Downton Abbey at Christmas - exclusive behind-the-scenes look for Downton fans!

[Music] so i'm on my way to the real downton abbey and i actually cannot stop myself from smiling downton abbey is in reality high clear castle in hampshire almost 100 miles from mapperton i i really feel like i'm in the on the film set right now high clear beat around 40 other historic homes to feature as the title location of the tv series it is stunning the earl encounters of carnarvon live here and every year they go big on christmas the countess has this christmas fair that she puts on every year so i'm really keen to meet her and find out a little bit more because this is something that we definitely want to do at mapperton oh my goodness i can't believe i'm here i'm just half expecting carson to come out oh but somebody is here to greet me it's rather exciting [Music] good morning good morning thank you so much thank you i'm julie so nice to meet you i recognize this room from downton abbey this graced my screens every single week and i cannot believe i've just stepped into this room all 52 episodes of the smash hit tv show and movie were filmed here the global success of downton abbey draws over 130 000 visitors to highclere castle and gardens each year are you going to come all hoping to experience that daunting feeling hello hello julie that staircase i'm like yes i'm reliving my love of downton abbey but lady mary are hugh bonneville walking down it hi how'd you say hi julie so nice to meet you and your gorgeous dogs this is freya and the other stella and they are sweet they're not supposed to jump up but you can't keep a good dog down this room i'm sort of like the room well it's the heart of the house it's an extraordinary testament to victorian architecture what does it date back to this room was transformed by charles barry who was the architect of the house of parliament and actually he created that in what was an old medieval hall you've got a lot of light coming through everywhere which is wonderful yeah no the leaded windows are fantastic yeah although funny enough when they were filming downton abbey they used to black them out and i felt so depressed sometimes they wanted to control the light once historic houses closed their doors to the public over the winter months but now more and more are seeing christmas as a commercial opportunity preparations at highclere start back in january setting the color scheme of the decorations and dates of events then for one week in december all 60 staff are enlisted to decorate 79 christmas trees with over 8 500 ornaments can we just discuss this tree though i just walked in and i was like this is enormous it is a great tree it's 23 to 20 four foot high and every single year it's operation tree to put it up it's hysterical it's team building it involves everybody it must take hours it took all of this today excuse me you two stella sit oh look at it frail sit now stop it pretend you're growing up for a second so do you decorate the tree the same way every year we don't every year it's slightly different although i really like how we've done it this year it's you know deeply victorian red and gold and traditional i love all the rather large flowers and that theme carries on around all the trees once all the trees are decorated the scene is set for up to 30 events to take place at high clear over the christmas period [Music] at least one or two events a week or an aid of charity so you're non-stop basically they are non-stop and so as long as they don't knock my gin over all the christmas trees well let's go into the library come on

Channel: American Viscountess

Views: 142,324

Keywords: an American aristocrat's guide to great estates, downton abbey, julie montagu, lady carnarvon, Highclere castle, Downton Abbey christmas, country house, british history, English history, historic home, Highclere Castle Christmas, american aristocrat, Mapperton, Mapperton House, Mapperton Live, Mapperton Estate, Downton Abbey film, Downton Abbey 2, Downton Abbey 2nd film, Downton Abbey second film, Downton film, Downton at Christmas, Downton Abbey at Christmas

Id: 2rfc4xx8gsE

Length: 4min 28sec (268 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020