Downton Abbey’s Grand Finale – and the real country houses you can book now
Live out your own Downton Abbey fantasies within the walls of these three country piles.
Ed Grenby - 23 September 2025
BBC
Polish the silver and cue the string quartet: Downton is back – and for the very last time. The final instalment of Julian Fellowes’s saga is called Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale; but in truth there’s no end in sight to our collective country-house fantasies. A significant part of the franchise’s 15-year appeal has been imagining ourselves descending sweeping staircases like the Crawleys, while polished staff glide through hushed corridors ministering to our every whim. And, this being Britain, places like that still exist, as large as life – and, in many cases, considerably larger. (How many rooms?)
Across England, in fact, there are great piles of stone and acres of rolling parkland where you can live out your own Edwardian drama. You’ll find them serving champagne on terraces, stoking fires in drawing rooms and fluffing pillows fit for duchesses. Here are just three that might raise an eyebrow of approval even from Lady Mary herself – from a Cotswolds beauty hiding a twist of hip modernity to a Hertfordshire pile fizzing with old-world eccentricity and a Yorkshire estate that came within a whisker of being the fictional Downton itself. Warm up the Rolls-Royce, would you?
COWLEY MANOR, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
If Downton Abbey has always been about the clash between tradition and modernity, Cowley Manor is where that tension finds its most elegant expression. On the outside, it’s the kind of honey-stoned Cotswolds mansion that could plausibly host a 1912 garden party – hydrangeas heavy with bloom, croquet on the lawn and an open-top motor grumbling up the drive. Step inside, though, and you’re in a glossy 21st[1]century bubble: contemporary art on the walls, furniture that’s more Milan than Marlborough and a spa so sleek it feels beamed in from LA.
That’s no bad thing. A weekend here delivers the high ceilings and sash windows you expect, but also wi-fi that works, cocktails that bite and the kind of beds that swallow you whole after a day of “striding about the estate”. Said estate is a 55-acre sprawl of lakes, cascades and topiary that could keep you sighing contentedly for days. And if you happen to be travelling with your own Carson or Mrs Hughes? They’ll be delighted to learn it’s as family-friendly as it is stylish. cowleymanorexperimental.com (doubles from £250 per night B&B)
FANHAMS HALL, HERTFORDSHIRE
What’s remarkable about Fanhams Hall isn’t just its grandeur – it’s that you can be there in just 40 minutes from central London. One minute you’re jostling through Liverpool Street Station; the next, you’re sweeping up a drive to a Jacobean mansion with mullioned windows, oak panelling and grand banqueting halls. It feels deliciously improbable that all this old-world atmosphere sits so close to the modern metropolis.
There’s plenty to drink in once you’ve arrived, too: atmospheric Arthurian-myth stained glass, elegant formal gardens perfect for strolling and a timeless, wood-panelled dining room, where pan-fried hake and courgette tastes somehow more noble than it would elsewhere. The bedrooms are just as characterful: some boast vast, carved four-poster beds that creak with history; others lean contemporary, particularly in their glossy bathrooms, which happily deliver rainfall showers rather than tin baths and chamber pots. The mix works, giving you the romance of a country-house stay with the comfort of modern convenience.
Best of all, it’s the aristo lifestyle on a below-stairs budget: rooms start from just £107 a night. You won’t get liveried footmen, but you will get the chance to live your Downton fantasy without worrying about a 1929-style economic crash. exclusive.co.uk/fanhams-hall (doubles from £107 per night B&B)
BOWLAND HALL, YORKSHIRE
And then there’s the big one. Bowland is the country-house dream in widescreen: a 16th century hall on an 11th-century estate. Just outside Skipton, close to the Yorkshire Dales, the Forest of Bowland and North Pennines, it comes complete with battlements, deer park and enough turrets to keep a battalion of maids busy. When the Downton producers were scouting locations, it was Bowland Hall that came within a whisker of starring as the Crawley family seat, before Highclere (highclerecastle.co.uk) edged it out. Staying here, though, doesn’t come cheap: the house is available only on an exclusive-hire basis, at £28,800 for a weekend. But before you choke on your sherry at the cost, note that Bowland sleeps up to 32 people. Run the numbers, though, and suddenly you’re looking at around £900 a head for two nights of full-on aristocratic indulgence. That’s not exactly small change, of course, but also not an absurd amount for the chance to saunter through the columned portico, dine in a great hall and promenade across 200 acres of beautiful grounds that look tailor-made for gossip and romance.
Bring friends, family, that colleague who insists on being addressed as “My Lord” after two asses of claret. Bowland is the complete Downton experience – without the Spanish flu. thewowhousecompany.com (two-night hire from £28,800).
