Downton Season 3 Trailers

Downton Abbey Season 3 Episode 1 Trailer

Downton Abbey Episode Guide Season 3 Episode 1

Where is Downton Abbey?

Downton Abbey is filmed at Highclere Castle

Downton Abbey is filmed at Highclere Castle, an estate now forever recognizable as the iconic Grantham home. In real life, Highclere Castle is home the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. It’s been in the family since 1679 but real estate prices have gone up since then. If Highclere Castle were for sale today, its estimated value is about 150 million British pounds. And Downton Abbey’s set needs about 11 million pounds in repairs. Rumour has it, next door neighbour Andrew Lloyd Webber, offered to buy the estate. “Cats” must have been pretty lucrative.

Located about 50 minutes from Heathrow airport, the Highclere estate is over 1000 acres, bigger than New York’s central park. The Tatler referred to the area around Highclere as “Downtonia”. The house is estimated to have about 50 bedrooms. The countess of Carnarvan, a blonde dynamo, isn’t quite sure how many rooms the castle boasts. “I suppose if you know how many rooms you’ve got, you haven’t got a very big house”, the Countess said in the “Telegraph”. The countess is writing a book about the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. He and Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Egypt’s boy king Tutankhamun in 1922.

Get hitched Downton style

While filming Downton Abbey at Highclere, the estate is only open to the public on certain dates. However, the castle is available for Downton-esque weddings starting at about $30,000 for the day. And what a day it would be… “You enter the Park gates and drive through the undulating, spectacular landscape to arrive eventually in front of a romantic, Victorian Castle. The Saloon, which lies in the heart of the Castle, is licensed for the civil ceremony. Brides can prepare for their wedding in a bedroom in the Castle. The music begins and the bride walks around the Gallery above the guests, before walking down the sweeping Oak Staircase.” The latter is quoted from Highclere’s website. Imagine coming down the staircase… A girl would be jumpier than a deb at her first ball.

If you’re lucky enough to visit Highclere, only the exterior will be recognizable. Most of the indoor scenes in Downton Abbey are filmed at a London studio, particularly the kitchen and servants’ quarters drama. Most of Highclere’s interior has been modernized. The production designer Donal Woods says, “There’s a lot of great houses in England, but all the below-stairs stuff has gone. So we realized we had to build it ourselves.”

Highclere Castle has been featured in other notable filming beside Downton Abbey. The saloon was a location in “The Four Feathers” starring Heath Ledger and Stanley Kubrick’s last film, “Eyes Wide Shut”. The exterior appeared as Lord Graves’s house in “King Ralph”. In Hallmarks’ Hall of Fame 1987 version of The Secret Garden, both the interior and exterior were used as Mistlethwaite Manor.

Shirley MacLaine Season 3

Martha does not look amused at Downton Abbey so far...

Fans had their first look at Shirley MacLaine on the set of Season 3 of Downton Abbey. Miss MacLaine looks downright stern. Speculation is that Martha’s first visit to Downton Abbey does not go swimmingly. MacLaine plays  Mrs Levinson, the mother of Earl of Grantham’s American wife Cora, played by Elizabeth McGovern.

Downton Tabby

Everybody knows cat people have a twisted sense of humour. And since the whole Internet loves cats AND Downton Abbey, why not combine the two for “Downton Tabby.” With a nod toward the “I can haz cheezeburger” website, the two and a half minute video, created by Mary Iampietro and Zach Broussard, captures the zeitgeist of the first two seasons of Downton Abbey. The tabby stars as Lady Mary. Internet, thank you.

Downton Abbey Fashion

Lady Mary's very '20s wedding headpiece

Each new season of Downton Abbey offers the same breathtaking countryside, intrigue upstairs and downstairs and all the witty one liners we’ve come to expect. But some of us most looking forward to Downton Abbey’s costumes. Every season of Downton continues the show’s tradition of lavish period fashion. Since 2010, Downton has made its footprint in the fashion world.

Classic Lauren styling

Out on the streets, sales of long silk gloves, pearls and empire waisted dresses have soared since Downton Abbey aired. The popularity of Downton Abbey and its beautiful costumes has inspired a whole new demand for 1900s fashion accessories like hats, shrugs and Ralph Lauren clothes. Nicole Richie’s beaded headpieces for House of Harlow have also been popular, selling out on several online stores.

Susannah Buxton, the former fashion designer for Downton, was nominated for an Emmy for costume design. The department is now run by her former assistant, Caroline McCall. According to Buxton, Downton Abbey clothes don’t strictly adhere to the period, but use the same aesthetic while trying to make Downton style attractive to modern audiences. She says it’s more a translation than historically accurate.

Lauren's garden party dress

Ralph Lauren and Downton Abbey is a fashion partnership made in heaven. British hunting parties and opulent candlelit dinners of bygone eras have long inspired Lauren’s design career. As Vogue’s Mark Holgate says, Lauren’s clothes successfully ‘manage to speak to the past yet also live and breathe in the here and now’. Last year, Ralph Lauren sponsored PBS’ Masterpiece series in light of Downton Abbey’s popularity as a costume drama.

The stars of Downton Abbey have become fashion icons onto themselves. Michelle Dockery appears in fashion mags all the time. And the queen of fashion, Anna Wintour, has given the show her seal of approval. Pippa Middleton, another fashionista, visited the set for a guided tour.

A sure nod to Coco Chanel's 1920 gowns

Season 3 of Downton opens at the beginning of the 1920s. Downton Abbey dresses are shorter and less ornate than those of the Edwardian period. We’re seeing flapper and art deco influences in the clothes worn by the three daughters – the real fashionistas of Downton Abbey. We also see headbands and beading, art deco makes a solid apparent. This is probably a nod to Coco Chanel’s metallic and beaded evening gowns of the 1920s.

Lady Mary has a sophisticated and elegant style. Edith’s hair and clothes have greatly improved as she tries to snare a husband and hit the workforce. Late Lady Sybil’s style was more bohemian and whimsical. The grand dame of Downton, Violet, retains her exaggerated Edwardian style of corsets, gloves and hats. Violet looks positively old fashioned next to Shirley MacLaine’s Martha Levinson. The jazz upped grandmother shows her ankles, sports a modern hairstyle and is covered in jewels.

Martha has the edge over Violet when it comes to fashion

Season 3 of Downton Abbey features a wedding or two. Mary’s wedding dress is sophisticated and stylish, but not as ornate as we might have expected. Downton Abbey’s current fashion designer McCall says she studied the catalogue of Lanvin from the time in its creation.

Ralph Lauren’s Fall 2012 show opened with the theme song of Downton Abbey. Models wore skinny plaid trousers and narrow cut blazers. Lauren’s spring show was more of a flouncy pastel affair suited to garden parties and formal dinners. The Fall collection is more of a love affair with the English countryside and shooting parties.

Everybody likes hunting chic, except Sir Richard. He doesn't like anything

The ladies of Downton dressed to kill. Or eat dinner at least. Wrapped in jet beading and money, Lady Mary, Lady Sybil and Lady Edith spend each day getting in or out of clothes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Pants *gasp*. A fashion forward Sybil embraces harem pants. Countess Violet would certainly not approve. At Downton Abbey, just a hint of lace or a tiny glimpse of ankle can tempt scandal.

Mary's dress is as wistful as her lovelorn looks across the room at Matthew