Sense And Sensibility | 1995
Ang Lee brings a fresh sensibility to the English costume drama with his film of the Jane Austen novel, which scooped Emma Thompson an Oscar for her adaptation.
‘Norland Park’, the house Mrs Dashwood (Gemma Jones) and her brood must vacate after the death of the older Mr Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson), is Saltram House, a George II house set in a landscaped park at Plympton, three and a half miles east of Plymouth between the A38 and the A379, in Devon.
The strikingly handsome London home of the dreadful Fanny and John Dashwood (Harriet Walter and James Fleet), who inherit ‘Norland’, is Adam House, 7 Adam Street at John Adam Street, just off the Strand, London WC2.
The London home of the Palmers (Imelda Staunton and Hugh Laurie) is Chandos House, 2 Queen Anne Street at Chandos Street, London W1. The house also became ‘The Cheval Club’, run by Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed) in Michael Winner’s 1978 remake of The Big Sleep, with Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe. In 1981, it was used for the ‘Greenwich Village’ party where Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) cuts a rug with Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) in Beatty’s Oscar-winning epic Reds.
After years of neglect, this Grade I-listed Robert Adam mansion, dating from 1769 has been restored to its original splendour, and is owned by the Royal Society of Medicine. If you're a Jane Austen fan (or an Ang Lee fan or a Warren Beatty fan, for that matter) you can now hire the house for your wedding or social event.
‘Barton Cottage’, the modest home to which the Dashwood family relocates, is Efford House on the Flete Estate, eleven miles east of Plymouth in south Devon. You can rent out these holiday cottages – Efford is larger than it appears on-screen – it sleeps twelve.
The grand estate house of ‘Barton Park’ itself is Trafalgar Park, about five miles southeast of Salisbury, Wiltshire. The 18th century mansion house was given the name Trafalgar on being given to the brother of Admiral Nelson after his death in 1805, as a lasting tribute to his heirs. Successive Nelsons lived at Trafalgar Park until the estate was sold in 1948.
It’s now a private home, but available to hire for weddings and other functions. You might recognise it as the house taken over by the military in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later...
Two and a half miles west of Salisbury on the A30, Wilton House is the venue for the grand ‘London’ ball, where Elinor Dashwood (Kate Winslet) is surprised to bump into John Willoughby (Greg Wise).
A familiar old location, Wilton is seen also in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon; the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice; Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers; and in The Bounty, amongst many other films.
The exterior and entrance hall of the ‘Chelsea’ home of Mrs Jennings (Elizabeth Spriggs) is Mompesson House, The Close on the north side of Choristers’ Green in Salisbury itself. This furnished Queen Anne townhouse is administered by the National Trust and is open to the public.
The front room of the house, though, is Mothecombe House, Holbeton in Devon.
The bustling London street scenes are the Colonnade at the carefully restored Queen’s House, Greenwich, London SE10, a one-time royal palace, occupied by the dowager Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. The colonnaded walkway previously became turn-of-the-century ‘Russia’ for the honeymoon of Tchaikovsky and Nina in Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, and it's where Sherlock fights off four bodyguards in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows.
Greenwich, of course, is also home to the old Naval College complex seen in films as diverse as The Madness of King George, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Quills, The Golden Compass and The Avengers.
‘Cleveland’, home to the Palmers, where Marianne (Kate Winslet) falls ill after distractedly walking in the rain, is another National Trust property, the striking Elizabethan Montacute House, Montacute village, four miles west of Yeovil in Somerset, which you might also have seen in The Libertine, with Johnny Depp, and Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation.
Apparently a shot walk away, ‘Combe Magna’, the estate of John Willoughby, is Compton Castle, a fortified manor house at Marlton, a couple of miles northwest of Paignton in Devon. You can see the house again in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
Four miles to the southwest, the wedding of Marianne and Brandon was filmed at St Mary’s Church in the village of Berry Pomeroy, between Torbay and Totnes.
