Lismore Castle in County Waterford, Ireland, Northanger Abbey (2007)
Published posthumously, Austen’s coming-of-age story is a satire of Gothic novels—a favorite genre of the young protagonist Catherine Morland. When she’s invited to stay at the titular abbey, the ancestral home of the wealthy Tilney family, Catherine’s imagination kicks into overdrive, and she pictures a scary haunted mansion filled with secrets; what she finds instead is a modern, comfortable estate. For the 2007 TV adaptation starring Felicity Jones, producers chose to shoot in Ireland instead of the UK (thanks, tax credits!), at Lismore Castle, located about an hour northeast of Cork. Decked out with Old Master paintings, tapestries, and grand staircases, the castle is available to rent for special occasions, with 15 bedrooms that sleep up to 27 guests. For something a bit more attainable, you can stay nearby at the Ballyrafter, a 10-room country house B&B on a 15-acre farm, and then come back to Lismore to explore its gardens, its contemporary art gallery, and castle tours led by butler Denis Nevin.
Persuasion
Trafalgar Park in Wiltshire, Persuasion (2022)
In the 2022 Netflix version of Persuasion—Austen’s last novel—Dakota Johnson stars as Anne Elliot, a woman who was previously persuaded not to marry a man when she was younger and then later meets back up with him. Scenes were shot around Bath and at the grand estates of Trafalgar Park in Wiltshire (which stood in for Kellynch Hall, the Elliot family home) and Brympton House in Somerset (standing in as Uppercross House, the home of the Musgroves). To stay at Brympton, you’ll have to make like an Austen heroine and plan a wedding—it’s available for buyouts and sleeps up to 80 guests. At Trafalgar Park, meanwhile, you can stay in one of three holiday cottages (which sleep four, five, and eight guests respectively), surrounded by a walled cut flower garden on land that used to be part of the estate grounds.
