If you missed out last year on the listing of the “Godfather House” on Staten Island in New York, maybe this home is more up your abbey — er, alley.
Byfleet Manor, in Surrey, just southwest of London, and dower home to Maggie Smith’s character Lady Violet Crawley in the PBS series “Downton Abbey,” is on the market, according to real estate broker Savills. The price? £3.95 million,or $6.1 million. The Georgian-style brick home, built in 1686 and set on 19 acres, has a walled courtyard, eight bedrooms and four reception rooms — and it’s just 20 miles from central London.
“You get a lot of house for your money,” said Simon Ashwell, the Savills agent who is listing the home for Julie Hutton, the current owner, who bought Byfleet Manor about 10 years ago for £1 million.
Byfleet Manor isn’t one to avoid the cameras. The house also starred in the series “Poirot” and “Cranford” and was the stand-in for Cinderella’s home in the 2014 movie “Into the Woods” with Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp. When it comes to “Downton Abbey,” the home has served as Lady Violet’s house since 2010 after the location agent from the PBS series “Cranford” suggested it to the show’s producers. “We wanted to deliberately pull Violet back into that Georgian world,” Donal Woods, the production designer for “Downton Abbey,” told Savills.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lady-violets-downton-abbey-home-for-sale-2015-05-12