Every summer I read my second
favourite novel Brideshead Revisited based on Evelyn Waugh’s most
famous novel. It's about Captain Charles Ryder who is in the army in the Second
World War. Through the night the troop travel to a stately home which has been
seconded for the war effort. When he wakes he’s surprised to find it's a spectacular
home that deeply affected his earlier years. The story takes you back to the
time when Charles meets a man at university and gets invited back to his home.
Home is Brideshead, the huge palatial stately home of
the Flyte family. The reader is taken back to the
1920s and shows how for 20+ years Charles was drawn into and intoxicated by the
colourful family and their glamorous life.
A lavish 11 episode television serial of the book
was released in 1981 made and here I am at Castle Howard in the Yorkshire
countryside where it was filmed. This 145-room treasure trove of a house was “Brideshead” in the serial. Parking the motor home in grounds
was free but getting into the grounds and house wasn't. I had some beans on
toast and then walked around the place, surveying the walls and fences to see
if I gain entry for free. I have a retractable dog lead and thought I would
clamber over the fence and if someone saw me I’d say I was chasing my lost dog
who’d escaped.
This plan did not work. A country road runs by
the place and people respectfully drive slowly however some unmarked police
cars suddenly came into view and zoomed by. Sirens had been thrown on the roofs
and each cop was dressed into a bullet proof vest. This furore brought a
security man out of a sentry box and I looked conspicuous all of a sudden. In
the end I had to pay £19.50 for a ticket to enter the gardens and house.
Firstly I spent about half an hour surveying the perimeter of the vast estate’s
grounds and now know the weak points to I never have to pay again - and getting
into the house itself is easy (for £4.22 I’ll let you know.)
It was mildly poignant for me to see some filming
locations. The television serial was faithful to the novel and I've watched it so
many times I couldn't quite believe I was stood where some of the filming was
done. I feel like I know the Flyte family and that
house. The last time I'd visited was with my mum. The cancer was weakening her legs
and we'd stopped going on coach holidays as she feared she wouldn't be able to
mount the steps into the coach. We were sat on a bench when a coach arrived and
after everyone had got off I asked the driver if my mum could try to get up the
steps and into the body of the coach (she did.) I looked at the very bench we'd
sat on to have ice creams and touched the photos of her in my pocket.
I had a stroll
around the expansive gardens and ate an apple by the lake observing this
quintessentially English backdrop. It looked different early one morning in November
1940. A schoolgirl was lighting a fire but lost control of it and it swept
through the house. The schoolgirl was from Queen Margaret’s School which had
been evacuated there in the war and suddenly a mass of the girls were moving paintings,
books, ornaments, tapestries and rugs onto the lawns. The central hall, dining
room and state rooms were ruined. Worst of all the dome imploded and the ceiling
decorated by Venetian painter Antonio Pellegrini's
was lost. A third of the building was left open to the skies.
As I walked round
I noticed a dozen petite doll-like Oriental girls
were taking selfies. A couple I got chatting to a
couple near the fountain and they said a Taiwanese pop star had got married
there and it was the only reason for the their visit. The place has also been
the filming location for other productions, the latest being Victoria (where the young Victoria
learns she's the new Queen.) I can only see this as Brideshead
though.
It’s ironic that Brideshead Revisited was filmed here as the novelist Evelyn Waugh stayed here once. He was giving a speech at Ampleforth (a very posh Catholic school) twelve miles away and he stayed here for a few days. I can only think he was so suffused with its opulence, splendour, domes, drama and divinity that he held it in his mind when he wrote the novel. The fictional Flyte family are a different matter though and it’s thought they were based on the Clifton family who lived in Lytham Hall in Lancashire (see last photo.)
Anyway, here’re some photographs of some filming
locations - then and now.
The first time Sebastian should
Charles where he lives...
Entering the chapel...
Charles paints the mural here...
Charles and Julia down by the
fountain...
Lord Marchmaine
comes home to die...
The actors meet up...