Bridgerton, the steamy soap-opera take on Regency England full of decadent costumes, dashing dukes and elegant backdrops, has once again shot to the top of the Netflix charts. And one industry is reaping the benefits – England’s stately homes.
The regal properties are reporting a “Bridgerton factor” aspeople enchanted by the baroque interiors and bucolic gardens of the hit show decide to visit its real life landmarks.
Google searches for stately homes in the UK have already increased by 23% in the last month, with more than 8,000 searches, according to the luxury bedroom specialists The French Bedroom Company, which analysed hashtags and Tripadvisor data.
Among the buildings featured in the show are Ranger’s House, in London, which was used as the exterior of the Bridgerton family home and Castle Howard, used for outside the Duke of Hastings’s home.
Castle Howard said the number of visitors aged 18-24 to their website increased by 3,408% after the programme was released.
“We know that screen tourism is a big factor when potential visitors are making decisions about where to plan days out,” said Abbi Olive, Castle Howard’s head of marketing sales and programming. “We were the original screen tourism destination in many ways, having played such a starring role in the original Brideshead Revisited and then in the subsequent film.”
She added: “As attractions open up and travel and tourism recover post-pandemic we do expect to see an uplift in visitor numbers due to the Bridgerton factor.”
Similarly, English Heritage said visits to the Ranger’s House webpage had increased by 81% compared with the previous month.
Chris Small, English Heritage’s London operations manager, said: “Since the launch of Bridgerton in 2020 we have seen many people who were previously unaware of the site inspired to visit. We have even seen some fans of the show pose outside the gilded gates to the house, in full Georgian costume.”
The show, he added, had provided an opportunity to introduce a new audience to the The Wernher collection in the interior of the house, one of the greatest surviving private art collections assembled in Europe – which includes Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana) from Sandro Botticelli’s workshop.
The interest is reflected in the increasing number of Bridgerton-themed tours popping up. Tours International, which offers bespoke group getaways to the UK and Europe, takes fans tofilming locations such as the city of Bath.
There are three main benefits to being featured on a smash hit such as Bridgerton, according to Harvey Edgington, the National Trust’s head of filming and locations and co-author of National Trust on Screen – fees, extra visitors and economic generation from crew using local hotels, restaurants and tradespeople.
“Any revenue goes straight back into the property that hosted the filming. Quite often that means a conservation issue that’s perhaps on the backburner waiting for funding can come forward,” Edgington said.
The show shines a spotlight on many of the National Trust’s properties such as Stowe, Buckinghamshire, which was used to depict Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, with its Temple of Venus providing the glittering backdrop to the outdoor Vauxhall Ball.
Season two also features Petworth, West Sussex, Ashridge, Hertfordshire, and Basildon Park, Berkshire, where an evening party scene takes place. For this, the production design team brought in about 5,000 artificial flowers to fill the rose garden with summer blooms and added more greenery and foliage.
“We’ve had lots of interest from the public because of Bridgerton,” Edgington said. “Generally with filming we know that the show attracts extra visitors.”
He pointed to a report by Olsberg SPI to measure the impact of “set-jetting”. “It found that the 1995 drama Pride and Prejudice is still worth £900,000 a year in visitors to Lyme Park in Cheshire [where Mr Darcy – played by Colin Firth – takes that dip].”
But the most popular surge was following Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, when the number of visitors to Antony House in Cornwall quadrupled. There was also a Harry Potter effect at Lacock and other places.
“There’s always a fascination with going to see somewhere for real, because the film-makers make the locations look glorious. And I think people get a joy out of thinking, ‘I’m walking where film stars walk’,” Edgington said.
Top 10 most popular stately homes in the UK
To determine the most popular stately homes in the UK, the French Bedroom Company analysed hashtag and Tripadvisor data. Here are the top 10.
1. Kensington Palace, London
2. Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire
3. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire
4. Castle Howard, York
5. Highclere Castle, Hampshire
6. Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
7. Burghley House, Stamford
8. Cliveden House, Berkshire
9. Osborne House, Isle of Wight
10. Longleat House, Wiltshire
