Longleat

Summary

An Elizabethan prodigy house in Wiltshire, one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain, used for Doctor Who (multiple episodes), the Bollywood film Mohabbatein (2000), and the HBO/BBC drama Industry (2023).

About this location

Longleat is a Grade I listed Elizabethan country house near Warminster in Wiltshire, built by Sir John Thynne from 1568 to 1580 to a design primarily by Robert Smythson. It is considered one of the first English country houses to be built primarily as a place of entertaining rather than a fortified residence. The house is set in 1,000 acres of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown, with an additional 8,000 acres of farmland and woodland. It was the first British stately home to open to the public (1949) and the contain the first safari park outside Africa (1966), opened in 1966 by the 6th Marquess of Bath.

The house tour covers the Elizabethan Great Hall with its minstrels’ gallery, state rooms with Italian Renaissance-style interiors designed by John Crace, a Titian on the walls, and a 40,000-volume library. A copy of The Fallen Madonna painting — a running joke in the BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo! — hangs in the house following its creation for the show.

Film and television credits include Doctor Who, which used the house and for multiple episodes over several decades (a Doctor Who exhibition was hosted on the for 30 years); the Bollywood film Mohabbatein (2000); the film Libel (1959); and the finale of series 3 and scenes in series 4 of Industry (HBO/BBC, 2023). The music video for Toni Braxton’s “Breathe Again” (1993) was filmed at the house and gardens. The current Marquess of Bath manages filming enquiries directly.