Fans of the beloved 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice — the one that gave us Colin Firth's unforgettable Mr. Darcy — may wish to sit down before reading further. Edgcote House, the handsome Northamptonshire estate that stood in for Netherfield Park in that landmark production, has come onto the property market, available for the rather breathtaking sum of forty-five million pounds.
For those who have long dreamed of wandering the very halls where Darcy brooded and Bingley charmed, the opportunity is, at last, theoretically within reach — provided one's fortune is suitably arranged. The Georgian manor, set amid sweeping English countryside, is every inch the kind of grand residence Miss Austen herself might have described with admiring precision.
It is a delicious irony, of course, that Austen spent much of her life in modest cottages and rectories, observing the landed gentry with her sharp and affectionate eye rather than residing among them. Yet her imagination conjured estates so vivid and so desirable that, nearly two and a half centuries later, the mere association with her work adds an almost incalculable romantic value to any property.
Whether your interest is architectural, cinematic, or simply the purest expression of Austen devotion, Edgcote House invites a closer look. We suspect Jane herself would have found the asking price excellent material for a novel.