5:59am Saturday 17th March 2007
By Richard Harris
BOSSES at North Yorkshire's Newby Hall hope Jane Austen fans around the country will marvel at the estate's beauty when it features in a television film of Mansfield Park tomorrow.
The hall, which is between Ripon and Boroughbridge, was the backdrop for the two-hour adaptation of the classic 19th century novel, which was filmed entirely on location in the county.
Starring Billie Piper as the heroine, Fanny Price, Mansfield Park tells the story of a girl taken in by wealthy relatives and of her life growing up with the strict social code of the time.
There are hopes the film will put the stately home - which was built in 1690 and is decorated in a Georgian style - on the international stage.
Rosemary Triffitt, assistant administrator at Newby Hall, said: "We do hope that it will make people more aware of our very fine house.
"We get a lot of people coming for the adventure playground, but we have this beautiful house which not enough people come to see."
She said having a 60-strong film crew based there for a month last September was exciting for the estate's staff.
Fanny's bedroom had to be built in the attic and a stage that had been built quickly had to be dismantled as the hall was hosting a wedding. Mrs Triffitt said: "There were just so many people in the house it was amazing, but they were very careful and once they had gone you could hardly tell they had been."
Mansfield Park's executive producer Suzan Harrison said the minute the crew discovered Newby Hall she knew it was the perfect location.
She said: "It had the right look, the right period, the right scale of house for a baronet, beautiful grounds, delightful owners and an estate manager who helped us to organise the whole enterprise. Mercifully, we didn't have the usual problems with telegraph poles and overhead wiring; the landscape around Newby Hall is refreshingly free of visible 21st century nuisances."
Ms Harrison said the wrong kind of sheep, modern hay stacking, non-period vehicles creeping into shot and planes circling overhead caused the most headaches during filming.
She said: "As it was such a wide and beautiful vista, sound travelled for miles, so farm machinery about its business could disrupt hours of filming."
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk