Three decades on, Brideshead revisited again by historic mansion

IT WAS one of countless lunches, with visitors dazzled by their luxurious surroundings, hosted by the Howard family in their North Yorkshire country home.

Yet when a group of Granada producers and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg stopped by Castle Howard in 1978, it was a meeting that would transform the building forever.

After lunch, it was agreed that the historic house and estate would be the set for the channel’s blockbuster adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

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A galaxy of stars, including Jeremy Irons and Laurence Olivier, soon followed and spent 20 weeks filming across 17 rooms before the lavish £11m production was screened in the autumn of 1981.

It is still hailed as one of the greatest television adaptations ever made and led to a deluge of visitors descending on North Yorkshire from all across the globe.

Now this month, three decades on from the original screening, Castle Howard is revisiting the 30th anniversary of the event which propelled it to instant worldwide fame.

Simon Howard, the latest in a long line to have occupied the family home since it was built in 1699, said: “I was 22 at the time and they approached my father and we invited them to lunch to discuss it.

“I don’t think we realised quite what the effect would be.

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“They filmed for three weeks in the summer and 17 weeks in the winter and took over the whole house.

“It was very exciting and we were like a huge family by the end of it all.

“The following year after it was aired, we were over-run with visitors, our infrastructure just wasn’t up to it.

“The numbers continued to stay up as it was shown all over the world.

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“Every year we would always get an influx of people from wherever it had been shown.”

He added: “In the 1970s we were getting around 170,000 visitors a year now we are getting around 250,000 a year.”

Castle Howard was built for Charles Howard, the 3rd Earl of Carlisle.

It was designed by architect Sir John Vanbrugh and despite being the first building he had ever undertaken, was instantly regarded as one of the great English country houses.

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Records show Evelyn Waugh visited Castle Howard in 1937, while he was in retreat at nearby Ampleforth Abbey.

It is not known whether the writer even entered the house, or just strolled around its lush grounds, but what he saw left an indelible mark on the author’s mind for the setting of his fictional Brideshead.

The association between Castle Howard and Waugh’s novel is now so strong that when a new adaptation was filmed earlier this decade, the country pile was once more chosen as both the set and star of the show.

The now blurred lines between fact and fiction at Castle Howard have preoccupied its current curator Dr Chris Ridgway, who has worked at the home for the past 25 years.

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And alongside the 30th anniversary celebrations on September 25, Dr Ridgway will be giving a talk and launching his new book, called Brideshead: Fact, Fiction and In-Between, which explores the relationship between Waugh’s novel and the house.

“Castle Howard appears to have started the TV tourism trend,” he said.

“It was the first time in TV history that audiences really related to a fictional house and they came in their thousands from all over the world.

“Castle Howard’s association with Brideshead has endured for more than a quarter of a century because the focus of the story is a much loved building.

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“Of course it has helped that a second screen version has introduced this story to a completely new generation, who also come to see Brideshead.

“The two will now be bed fellows forever but we always like to say there is much more to Castle Howard than just Brideshead.

“Generations of the Howard family have lived here and they have amassed a history just as interesting.

“But Brideshead Revisited is just a phenomenon of our age.

“In the past 50 or 60 years, the building has become a huge visitor attraction.

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“Although immediately after the first broadcast of the series, the numbers just shot up.”

During the 30th anniversary celebrations, visitors will be able to take guided tours to locations used in the filming, watch screenings of both the television and film version, and take special house tours to key locations such as the room where Lord Marchmain, played by Olivier, dies.

For more information, visit www.castlehoward.co.uk or call 01653 648 333

Images evoked of a lost England

EVELYN WAUGH’S novel Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, was first published in 1945.

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Waugh wrote the book during the Second World War and it evokes a lost England told through its upper classes, focusing on the aristocratic Flyte family as seen by the narrator, Charles Ryder.

Once published, it became his greatest commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic, despite Waugh writing that he did not think more than two Americans would enjoy the book.

However, it divided opinion elsewhere, with critics condemning it for its stylistic excess and snobbery.

The 1981 adaptation was the most expensive production Granada had ever undertaken but suffered numerous setbacks, including a technicians’ strike which crippled the network for four months, forcing the original director to quit.

Once broadcasted, it transformed Waugh’s original novel into a worldwide hit and led to a craze for men carrying around teddy bears mimicking character Lord Sebastian Flyte.