Pride And Prejudice | 2005

Long takes and overlapping dialogue bring a touch of Robert Altman to Joe Wright’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, filmed on a slew of beautiful English locations.

In fact, there’s only one purpose-built set (for the dance at which Mr Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) is first introduced).

‘Longbourn’, the Bennet family home, is moated manor house, Groombridge Place, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. The house, built in 1662, is featured as ‘Birlstone Manor’ in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery The Valley of Fear. Groombridge was also the estate seen in Peter Greenaway’s elegant 1982 mystery The Draughtsman’s Contract.

‘Rosings’, the palatial home of the fearsome Lady Catherine de Bourg (Judi Dench) is Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire. Seen also in The Da Vinci Code and the Merchant-Ivory film of The Golden Bowl (while getting cut from the final version of Elizabeth, The Golden Age).

St George’s Square in Stamford itself becomes the village of ‘Meryton’, where Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) meets the dashing Mr Wickham (Rupert Friend).

About 20 miles southwest of Stamford, you can see ‘Hunsford’, the parsonage of Mr Collins (Tom Hollander), which is Montagu’s Hospital, a former almshouse, in the historic village of Weekley, now a Conservation Area, about three miles north of Kettering in Northamptonshire. Please note that this is a private residence, and do not disturb the occupants. The church is St Mary the Virgin, and the Egyptian-style column (added for the film) disguises a – slightly out-of-period – WWI memorial.

The bustling inn at ‘Lambton’ is the wood-panelled Dining Room at Haddon Hall, just south of Bakewell, Derbyshire. Possibly the country’s finest fortified Medieval manor house, Haddon – dating from the 12th to the 17th centuries – has also been featured in Rob Reiner’s Eighties classic The Princess Bride, as well as Shekhar Kapur’s epic Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1996 version of Jane Eyre, Trevor Nunn’s Lady Jane, with Helena Bonham-Carter.

More recently, it’s been seen in The Other Boleyn Girl and the 2011 Jane Eyre with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.

‘Netherfield Park’, where the Bingleys and Mr Darcy are staying, is Basildon Park, Lower Basildon, near Reading in Berkshire. An 18th century Palladian mansion, it’s now managed by the National Trust, and can also be seen in another Keira Knightley film, 2008’s The Duchess, as well as Guy Ritchie's 2019 The Gentlemen. The elaborate set dressing means you probably won't recognise the house’s Octagon Drawing Room, which actually has rich, red walls.

It’s at the Temple of Apollo, a folly built in the gardens at Stourhead, at Stourton near Warminster in Wiltshire, that Darcy makes his first unsuccessful proposal to Elizabeth in the pouring rain. The gardens have previously been seen on screen in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

‘Pemberley’, the lavish estate of Mr Darcy himself, is largely Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, estate of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Not only the exterior, here you can see the grand staircase and painted ceiling which so overwhelm Elizabeth, as well as the Sculpture Court, with the intriguing veiled figure – though not, sadly, the bust of Mr Darcy.

Originally set in a painting gallery, the scene was changed to make use of Chatsworth’s collection. The estate has since appeared in The Duchess and The Wolfman, with Benicio Del Toro, and its grounds in the 2011 version of Jane Eyre.

More of ‘Pemberley’s’ interiors were filmed in Wilton House, Wilton, Wiltshire, in the striking Double Cube Room, another location seen in Barry Lyndon (among many other screen appearances) as the interior of the Lyndon estate.

The rocky outcrop on which Elizabeth stands, is Stanage Edge, a dramatic gritstone formation – and a popular rockclimbing location – north of Hathersage in the Peak District of Derbyshire.

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