Highclere Castle

I know that.

That's Highclere Castle, I believe is the name of it.

The actual name.

I would love to visit there.

A lot of people are going to Czechoslovakia and other places like that to check out Games of Thrones locations now as well.

Highclere Castle, thanks to Downton Abbey.

That was a Downton Abbey one.

And also St. Michael's Mount from House of the Dragon for a couple of pretty scenes.

And obviously her, no doubt, Mark side of things.

side of events and so I met her at this charity clay pigeon shoot at at Downton Abbey at Highclere Castle and she was Martin Brundle was there and she was absolutely roasting me about how unfairly I was treating this Australian driver by giving all the better parts to the to the German and And I turned around to her and said, have you ever thought that the German lad's just a bit quicker? And she kind of marched off and thawed significantly through the day.

And Martin was like, well, you got roasted by a Spice Girl.

So, yeah, that was one of our very first

I think they were a sponsor of it.

And so they just drove that whole narrative to get people, oh, I'm going to go and – visit Highclere Castle and, you know, that whole thing, you know, relive that set of that TV show if you're, you know, into that kind of thing.

So I could see where that would be, especially when you're using real places instead of just, you know, cardboard set somewhere, you know.

So what here, speaking about that, so if we were to do that for St. Louis, what would people come to St. Louis for to be on a set?

The other thing is the interesting question of who owns the antiquities.

So if you're interested in watching a little bit of fictionalized history, there's a whole series out on Tutankhamun, um, which if you're-- follow me in the dots, okay? There's a tie-in with Tutankhamun and Downton Abbey, which is really called Highclere Castle, and, uh, Lord Carnarvon, who is really the, the lord over Downton Abbey's fictitious name, real name Highclere Castle.

He financed the dig that helped them discover Tutankhamun's tomb.

Now, what's interesting is that when they were opening that tomb, there was a legacy and there was a mythology that, oh, you got a curse and you died.

In fact, Lord Carnarvon died of blood poisoning when he was in Egypt, and it really d- wasn't a curse at all.

Um, but we do know that if you go to Highclere today and if you decide to tour the castle, there's a whole section of Egyptology, and there's a whole bunch of fragments taken before the government of Egypt said, "Uh, uh, uh, uh-

Mm.

Yeah

[laughs] That's awesome.

We were at Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey was filmed, and, uh, we were sitting outside, and there was a man across a few tables that pointed to a logo on my jacket.

I went over and talked to him.

He was from Lexington-

So his full name is George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, and he is at this time extraordinarily wealthy.

He lives, his main seat is Highclere Castle, now known, well now better known as the house in Downton Abbey.

And he spends his vast wealth on racehorses.

He's a big art collector and he's also one of Britain's earliest motoring enthusiasts.

So, inevitably, as one of Britain's earliest motoring enthusiasts in 1901, he has an enormous car accident.

Okay.

And because of this car accident, his health never really kind of properly recovers and he can't really cope anymore with the kind of cold, damp English winters in Highclere Castle.

And his doctor recommends that he spends his winters somewhere warmer.

The prospect of finding Tutankhamun's lost tomb certainly helped to inspire Howard Carter's main financial backer in Britain, Lord Carnarvon.

This is Highclere Castle, Carnarvon's home in Hampshire.

I'm meeting Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon, who looks after the family collection.

He would've known this room like this, would he?