How the New ‘Sense and Sensibility’ Traded Manicured Lawns for a Rawer English Landscape

Georgia Oakley’s new adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and George MacKay. It reached UK and Irish cinemas on September 25 and opens in US theaters on October 16. With so many screen versions of Jane Austen’s world already out there, finding settings that had not been used a dozen times was a formidable challenge.

Speaking to Country & Town House, locations manager Ian Hutchinson explained that the brief was to make the film “quite raw and quite natural,” a clear break from the manicured lawns and symmetrical manors of Ang Lee’s 1995 version. The team scouted across the West Country to stay true to where Austen set her novel. The resulting ‘Sense and Sensibility’ filming locations reveal how deliberately the production steered away from familiar territory.

Kingston Russell House and the Norland Park Filming Location

The Dashwood family’s ancestral home, Norland Park, was filmed at Kingston Russell House, a private manor in west Dorset that had never been used for a production before. The present house dates to the late 1600s and remains a private residence.

Hutchinson said the search for Norland began about three months before production and started in Dorset before covering the whole south coast down to Penzance. After looking at lots of houses, the team ended up back in Dorset, where a key scout cycling through the county caught sight of the house and phoned Hutchinson.

Oakley told Time Out that the house suited her because a family lived in it, it felt “a little bit overgrown” and it had the wild quality she wanted. She added that houses without a team keeping them pristine every day are hard to find.

According to Hutchinson, the family welcomed the crew with open arms and became part of the production. The lake where Elinor and Edward skip stones was filmed at Parnham Park, also in Dorset, although the house there does not appear in the film.

Ditsworthy Warren and the Barton Cottage Setting on Dartmoor

Barton Cottage was filmed at Ditsworthy Warren House on Dartmoor, a building that also served as the Narracott family farm in Steven Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’. The Grade II listed building was originally built for the keeper of the largest rabbit warren in England, and it is not open to the public.

Hutchinson’s brief for the cottage was remote and rustic, even rundown, so that audiences would feel the full effect of the Dashwoods’ fall. The building was derelict and had no windows, so the team added them along with a period accurate door. It became the most logistically difficult location, sitting a 45 to 50 minute drive from civilization, with mud, sudden shifts from sunshine to driving rain and 30mph winds.

Oakley said Dartmoor was the crew’s favourite place to film, with wild ponies walking past the window every five minutes, even if the weather was a hindrance and lighting stands clattered around in the background. The crew grew so fond of the region that the assistant director framed their Dartmoor motto on a map signed by the cast.

Marianne’s fall was moved from rolling hills to a rugged coast, a departure from a novel that contains no sea air, and it was shot at Mothecombe Beach on the Flete Estate. Hutchinson noted that the 1995 film was shot on the same estate in some of its cottages and houses, though the link was not intentional.

Barton Park, Cleveland House and Other Country House Locations

Barton Park, the estate of Sir John Middleton, was filmed at Broughton Castle, a moated manor house in north Oxfordshire. The castle supplied the drawing room and dining room scenes as well as the duel, while Ang Lee’s version used Trafalgar Park in Wiltshire.

The main parts of Broughton were built in 1306 and the house has remained in the Fiennes family since 1377. It is typically open to the public from April through September.

Cleveland House, where Marianne recovers from her life threatening fever, was largely filmed at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. The manor glimpsed from the hilltop during her rain soaked trek was played by the Wormsley Estate.

The Barton Assembly Rooms dance sequence was shot at Penshurst Place in Kent, with 140 extras, eight dogs and a crew of 150 for the first of two large dance scenes. The house dates to around 1341 and is one of the most complete surviving examples of 14th century domestic architecture in England.

London Filming Locations From Rainham Hall to the National Gallery

The exteriors of Mrs Jennings’ Portman Square townhouse were filmed at Lincoln’s Inn, while the Georgian interiors are Rainham Hall. Hutchinson said the crew also shot exteriors around Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Horse Guards Parade, where only the lightest touch of CGI was needed to return to the Regency era.

Rainham Hall was built in 1729 for Captain John Harle and is now run by the National Trust. It opened an exhibition of costumes, accessories and props from the film on September 24, which runs until December 19.

The London ball where Marianne embarrasses herself in front of the engaged Willoughby was shot at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire. The house is, in reality, owned by the real life Dashwoods.

The National Gallery stands in for the Royal Academy because the real building did not match the colour palette Oakley wanted, and her crew had to get in at 4am and be out before the public arrived at 10am. Hutchinson called the shoot logistically challenging but very much worth it. For anyone who has followed the Dashwoods from the overgrown halls of Dorset to the bleak edge of Dartmoor, which of these settings best captured the sisters’ fall from comfort in ‘Sense and Sensibility’?