In the Season 3 premiere of “Downton Abbey,” airing Sunday on PBS, a glowing Lady Mary Crawley descends the great house’s staircase in a beautiful white dress.
But she’s hardly the only bride to come down those stairs recently.
The popular costume drama has made Highclere — the grand, 175-year-old family home in West Berkshire, England, where “Downton Abbey” is shot — a to-die-for wedding location for the well-heeled (the site fee alone runs upward of $20,000) and a hot-ticket
tourist attraction.
“It was the perfect location for a wedding,” gushes Melissa Johnson, a 28-year-old who lives in Vancouver, Wash., and married her British husband, Craig, at Highclere in September 2011. “You can’t help but feel like a real princess going down those stairs!”
Francesca Cribb, editor of the hitched.co.uk wedding blog, is equally enthusiastic. It’s “the ultimate fairy-tale venue for a couple looking to host a dream wedding,” she says. “The dramatic exterior of the venue, the charming interior, the lavish grounds and British history make Highclere a one-of-a-kind wedding venue.”
Even before the “Downton Abbey” frenzy began here less than two years ago, the manor house, which is home to a real-life earl and countess, was a romance mecca. French soccer star Thierry Henry, who plays for the New York Red Bulls, and British model Nicole Merry were married there in an elaborate ceremony in 2003. Tabloid fixture Katie Price, a k a Jordan, wed pop star Peter Andre at the estate in 2005, while footballer Ashley Cole and pop star Cheryl Cole used the venue as a press decoy when they got hitched at another stately old mansion in 2006. (True to the heartbreak and drama seen on the show, all of these couples have since split.)
“It’s a wonderful house for parties,” Lady Fiona Carnarvon, who lives at Highclere with her husband, the Earl of Carnarvon, has said. The Carnarvon family has lived on the property since 1679, but the TV show has added to the wedding-venue hype. “It was popular anyway, but ‘Downton’ for sure has helped its profile enormously,” says Howard Lucas, a wedding photographer who has shot at Highclere. “It’s one of a kind.”
When the Johnsons got hitched at Highclere, after falling in love with it on a tour while visiting Craig’s family in England, “Downton Abbey” mania hadn’t quite hit stateside. But now, when the couple watches, “we never go five minutes without one of us saying, ‘Oh, that’s the room you got ready in!’ or ‘That’s where the tables were set up!’ Silly little things like that,” says Craig, 31.
Not getting hitched or invited? For two months in the summer and various holidays throughout the year, the castle is open to visitors.
Bob Strange, executive producer of an HGTV special on Highclere that airs tomorrow, notes that a week after the show premiered in the UK, it was deluged with thousands of visitors in a single day. “The family called it Black Saturday, not because it wasn’t welcome,” says Strange, but because they “were vastly unprepared.”
Reservations for tours of the 30,000-
square-foot house must be made months in advance. While Highclere doesn’t employ the 150 servants it did in its heyday, it still has a staff of about 70 and looks and operates much as it did in “Downton” times. According to the HGTV special, some 60,000 tourists now visit Highclere each year; that’s double the number of visitors that reportedly came through before the Crawley craze struck.
“Walking in . . . is a breathtaking experience,” says HGTV GM Kathleen Finch. “The home is exactly as it is on television — all the furniture they use is actually in the house.”
Lady Mary’s red bedroom looks just as it did when the swarthy Turk died there after a passionate night in Season 1, and the great drawing room looks the same as when Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess holds court there.
And, while the real-life lord and lady of the house were initially overwhelmed by the crowds, they are now prepared for the onslaught. Just as the Crawleys must contend with the exorbitant cost of keeping Downton running, the Carnarvons have also struggled — a few years back, the house required some $15 million in repairs.
So the tens of thousands of visitors lining up at the door (and the gift shop) have been welcome.
“They shamelessly use it as a commercial operation because that’s the only way they can keep their family home going,” says Strange. “In some ways, ‘Downton Abbey’ has been the savior of this house.” heber@nypost.com