Castle Howard: The rules filming crews had to follow while shooting Bridgerton at Yorkshire stately home to preserve its 'historic integrity'
While shooting the Netflix series of Bridgerton at Castle Howard, filming crews had to adhere to strict rules in order to protect its ‘historic integrity’.
Much of the first season of Bridgerton was filmed at the 214-year-old estate Castle Howard.
Scenes show Daphne and the Duke of Hastings arriving in their horse and carriage at the stately home, exploring the Great Hall and its interiors.
The filming process has brought a lot of attention to Castle Howard - including a new demographic of visitors.
Abbigail Ollive, visitor attraction director at the stately home, said: “We’re really pro-filming.
“Filming at Castle Howard has two benefits for us; one is the location fee that gets paid goes directly back into conservation and restoration.
“So it helps to restore whole rooms which is brilliant because it adds to the visitor offer and then obviously it opens us up to new audiences who watch us on TV.
“But it comes with risks as well because when you’ve got that size crew in your historic interiors, we have to be really conscientious as a team and work really closely together.
“I have to say the Bridgerton team were fantastic to work with. I think we built a really good relationship with them.
“It was really full on for them because in the middle of a shoot they were going to Bath next, they had so much going on.”
There are a few rules the Bridgerton filming crew had to follow in order to preserve Castle Howard’s historic interiors and structures.
“We’re not a film set or a black box where you can do anything. We are a historic location and it was using our historic interiors,” Ms Ollive said.
“One of our primary goals is to completely protect the collection and the historic interiors. Anywhere like Castle Howard will have a set of rules for film crews.
“We don’t allow theatrical haze, which people often ask for because it creates a nice atmosphere and gives a nice quality to the light, but it can really badly affect our tapestries or our paintings, so we have to say no to haze.
“We say no to live or naked flames, candles; you can now get really good fake prop candles luckily but in the past it has been tricky because often in a historical drama they would have had candlelight to light the way.
“We often say no to that because it’s such a risk that something will obviously catch fire.”
There are also rules when it comes to food and drink used for filming or on set.
“We say no to a lot of food and drink or it has to be very controlled,” Ms Ollive said.
“So red wine is a real risky one, if people want a dark coloured drink and it were to spill on an original carpet or rug that could be problematic.
“Any food, we tend to ask for really good prop food or if they are eating we just try and control it; we have spill kits in every room in case something does get spilled.
“We also have invigilators in each room to make sure that our team are keeping an eye on movement because often you have a lot of camera equipment packed into a room that might be surrounded by sculptures, paintings and items of furniture that we need to protect, so it’s just having a pair of eyes.”
The Castle Howard team also works with an external company called Spencer and Fry who are specialists in filming in historic locations, Ms Ollive said.
“They often come and add to the capacity of our team because I think what people also don’t realise is we don’t have a whole filming team just hanging around waiting for the film crews to turn up,” she said.
“It’s just our normal team and suddenly we’re dealing with a film shoot.
“Spencer and Fry will send one or two people and they have a really good knowledge of how to protect the collection.
“For example, if people want to climb up some steps or stand on some walls and we’re unsure about the safety of the masonry or whether it will damage the materials, then Spencer and Fry are really helpful in giving a trusted opinion on that.”