Those who own some of Britain’s most beautiful houses know that a stately home can be something of a poisoned chalice: although steeped in tradition and filled with antique treasures, crumbling manors are astronomically expensive to run – and the bigger the estate, the more costly the upkeep becomes. One way to keep coffers filled is to rent out your as a film set, following in the footsteps of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, who commanded fees upwards of £1 million for Highclere Castle to feature as the main location on . But now, experts are warning that giving up your home to film crews can cause more harm than good – both to property and reputation.
Specialist heritage insurance firm Ecclesiastical has produced detailed guidance for the owners of historic properties on how to avoid what it has dubbed ‘the effect’, in reference to Drayton in , which served as the location for Emerald Fennell’s viral class satire. When asked why he chose to allow the film crew to take over his 127-room Baroque mansion, set within a sprawling, 200-acre estate, Drayton’s owner Charles Stopford-Sackville said that the generous fee ‘100 per cent’ influenced his decision, adding that ‘these houses don’t run on water’. As revealed by , part of the deal struck with Sackville to allow the shooting stipulated that no member of the production team could mention the real location in interviews.
Yet, the estate's unique interiors meant there could be little doubt Saltburn was, in fact.
