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Discover our longings for exploration and discovery via this eclectic luxury travel blog, crafted to inspire the most seasoned of travellers.

Where was Saltburn filmed? (And 8 real-life estates you can rent this summer)Where was Saltburn filmed? (And 8 real-life estates you can rent this summer)

Saltburn: the darkly comedic, and utterly divisive, cult thriller that put one civil parish in the East Midlands firmly on the map (and into the centre of a noughties revolution.) In a richly colour-graded show of aristocratic wealth and debauchery, the film pulled Jack and Jill bathrooms, clawfoot tubs, minotaurs, and even Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” into the modern-day zeitgeist. Think Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, but with enough red velvet, collegial frivolity, and nostalgic satire to illicit interest across the generational spectrum, from TikTokers to the tweed-wearing type.

Filmed in Lowick, Northamptonshire, at Drayton House — a private country estate that was built around 1328, and has been owned by the Stopford-Sackville family since 1770 — the Baroque façade of Saltburn's stately backdrop might be locked behind a fortified gateway, but we have the key to places just as bodacious.

 

Botania

A photographer's manor in Dartmoor with a labyrinthian blueprint, rooms big enough to dance in, and rewilded gardens with a life of their own. There’s even a lily pad swimming pond for living out laissez-faire philosophies.

A large country manor surrounded by rewilded gardens in Dartmoor

 

Castle Trinity 

The Yorkshire estate of a disc jockey and a nightclub designer who brought the glitz of crystal and crushed velvet to a nineteenth-century citadel. It’s filled from tower to turret with energy, armour, and portraits of visiting A-listers.

A castle with many windows, creeping vines, and a flag is surrounded by landscape gardens and trees

 

Florin

A Victorian country manor in Ceredigion with secret doors disguised by bookcases, banquet rooms, and a castellated tower. Outside, enchanting grounds harbour a treehouse, hot tub, and party-ready garden nook.

An impressive country house with a castellated tower and many rectangular sash windows

 

Orpheus

The Southwold estate — complete with a pool and lavish spa — where fantasy pokes a portal into the real world. Think empire chandeliers won at Sotheby’s and the same palatial bathtubs you would find in Buckingham Palace.

A Georgian manor with a rectangular pool, surrounded by landscaped lawns and autumn trees

 

Huntlington House

A 17th-century estate that offsets its oodles of rural charm with drumkits, glittering skulls, a heated indoor pool, and enchanting topiary gardens, where everything is infused with rascality. This one’s on the market for a new owner.

A red brick manor houses in the distance, seen from a topiary lawn maze

 

Wool Merchant's House

The Somerset country pile that keeps the world at bay with flowering walls, and a secret garden that’s the envy of the hamlet come summer; here, socialites sun-dry on formal lawns and dangle toes in the water with negronis in hand.

The back of a village manor, with a formal lawn in the foreground, which is hemmed in by stone walls

 

Thornemead Castle

A 240-year-old Gothic citadel in Somerset that’s the most complete Pugin-inspired property in Britain, complete with decorative vaulted ceilings, pointed archways, and panelled rooms packed with bygone paraphernalia.

A grand castle with a conservatory-like extension, a turret, and a raised flag

 

Castle Trematonia

The dreamlike estate set against a medieval backdrop of pre-Raphaelite gardens and a motte-and-bailey castle; with an interior pick 'n' mix of patterns, this outlandish dollhouse is perhaps the most decorative estate in all the land.

A stone Indian pool house with a shallow rectangular pool in a jungle-like garden with a castle in the background 

Feeling inspired? Read about the storybook homes, find a pool of one's own, or browse the full collection of luxury homes in the UK and Ireland.

Properties featured in this article: Florin, Castle Trinity, Wool Merchant´s House, Thornemead Castle, Castle Trematonia, Huntlington House, Honeystone, Botania

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