Celebrity Travel
Highclere Castle Has Been the Carnarvon Family’s Seat Since Long Before Downton Abbey
Hampshire’s Highclere Castle has been the Earls of Carnarvon’s family seat since 1679, funded the excavation that found Tutankhamun’s tomb, and became world-famous a second time as the real-life setting for Downton Abbey.
Sep 25, 2026 · BigTravel.in
Highclere Castle, in Hampshire, has belonged to the Earls of Carnarvon since 1679, making it one of England’s longer-running aristocratic seats rather than a house that changed hands with fashion. What visitors see today, though, is largely a Victorian creation: the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon had the house rebuilt between 1839 and 1878 by the architect Sir Charles Barry, who was working on the new Houses of Parliament at almost exactly the same time, which is part of why Highclere’s honey-coloured Jacobethan towers and turrets carry more than a passing resemblance to Westminster.
The earl who funded Tutankhamun’s discovery
The 5th Earl of Carnarvon, George Herbert, spent much of his fortune bankrolling the archaeologist Howard Carter’s years of excavation in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, a partnership that ended in November 1922 with the discovery of Tutankhamun’s largely intact tomb, one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. The castle’s cellars now house an Egyptian Exhibition drawing on the Carnarvon family’s own collection and the story of that excavation, a permanent reminder that the family’s fame long predates its more recent television connection.
Grounds designed for a very different era
The wider estate, close to 5,000 acres of Hampshire parkland, was landscaped in the 18th century by Capability Brown, whose rolling, deliberately naturalistic style of gardening shaped grounds across England’s great country houses and remains largely intact at Highclere today.
Still a family home, and now a filming icon
Highclere remains the working home of the current 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon, who have opened the castle and grounds to visitors on a seasonal basis. Since 2010, it has also been the principal filming location for the television series Downton Abbey and its subsequent films, a role that introduced the house, and by extension the Carnarvon family’s long history, to a far wider audience than its Egyptology connection alone ever reached.
Traveller tips
- Highclere Castle opens to visitors on a seasonal, limited-day basis rather than year-round; check the castle’s own opening calendar before planning a visit.
- The nearest mainline station is Newbury, with Highclere itself around a 20-minute taxi ride away; there is no direct rail stop at the estate.
- Tickets for the castle interior, including the Egyptian Exhibition, typically sell out well ahead of popular dates, particularly in summer.
- The grounds and gardens sometimes have separate ticketing from the castle interior; check what a given date’s ticket actually includes.
Where this is
Highclere, Hampshire