--- title: Before Downton Abbey: Real History at Highclere Castle description: At the real Highclere Castle, there's no shortage of history canonical: https://time.com/4190411/highclere-castle-egypt/ author: LIFE Books article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-25T18:00:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:47.463Z article:section: History og:title: Real History at the 'Downton Abbey' Set Goes Back to Ancient Egypt og:description: At the real Highclere Castle, there's no shortage of history og:url: https://time.com/4190411/highclere-castle-egypt/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23d74a76aac48d92/69887a23ab6d77751f6a8107/highclere.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Highclere Castle, Highclere, Hampshire, c1860-c1922. Artist: Henry Taunt og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Real History at the 'Downton Abbey' Set Goes Back to Ancient Egypt twitter:description: At the real Highclere Castle, there's no shortage of history twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23d74a76aac48d92/69887a23ab6d77751f6a8107/highclere.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Real History at the _Downton Abbey_ Set Goes Back to Ancient Egypt > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Real Downton Abbey: Highclere Castle [Watch (HLS stream): The Real Downton Abbey: Highclere Castle](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/urM3euyX.m3u8) (4:01)  _Published 2012-01-05. The Countess Carnarvon gives a tour of the fabulous Highclere Castle, her family home and the set of the Masterpiece Classic series Downton Abbey_ by [J.I. Baker / LIFE Books](https://time.com/author/life-books/) ## J.I. Baker / LIFE Books Jan 25, 2016 6:00 PM UTC  Highclere Castle, Highclere, Hampshire, c1860-c1922. Highclere Castle, Highclere, Hampshire, c1860-c1922. Heritage Images/Getty Images by [J.I. Baker / LIFE Books](https://time.com/author/life-books/) ## J.I. Baker / LIFE Books Jan 25, 2016 6:00 PM UTC What’s the biggest conception about _Downton Abbey_ location Highclere Castle among viewers of the show? According to the current Countess of Carnarvon, many viewers don’t understand how much _real_ history there is in the house. “We have been open since 1988, when the queues were at first as long as in this _Downton_ time, because my father-in-law and Robert the butler had discovered various Egyptian treasures hidden away,” she noted in an email to LIFE Books. That’s right: well before _Downton_, Highclere and its residents were famous for the fifth Earl of Carnarvon’s role in discovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen in 1922\. As TIME explained in 1988, his grandson, a later Lord Carnarvon, had thought he knew of every treasure in the castle—until a 75-year-old butler told him, as TIME [then reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1988-03-21/page/53/), “Except for the Egyptian stuff, my lord.” And stuff there was: --- > “” --- Most of the Egyptian treasures from the excavations that had led to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb had, if they left Egypt at all, been donated to the British Museum. The objects unearthed in 1988, as well as some others from Carnarvon expeditions, can [still](http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/antiquities-collection) be seen at the castle. But it was _Downton_ that finally turned the domain into an international tourist attraction, a fact the Countess hopes to continue even though the hit show’s run has ended. “I am focusing on sharing different aspects of what makes Highclere resonate with guests and visitors,” she says.  LIFE Books LIFE Books _The LIFE commemorative edition_ Downton Abbey: Behind the Scenes of the Iconic TV Show _is available in stores now._ ## Transcript But welcome to Highclere Castle. I'm Lady Carnarvon and this is a family home. And you'll also know it as Downton Abbey. And the series is shown by PBS. And I'm delighted to show you some of the highlights and some of the ways round our wonderful state rooms. My husband's family have lived here since 1679 and the bishops of Winchester owned it for 800 years before that. But the current castle built on top of the previous buildings was done by Charles Barry, who did the Houses of Parliament in London. So it's a very important building. It's got two or 300 rooms, 50 to 80 bedrooms, some cellars, and it's a masterpiece of Victorian confidence and inspiring architecture and most people will recognize this room from Downton Abbey. It's much used by Julian Fellowes when he's writing the script, but for us as well, it's a much used family room. We normally have a bar set up here with coffees and drinks and champagne or whatever we're having before lunch or supper, and we collect around the fire in the winter evenings to play quiz games and charades. During the First World War, the castle was actually turned into a hospital, and the woman who ran it was the first Countess of Carnarvon. She made herself head matron, and she was called our Mina, our Mina Carnarvon. And I've written a book about this. The history at that time was almost as good as the fiction that you're all seeing on television. The State Dining was a marvelous room. Downton Abbey spent an awful lot of time in here. There's often 14 of them around this room. While the room is dominated by this wonderful van dike of Charles first on horseback. It was painted about 1633. And it's the most amazing feeling to sit in this room with such an extraordinary, huge painting above you. Now, I actually always sit in this chair and my husband always sits opposite me and interestingly enough, I think my mother in law sat here, her mother in law sat there and the staff dining room used to be underneath this dining room and the top ladies made the housekeeper would sit here and the butler where my husband sits, they would mirror the small downstairs we have upstairs. This is our indoor bedroom. It was actually turned into the operating theater in the First World War by America. Now, in the fifth contest, there was no National Health service or during the First World War. It was up to people like our Nina or the military hospitals to nurse men back to health. What is wonderful is having Downton Abbey here means we we have a lot of visitors when we're open, which means the pubs, the local hotels are full. We buy all our local produce from from local suppliers. We've got lots of part time employees and we're completely amazed. And we're all working jolly hard to kind of try to make hay while the sun shines, I think, and make sure visitors who come here enjoy it to make sure we've still got enough days for filming the third series and see where we go after that. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4190411/highclere-castle-egypt/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4190411/highclere-castle-egypt/"},"headline":"Real History at the Downton Abbey Set Goes Back to Ancient Egypt","datePublished":"2016-01-25T18:00:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:47.463Z","description":"At the real Highclere Castle, there's no shortage of history","url":"https://time.com/4190411/highclere-castle-egypt/","keywords":["Television","Archaeology"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23d74a76aac48d92/69887a23ab6d77751f6a8107/highclere.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"J.I. 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