Using Stately Homes for Book Settings

©By Cheryl Bolen

 My copyeditor recently questioned a reference in one of my books he was editing. "Can this be?" he asked. "Over 300 rooms in this house?"

Yes, many of the British stately homes run to more than 200 rooms and some to over 300 rooms. And because I write a lot of novels about the English aristocracy (both historical and contemporary), I have made it a point to tour as many of these aristocratic homes as possible on my frequent travels to England.

One of my favorite of these stately homes is Chatsworth House, family seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, nestled in the foothills of Derbyshire's Peak District. The "house" has 297 rooms! It's the one I use in the banner on my blog, Cheryl's Regency Ramblings, www.cherylsregencyramblings.wordpress.com.

 

Chatsworth House

 

Knole, in Kent, is home to the Sackvilles, cousins of the first Queen Elizabeth, and was once home tothe Dukes of Dorset. This rambling "house" has 356 rooms, 52 sets of stairs, and seven courtyards!

 

Knole

I have toured more than 30 of these homes, and I add new ones each trip my husband and I take to England. They make good fodder for the fictional homes in my 20-plus books. While none of these homes is exactly replicated in any of my novels, I do borrow from different houses I've had the pleasure of touring. 

Hever Castle

My book which can most be identified with a particular property is probably My Lord Wicked. The abbey in which my not-so-wicked lord lived was somewhat modeled on Hever Castle, the girlhood home of Anne Boleyn. Instead of the drawbridge at Hever, my fictional abbey has a clock tower which was supposedly built to disguise the abbey's former bell tower.

 

 

In my book Love in the Library (Brides of Bath#5) my heroine lives at Number 17 Royal Crescent in Bath. Here's a picture of me in front of one of the magnificent townhouses on Bath's Royal Cresent in June of 2013.

 

Cheryl Bolen in front of Bath's Royal Crescent

 

If you'd like to see what a Georgian townhouse (of the wealthy) looked like, you can tour Number 1 Royal Crescent in Bath. Or you can see the photos of Number 1 here: https://plus.google.com/115605333815650580996/photos?hl=en