaining it all himself over a glass of sherry.

For us, having visited Egypt just a few months prior, the display struck a particular chord. There’s something about seeing objects—even replicas—from a place you’ve recently walked through that stirs the memory