The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The secrets of Britain’s stately-home capital
Drayton House, where Saltburn was filmed, is just one aristocratic property in a county that boasts 55. Sarah Baxter takes a tour of Northamptonshire
It is said that Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourite of Elizabeth I, was the finest dancer in England; he first caught the Queen’s eye at a ball, performing a vigorous galliard. Could he have matched Barry Keoghan’s, er, liberated moves in the film Saltburn? Who knows. But I like the idea of the “Dancing Chancellor” gyrating through the halls of Holdenby, the Northamptonshire pile he built in case Elizabeth visited (which she didn’t).
Holdenby House – now an eighth of its original immense size, but still magnificent – is just one of Northamptonshire’s multifarious stately homes. Sitting on a rich belt of limestone, dissected by the main north road and close enough to get to court if you wanted, but to get away if you didn’t, this county of “spires and squires” – though largely bypassed by the staycation masses – is believed to have more such homes than any other.
“Around 55, depending on how you categorise them,” reckons Laura Malpas of the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum. And only one of them – Canons Ashby – is run by the National Trust; many are still home to descendants of the families that built them. So it is no surprise that, when director Emerald Fennell was seeking an unknown property to play Saltburn – the eponymous house at the centre of her riotous class satire – she ended up here.
Filming took place at Drayton House, a highly secretive Baroque manor which is not open to the public. “I’ve worked in heritage for 25 years and I’ve never got a sniff in there,” says Laura. But despite remaining largely privately owned, most of Northamptonshire’s finest homes do welcome visitors, if only on limited dates.
Indeed, far from closing off for languid summers of murder and mayhem, they give tours of their laundries, host ABBA tribute bands and reenact the Battle of Naseby. This is partly because they want to share and contextualise their homes, according to Laura: “If heritage is going to survive, it has to stay relevant”. And it is partly because they can’t afford not to.
“On a beautiful day, you walk around and feel so lucky,” Holdenby’s current owner, James Lowther, tells me. “Then I see the bills and go into a deep gloom…”
According to the Historic Houses Association, a cooperative of 1,400plus independently owned properties in Britain, its members’ backlog of repairs is estimated at £2 billion. Keeping these kinds of places standing is a constant battle.
Holdenby has been used for filming; it was Satis House in the BBC’s Great Expectations. However, it is Deene
Park, a gorgeous Tudor-Georgian mansion, once home to the 7th Earl “Charge of the Light Brigade” Cardigan, that has a Saltburn claim to fame.
“We’re the one in the film that is open to the public,” says Charlotte Brudenell, the current owner of Deene Park. “Drayton ain’t got a lake!” (They used the one at Deene for the movie’s stone-throwing scene.)
The Brudenells saw Saltburn at the cinema; they stayed to see if they were in the credits and got locked in.
“I know lots of people who live in houses like that who are not like that,” Charlotte insists. “We’re all struggling to keep the roof on. Frivolity and flowing champagne are not part of it.”
Maybe they are not now – but Deene Park has plenty of good stories in its back catalogue. One of them features Adeline, second wife of the 7th Earl, who liked to shock visitors by climbing into a coffin and asking to be admired.
Then there are the finds. In the 1970s, an estate inventory unearthed a copy of the Magna Carta (it was sold for $1.5 million). Less lucrative, Charlotte recently found some, ahem, pigskin prophylactics, dating from 1900 – “they are enormous!” she says.
These are the kinds of details we love nowadays: the dirty secrets, the mad relations, the maintenance travails.
“Yes, you visit such places to see the art but also to see the lives lived,” agrees Charles Lister, property manager at Boughton House. “People are looking at history in different ways, and they are inspired by television and film.”
Boughton was built in 1528 and extensively expanded in 1695 by the Duke of Montagu, who sought to bring French flair to the British countryside – it is known as the “English Versailles”. Les Misérables and, more recently, Napoleon were filmed here.
It is exciting, but challenging, making sure the house is properly protected, Charles Lister says. Boughton was essentially mothballed for 200 years, escaping the damaging modernisations of the Victorian period, and is thus one of Britain’s best-preserved stately homes.
“We only open on select dates, mainly for conservation reasons,” Charles explains. “A person gives off the heat of a 100w bulb, breathing increases humidity. We want people to enjoy the place, but sustainably.”
James Saunders-Watson opens Rockingham
Castle at least 50 days a year. He admits it is nice to have his astonishing home to himself sometimes, but that, ultimately, “these places need to be loved”.
Continuously inhabited for nearly a millennium, Rockingham has been home to his family for 450 years. The gardens are open for snowdrop displays, theatre and a new Dinosaur Day. Inside there are impressive rooms and important portraits, but also a huge amount of 20th-century British art.
“My great-uncle was a fanatical collector,” James says. “We have lots of modern pictures hanging in old places.”
This is one of the joys of the private stately home, he reckons. “It’s not pickled in aspic, you get the full colour of the story, the people, the thread of life.”
Even if that story tends to be less about billionaire debauchery, and more about how you pay the heating bill.
‘On a beautiful day, you walk around and feel so lucky. Then I see the bills and go into a deep gloom’