article_snippet: Here we are, standing on the gravel outside the library doors at Highclere Castle, the English stately home in Hampshire that provides the ravishing setting for the television series, Downton Abbey.
article_snippet: To whizz down the mile-long drive to Highclere Castle is to travel back in time to a more gracious age.
article_snippet: The stately home made famous by Downton has been the ancestral seat of the Earls of Carnarvon since 1679.
article_snippet: Flanked by elegant pines planted from seed three centuries ago, the house sits in a rolling landscape designed by Capability Brown.
article_snippet: To look upon the soaring architecture of Highclere is to understand the ambition and conceit of the old English upper classes, who once thought that life behind these ramparts of Bath stone, surrounded by Reynolds, Van Dycks and walls covered in green French silk, would go on for ever.
article_snippet: In the house, with more than 300 rooms and ‘about 80’ bedrooms, the servants’ bellboard is still there outside the kitchen, just as the servants’ bellboard was over 100 years ago.
article_snippet: Highclere Castle, the English stately home in Hampshire, provides the ravishing setting for Downton Abbey .