After a coffee stop at Forest Lodge Garden Centre we make our way to Highclere Castle, the home of the 8th Earl & Countess of Carnarvon. The castle is the ultimate in high Victorian exuberance and is the film shoot location for the very popular TV drama Downton Abbey.

The interior ranges in style from Church Gothic through Moorish flamboyance and Rococo revival to the solid masculinity of the library. The Castle dominates magnificent grounds influenced by Capability Brown.

There is a Egyptology Exhibition with records from the 5th Earl of Carnarvon who famously discovered the Tomb of the Egyptian Boy Pharaoh, Tutankhamun, in 1922 with his archaeological colleague, Howard Carter.

There is a restaurant and tea-rooms.