The series "Pride and Prejudice", released in the autumn of 1995, has gained worldwide popularity, with dozens of prestigious awards. In addition, he entered the golden collection of television adaptations of classic novels. Filming of the series lasted a hundred days and took place at 24 locations in several counties of England.
The village of Lacock in the county of Wiltshire, near Bath, "played" in the series the role of the town of Meriton, where, among others, they shot the scene of an accidental meeting of Mr. Darcy and George Wickham. LaCock was one of the first selected locations. Jerry Scott, the production designer of the series, remembered her at the very beginning of the selection of places for filming. This is one of the oldest villages in Britain, some houses were built in the fourteenth century. The movie “Mall Flanders” with Robin Wright and scenes for several parts of “Harry Potter” were also shot in Lacock.
The Longbourne estate, in which Jane Austen settled the Bennet family in the novel, was Lackington Court, located in the vicinity of the village of Lacock. The name of the estate dates back to the first century of the second millennium and is first mentioned in the cadastral book of 1066, these lands belonged to the royal family for many centuries. Mistress Luckington Court, Angela Horn, took the needs of the filming process with understanding and allowed the decorators to “age” the interior of the house before the era of regency.
Netherfield, an estate rented by Mr. Bingley in the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice and, accordingly, in the first episode of the series, was filmed in Northamptonshire, near the city of Banbury. The Edgecoat Hall, built in the eighteenth century, is surrounded by a beautiful park. On the territory of the estate are the ruins of an ancient Roman villa and a 13th-century Anglican church.
After the premiere of the series, its creators unanimously recognized that the hardest thing was to find a place for the filming of the legendary Pemberley - an estate owned by Mr. Darcy. In the novel, Jane Austen described in detail the Pemberley estate, and, as it turned out, even among the most beautiful mansions of British aristocrats it is not so easy to find a house that matches this description. The winner in the Pemberley nomination was Lime Park in Cheshire County, one of the UK's National Heritage Sites. The main house was built during the Tudors, and in the eighteenth century, the Venetian architect Leoni gave the building the features of an Italian palace.
Just during the period of work on the series, Lyme Park was in the process of transferring property rights, and the group was allowed only exterior shooting. For interior scenes, I had to look for other locations. The living rooms and galleries of Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire have successfully taken on the role of the luxurious interior of the Pemberley estate.
