There is something exceptionally thrilling about a grand English house that is
still private. Particularly for a film director. And so when Stephen
Poliakoff was driving along a country road in Norfolk a few years ago and
spotted Walsingham Abbey, a 10-bedroom Georgian pile with its own Gothic
ruins, he immediately wanted to investigate it. More than that. He wanted to
set his next picture, Glorious 39, there.
“He knew that no one else had got inside before,” says Elizabeth Meath Baker,
who lives at the abbey with her husband and their four children. She laughs.
“I think it was the shabby-chic nature of the place that attracted him.”
Indeed, Walsingham is very much within the utterly British mould of tatty
gloriousness that so defines our national style. The vast rooms are freezing
cold; the walls have long cracks running down the creamy plaster, the
Persian carpets are threadbare, and in the flagstoned hall there is a
table-tennis table beneath the stags’ heads.
Meath Baker and I sit down in the chilly library, where shutters keep the sun
from damaging ancient leather-bound volumes dating back to the 16th century.
They also keep the sun from warming up the room. She is sensibly wearing a
thick cardigan and winter trousers. I keep my coat on. Constance, her
teenage daughter, brings us a welcome pot of tea. “Bleached hair,” says her
mother despairingly, pointing to her child. “Why do they do it?
“The house belonged to my husband’s grandfather,” she continues. “He inherited
it when he was only in his twenties, just before the second world war, and
he felt rather ambivalent about being in charge of it. In fact, he did
nothing to it.” He died in 2000, after which Elizabeth and her husband,
Clovis, took over the house and estate, complete with its public gardens and
the glorious Gothic ruins of the abbey and adjoining priory, both of which
were pulled down during the Reformation.
The couple have also done very little to the house, apart from putting in a
modern kitchen; indeed, the last time it was refurbished was probably in the
1920s. This made it perfect for Poliakoff, whose film, set in 1939, tells
the story of an aristocratic English family horrified at the thought of
fighting the Germans again and keen to appease Hitler.
The movie, which looks very glossy but cost only £4.3m, kicks off with a
glittering outdoor banquet and ends with the horrors of war. The cast, a
roll call of British stars, is as glorious as the setting, and will satisfy
almost everyone, since it includes the beautiful Romola Garai, global
knee-trembler David Tennant, Julie Christie and the ubiquitous Bill Nighy,
whose charisma on screen was matched by his perfect manners off. “He was
utterly charming,” Meath Baker sighs.
Throughout Glorious 39, Walsingham Abbey itself has a central role. “I always
try to find locations and write the story around them,” Poliakoff says. “If
you can find a great location, you can set the story in your mind. When I
saw the house from the outside, it was that great Gothic arch that so
haunted me.” When he was eventually taken inside by the estate man-ager, he
was even more convinced his movie had to be shot there. “I couldn’t believe
what a wonderfully untouched state the house was in. It was a time warp, and
with a family actually living in it, which made it perfect. And such
wonderful outbuildings!”
Those outbuildings are crucial to the plot, and they couldn’t have been more
ideal. Meath Baker takes me to see them. “Stephen particularly liked this
shelving,” she says, pointing out some entirely unremarkable wooden shelves
in one of the buildings. “They were made in the war to hold files and
books.” She shrugs. “It was just what the props manager wanted, and they
would have had to spend thousands re-creating just this look.”
Of course, the great advantage of having both a wonderful exterior and a
perfect period interior is that Poliakoff did not need to build a set — or
even redecorate. “They brought in what they called ‘drapes’, but what you
and I would call curtains,” Meath Baker says. “And some furniture. And that
was it.” Everything else was already there — down to pristine copies of
Punch.
Better than going to Pinewood, I suggest to Poliakoff. He shudders at the
prospect. “It is crucial not to build sets, because however wonderfully they
are done, it’s very hard to not make them look artificial. And the actors
really get off from being in a real house with the feel of the period around
them.”
Everyone has signed the visitors’ book: Jenny Agutter, Christie, Tennant and
Nighy, who wrote: “May the God of cheerfulness have children in your mind”.
Well, they did stay for quite a long time — the shoot lasted a month,
involving almost every room in the house. How did Meath Baker manage?
“The children were away at boarding school, or university, and I was here the
whole time. That was one of the conditions of filming,” she explains. “That
I was on site every second of shooting.”
Meath Baker also made it clear that not a stick of furniture was to be moved
without her authority. “Yes, I was prowling around the whole time,” she
says, as we wander into a vast drawing room filled with doll’s houses,
chaises-longues, an Elizabethan portrait and, er, a large ladder. Frankly,
because the house was so central to Poliakoff’s vision, she felt confident
she could dictate the terms on which he hired it.
And although the cost of the location was pleasingly cheap for the production
team, since it was all on site, the financial benefits for Walsingham Abbey
were considerable, as the budget included payment for set-up days,
badweather cover days and clearing-up days, as well as the 12-hour filming
days. “Well, put it like this,” Meath Baker says, “they made it worth our
while.”
The actual figure? About £30,000 — enough for a luxury car or a two-week stay
at, say, Richard Branson’s private island in the Caribbean. Not that I
imagine Meath Baker, who is clearly a resourceful woman, would blow the cash
on such fripperies. As we trot briskly around the estate, she explains that
she has to devote most of her energies simply to keeping Walsingham
functioning. And allowing a film crew to work in it is all part of that aim.
“Yes, well you have to balance that against the complete loss of privacy,” she
says. “And the knowledge that if you give a crew an inch, they will take a
mile. I had to be very firm with them.
“Of course, I didn’t walk around with a giant badge saying ‘I Am the Owner’,
but I made sure everyone knew who I was, and I never left them to it for a
second. You have to be quite a strong personality if you are going to rent
your house out to a film crew.”
You also don’t need to have a Grade I-listed home such as Walsingham. “The
location manager told me ordinary houses are just as important, and just as
difficult to find,” she says.
Maybe more of us should open our doors to cinema folk. Are you a strong
personality? And, more crucially, would you like Bill Nighy in your house
for a month?
Glorious 39 will be released on November 20
And... action
Is your house photogenic? Film companies, advertising agencies and magazines
are always looking for new locations. Handing over your home to a
photographer or film crew can earn you £500-£5,000 a day. Here’s how:
- Large and open-plan spaces in and around London are most in demand, but
scouts are on the lookout for every type of property, from ordinary family
homes to historic locations, all over the country.
- It can be very intrusive, so be ready to make yourself scarce while the crew
is on site.
- Don’t forget to check your home insurance and that of the production
company. They should be liable for making good any damage and restoring the
house to its original state. Take photographs before and after use, and pack
away any valuable items.
- Register at lavishlocations.com, shootfactory.co.uk,
freshlocations.com or www.uklocations.co.uk.
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