Set Design

How Downton Abbey Got Ready for the Big Screen

Fans will see more of the Crawley home when Downton Abbey the movie premieres September 20
a man wearing a suit and a bowler hat walking in front of a large building
Charles Carson (Jim Carter) briefly comes out of retirement in the film.Photo: Jaap Buitendijk / Focus Features

During the six seasons Downton Abbey was on television, the Crawley family home was as important a character as any of its upstairs or downstairs inhabitants and the people in their orbit. The opulent residence was even on a par with the scene-stealing Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith). In the film version of the beloved early-20th-century period drama, out September 20, Downton Abbey again plays a starring role, as the Crawleys and their staff prepare the house for an overnight visit from King George V and Queen Mary. The staff is starstruck at the idea of serving dinner to the royals, and begins the monstrous task of cleaning every nook and cranny of the home, polishing all the silver, and planning a menu. (Little do they know the king and queen travel with their own staff, who don't trust that the Downton crew is up to snuff.)

Just like Anna (Joanne Froggatt), Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), Mr. Barrow (Rob James-Collier), and the rest, who want to deliver their absolute best for the royal visit (though Daisy, played by Sophie McShera, is unsure if she supports the monarchy), the film's crew knew they had to raise the bar for Downton's big-screen debut. "We just wanted to up the level to make it more lavish, to give the audience something more and make it richer and more opulent," says Donal Woods, the production designer who won an Emmy for his work on the show in 2016 and returned for the movie. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to do so. Highclere Castle, the Jacobethan estate in Hampshire, England, that is home to the eighth Earl and Countess of Carnarvon and has stood in for Downton since the start, was ready to reprise its performance.

Returning are Laura Carmichael, Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Allen Leech, and Elizabeth McGovern.

Photo: Jaap Buitendijk / Focus Features

The gorgeous structure was designed by architect Sir Charles Barry, who is also responsible for the Houses of Parliament in London. "He was such a famous architect at the time. It’s a bit like having Frank Gehry doing a house for you," says Woods. And Lord and Lady Carnarvon have the place outfitted with plenty of finery that made it to the screen. "The nice thing about Highclere is that they are very generous with quite a bit of their furniture," says Gina Cromwell, the film's set decorator and another Downton veteran. She saw no need to replace things that fit perfectly in the home, like the dining table. "It would be quite difficult to get the dining table out and store it somewhere, and then we’d basically be bringing in an exact replica," she says. Some items did need to be switched out for practical reasons, though—for example, the chairs. "They have upholstered lounge chairs, but they are quite low. For filming, you need to have chairs that are quite high off the ground so actors don’t have to struggle." In addition to upping the wow factor at Highclere, Cromwell furnished rooms built in a studio, which include all of the upstairs bedrooms as well as the servants' quarters.

Having big-screen resources helped with that task. "Because it is a movie, we were filming for less time than we would normally film a season of the television show, so we spent more money on it. Better-quality pieces," says Cromwell. "It was nice to be able to do it how you always really wanted to do it." A good deal of the budget was spent on carpets, drapes, custom table linens, and reupholstering, she says, as well as procuring enough silver serving and tableware for the king and queen of England. "It’s all real and it is pricey. It is an extensive operation, really," she says. (Once the silver was obtained and buffed to perfection, setting the table was an intricate process, with a royal expert on set to make sure everything was arranged accurately.)

On top of getting a facelift, the world of Downton was expanded for the flick with the addition of a bedroom for a new character played by Imelda Staunton ("which we clad in real burgundy silk damask from India on the walls," says Woods), a wine cellar, a silver room, a servery, expanded servants' quarters, the interior of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes's cottage, and numerous businesses in the adjacent village. "It was massively satisfying to be able to create sets that we didn’t have the space to do before," says Cromwell. Both she and Woods were especially pleased with the servery—a small room off the dining room where servants would have prepared trays of food and drinks—because they'd always talked about adding it. "It's not really gorgeous or anything, but I just love the fact that we were finally able to have one of those scenes where the servants have their conversations, and then they sort of stand up straight and off they go with their plates of food for the dining room just around the corner. Of course, it's not in real life—the dining room is at Highclere and the servery is at Shepperton Studios!"

To accommodate a large parade with the King of England and his troop (100 men and 80 horses in total), "we needed a bigger village" than the one where the show was filmed, says production designer Donal Woods.

Photo: Jaap Buitendijk / © 2019 Focus Features, LLC
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Though Downton is the center of activity, another very special residence does make an appearance. In 1927, when the film is set, Harewood House was home to Princess Mary and her husband Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood. The Crawleys are invited to a ball at their home, and the real-life Harewood House mostly played the part of itself. However, the ball scene took place at Wentworth Woodhouse. "It is one of the biggest facades in Europe, actually—it’s got 360 rooms," says Woods. "We had a lot of work to do there, because it was in a pretty poor state, to be honest. We had to put a ballroom floor down, drapes, the orchestra areas, fabrics, flowers, candelabra. We had quite a time making this fantastic work of architecture as good as it could be."

Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) and Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode) dancing during a ballroom scene, which was filmed at Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire, England.

Photo: Jaap Buitendijk / Focus Features