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A Few Thoughts on Downton Abbey

Reunion in Ripon2

I love Downton Abbey, but I do wish they’d film ‘local scenes’ up here in North Yorkshire where the story is set and not two hundred miles to the south in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Amongst other things, the former Ripon workhouse, a place to which I often take visiting friends, is now one of our star attractions.

Workhouse1

With its imposing gatehouse, it’s not at all like the building shown in last night’s episode. The unfortunate Charlie Grigg, former song and dance partner of Mr Carson, the butler, might well have been an inmate there at the same time as novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford’s grandmother and her children. (Their sad story was well documented recently in ITV’s Secrets From The Workhouse.)

23 September, 2013 - There are 2 comments on this story

  1. It seems silly to use a completely different building if the real one still exists.

    Patsy - September 23rd, 2013

  2. I agree, Patsy. Ripon has so many distinctive buildings, including a Georgian town hall and St Wilfrid’s (Roman Catholic) church, where Baby Branson could have been christened.

    Maggie Cobbett - September 23rd, 2013

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