BBC
Polish the silver and cue the string quartet: Downton is back – and for the very last time. The final instalment of Julian Fellowes’s saga is called Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale; but in truth there’s no end in sight to our collective country-house fantasies. A significant part of the franchise’s 15-year appeal has been imagining ourselves descending sweeping staircases like the Crawleys, while polished staff glide through hushed corridors ministering to our every whim. And, this being Britain, places like that still exist, as large as life – and, in many cases, considerably larger. (How many rooms?)
Across England, in fact, there are great piles of stone and acres of rolling parkland where you can live out your own Edwardian drama. You’ll find them serving champagne on terraces, stoking fires in drawing rooms and fluffing pillows fit for duchesses. Here are just three that might raise an eyebrow of approval even from Lady Mary herself – from a Cotswolds beauty hiding a twist of hip modernity to a Hertfordshire pile fizzing with old-world eccentricity and a Yorkshire estate that came within a whisker of being the fictional Downton itself. Warm up the Rolls-Royce, would you?
COWLEY MANOR, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
If Downton Abbey has always been about the clash between tradition and modernity, Cowley Manor is where that tension finds its most elegant expression. On the outside, it’s the kind of honey-stoned Cotswolds mansion that could plausibly host a 1912 garden party – hydrangeas heavy with bloom, croquet on the lawn and an open-top motor grumbling up the drive. Step inside, though, and you’re in a glossy 21st[1]century bubble: contemporary art on the walls, furniture that’s more Milan than Marlborough and a spa so sleek it feels beamed in from LA.
That’s no bad thing. A weekend here delivers the high ceilings and sash windows you expect, but also wi-fi that works, cocktails that bite and the kind of beds that swallow you whole after a day of “striding about the estate”. Said estate is a 55-acre sprawl of lakes, cascades and topiary that could keep you sighing contentedly for days. And if you happen to be travelling with your own Carson or Mrs Hughes? They’ll be delighted to learn it’s as family-friendly as it is stylish. cowleymanorexperimental.com (doubles from £250 per night B&B)
FANHAMS HALL, HERTFORDSHIRE
What’s remarkable about Fanhams Hall isn’t just its grandeur – it’s that you can be there in just 40 minutes from central London. One minute you’re jostling through Liverpool Street Station; the next, you’re sweeping up a drive to a Jacobean mansion with mullioned windows, oak panelling and grand banqueting halls. It feels deliciously improbable that all this old-world atmosphere sits so close to the modern metropolis.
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There’s plenty to drink in once you’ve arrived, too: atmospheric Arthurian-myth stained glass, elegant formal gardens perfect for strolling and a timeless, wood-panelled dining room, where pan-fried hake and courgette tastes somehow more noble than it would elsewhere. The bedrooms are just as characterful: some boast vast, carved four-poster beds that creak with history; others lean contemporary, particularly in their glossy bathrooms, which happily deliver rainfall showers rather than tin baths and chamber pots. The mix works, giving you the romance of a country-house stay with the comfort of modern convenience.
Best of all, it’s the aristo lifestyle on a below-stairs budget: rooms start from just £107 a night. You won’t get liveried footmen, but you will get the chance to live your Downton fantasy without worrying about a 1929-style economic crash. exclusive.co.uk/fanhams-hall (doubles from £107 per night B&B)
BOWLAND HALL, YORKSHIRE
And then there’s the big one. Bowland is the country-house dream in widescreen: a 16th century hall on an 11th-century estate. Just outside Skipton, close to the Yorkshire Dales, the Forest of Bowland and North Pennines, it comes complete with battlements, deer park and enough turrets to keep a battalion of maids busy. When the Downton producers were scouting locations, it was Bowland Hall that came within a whisker of starring as the Crawley family seat, before Highclere (highclerecastle.co.uk) edged it out. Staying here, though, doesn’t come cheap: the house is available only on an exclusive-hire basis, at £28,800 for a weekend. But before you choke on your sherry at the cost, note that Bowland sleeps up to 32 people. Run the numbers, though, and suddenly you’re looking at around £900 a head for two nights of full-on aristocratic indulgence. That’s not exactly small change, of course, but also not an absurd amount for the chance to saunter through the columned portico, dine in a great hall and promenade across 200 acres of beautiful grounds that look tailor-made for gossip and romance.
Bring friends, family, that colleague who insists on being addressed as “My Lord” after two asses of claret. Bowland is the complete Downton experience – without the Spanish flu. thewowhousecompany.com (two-night hire from £28,800).
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - In cinemas now
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