A Pretty Place for Vanity Fair at West Horsley

Published on: 30 Aug, 2018
Updated on: 15 Sep, 2019

West Horsley Place

West Horsley Place, seven miles east of Guildford, has been hosting ITV’s new major drama series Vanity Fair.

The TV production is a new adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, which he published serially from 1847 to 1848. Much of the drama’s action was filmed at the Grade I listed mediaeval manor house and estate of dating from 1425. The first episode will be on our screens on Sunday, September 2 at 9pm.

The series is set to become one of ITV’s biggest dramas of the year, with some big names including Olivia Cooke, Tom Bateman and Johnny Flynn taking up the lead roles.

Olivia Cooke and Martin Clunes dancing in the forthcoming Vanity Fair

Martin Clunes, who plays Sir Pitt Crawley in the adaptation, commented on the choice of West Horsley Place for their setting, saying that, “West Horsley was my favourite of all of the houses we visited. Freezing but beautiful. It’s colder inside than out. But it is really pretty. And it looks real, lived in and a bit wonky.”

The house will be the backdrop for the unfolding drama of Thackeray’s literary classic, set during the Napoleonic Wars. Viewers will follow Becky Sharp (Olivia Cooke) as she tries to escape poverty and rise through the ranks of English Society.

The large manor house at the centre of the 380-acre estate tells a story of its own. The house dates from the 15th century and has interiors from the 16th to the 18th century, displaying a certain evolution of architecture.

Aside from the ITV actors, the manor has hosted significant historical figures, including Elizabeth I and Henry VIII, who allegedly ate a 35-course lunch in the Stone Hall.

The house is currently being looked after and restored by the Mary Roxburghe Trust, after Mary, Duchess of Roxburgh left the manor to her nephew, Bamber Gascoigne, the former Presenter of University Challenge, in 2014. Mr and Mrs Gascoigne transferred the ownership to the charity after it was placed on the “At Risk” Register so that it could be rescued and restored.

The manor’s Director, Peter Pearce, commented in a press release how, “we were thrilled to be chosen as a location for Vanity Fair, and are very much looking forward to seeing West Horsley Place on television this autumn.”

Film and TV provide an important fund for continued restoration work and fit well with the manor’s development into a centre for performing and visual arts.

As part of this, a new Theatre in the Woods with 750 seats is under construction. It is the home of Grange Park Opera which already puts on a programme of operatic and musical productions there.

Theatre in the Woods – Photo Grange Park Opera

Mr Pearce adds, “through film, we are able to celebrate” how “literature is all-important to the story of this great house.” The ITV television of Thackeray’s novel chimes with the 7,500 books that had been held in the West Horsley Place library and were bequeathed to Trinity College Cambridge by Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe.

According to the Director, “amongst the treasures to have been discovered here were first editions by Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Tennyson and previously unknown manuscripts of Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens.”

Just as Thackeray’s tale lives on, Mr Pearce hopes, “West Horsley Place will be reborn as a place for everyone to enjoy, whether as an opera guest, visitor to the house or garden or as a student learning a craft to enjoy and practice at home… it will be an entrancing future!”

West Horsley Place will be opening its doors to the public for Heritage Open Days on 15 and 16 September. To visit, free guided tours are available for booking from September 3 at www.westhorsleyplace.org.