Hopetoun House

Hopetoun House is a country house situated near South Queensferry on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth in West Lothian, Scotland. The lands, previously known as Abercorn, were purchased by John Hope in 1678, but he died before he could construct the planned family residence. His widow, Lady Margaret Hamilton, commissioned Sir William Bruce to build the house for their son Charles Hope, later the first Earl of Hopetoun, and work was carried out between 1699 and 1707. The original building survives as the western Bruce façade, while the more monumental eastern front was created during an extensive expansion begun by William Adam in 1721. Adam added the curved colonnades, flanking pavilions and State Apartments, with the interiors completed by his sons after his death in 1748. The house has remained largely unchanged since the eighteenth century apart from several internal alterations made between 1816 and 1823. It stands within approximately 100 acres of formal lawns, woodland, deer parks and landscaped grounds, while the wider Hopetoun Estate covers about 6,500 acres.

Hopetoun House has appeared in Shoebox Zoo (2004), Rebus (2006), Arn: The Knight Templar (2007), Starting Over (2007), The 39 Steps (2008), Outlander (2014–2026), The Secret Agent (2016), Belgravia (2020), The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020), The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021) and The Buccaneers (2023–). Its two façades, State Apartments, bedrooms, drawing rooms, mural staircase, stable courtyard, lawns and woodland have represented an unnamed stately home, a politically connected Scottish estate, medieval European residences, the fictional Dewhurst family estate, French, English and American properties in Outlander, Lady Blackwood’s residence, Greenwich Park, the Trenchard family’s Brussels home, the royal palace of Montenaro and the interiors of Tintagel Castle.

In Shoebox Zoo (2004), Hopetoun House appears in the first-season episode “Mother’s Footsteps”. Marnie McBride visits an unnamed stately home during a school excursion and begins experimenting with the magical powers she has inherited from her late mother. She uses them against a classmate who has been bullying her, while the four living animal figures from the shoebox become separated from her and trapped in the basement. Michael Scot appears to Marnie inside the house and attempts to persuade her to accept the quest connected to the Book of Forbidden Knowledge by speaking about her mother. Toledo then contradicts him and claims that Scot was responsible for her mother’s death. Hopetoun supplies the rooms, stairways and exterior identity of the stately home around which the episode’s school visit and supernatural encounters take place.

In the Rebus episode “Let It Bleed” (2006), Hopetoun House and its grounds are used during a clay-pigeon shooting sequence. Inspector John Rebus is investigating an apparent suicide that gradually connects an investment banker, senior public officials and the fictional chemical company Dusanto. His visit to the shooting estate brings him into the affluent political and administrative circles surrounding the case, contrasting sharply with the Edinburgh streets and deprived communities in which much of his investigation takes place. Hopetoun’s landscaped grounds provide the setting for the shoot rather than representing a police or government building.

In Arn: The Knight Templar (2007), originally released as Arn – Tempelriddaren, Hopetoun House was one of three major historic locations used during the production’s Scottish filming, alongside Craigmillar Castle and Seton Collegiate Church. The film follows the Swedish nobleman Arn Magnusson from his education in a monastery and forbidden relationship with Cecilia Algotsdotter to his years of service as a Knights Templar warrior in the Holy Land. Scottish locations supplied forest environments, church interiors and buildings representing medieval Sweden and religious institutions. Hopetoun is confirmed as an individual filming location, but the available production material does not identify which rooms or named residence it represents. It should therefore be credited as part of the film’s medieval European setting without assigning it to Arnäs, Forsvik or Varnhem, all of which were also created from other locations and constructed buildings.

In Starting Over (2007), Hopetoun House is reported as part of the ancestral estate belonging to the Dewhurst family. The television film follows Lady Elizabeth “Liz” Dewhurst after her younger brother and the family’s male heir is killed in a riding accident. Her marriage subsequently collapses, leaving her responsible for an estate facing serious financial difficulties. Professor Peter Rossen arrives to conduct research in the family library, and his growing relationship with Liz offers her the possibility of rebuilding her personal life while she struggles to preserve the property. Hopetoun is listed as a filming location and is consistent with the exterior and aristocratic interiors associated with the Dewhurst estate, but publicly available records do not separate its contribution from the other houses and locations used in the production. Specific library, riding and domestic scenes should consequently not be attributed to individual rooms without visual confirmation.

In The 39 Steps (2008), Hopetoun House was used during the Scottish location filming for the BBC adaptation of John Buchan’s novel. Richard Hannay becomes involved in an espionage conspiracy shortly before the First World War after the agent Scudder enters his London flat and entrusts him with a coded notebook. Hannay is accused of Scudder’s murder and flees to Scotland, where he meets Victoria Sinclair and attempts to prevent German agents from obtaining British military secrets. Hopetoun was used alongside West Register Street in Edinburgh and the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway. The production records confirm filming at the house but do not identify its exact screen identity, and other major scenes—including Longkeep Castle, the government meeting and the final confrontation—are documented at separate locations. Hopetoun should therefore be described as part of the production’s period location work rather than assigned to one of those named settings.

In Outlander (2014–2026), Hopetoun House has represented numerous unrelated properties in Scotland, France, England and North America. In the first season, the Red Drawing Room and western side of the house become the residence of the Duke of Sandringham. Claire secretly visits the duke to secure his assistance in clearing Jamie’s name, and Jamie later agrees to act as his second in a duel against members of Clan MacDonald. The Sea Trail and West Lawn are used for the duel and for the subsequent sword fight involving Jamie, Murtagh and the MacDonalds. During the second season, bedrooms inside the Bruce House represent both a spare room in Jared Fraser’s Paris townhouse, where Mary Hawkins is taken after the attack on her and Claire, and Mary’s room at the estate of her uncle, Silas Hawkins. The stable courtyard and surrounding lanes become Parisian streets and the exterior of Maison de Madame Elise, while other areas of the grounds are used for the attack on Claire, Mary and Murtagh and for Jamie’s pursuit of Fergus.

The third season uses Hopetoun as both Helwater, the Dunsany family estate where Jamie serves his parole, and the neighbouring Ellesmere estate. The stables, lawns and rooms appear during Jamie’s work as a groom, his rides with Geneva Dunsany, his encounters with the young Willie and his eventual departure from the estate. The eastern façade becomes Ellesmere, where Geneva dies after giving birth to Jamie’s son and the Earl of Ellesmere threatens the infant. Hopetoun returned during the second half of the seventh season for locations including Hal Grey’s Westminster office, Lord John Grey’s residence in Savannah, Joseph Brant’s residence at Shadow Lake and offices associated with Brant and the solicitor G. Tannahill. The estate’s current location material also records filming for the eighth season, although a complete public scene-by-scene identification of the new material has not yet been provided. Midhope Castle, which represents Jamie’s ancestral home of Lallybroch, stands elsewhere on the wider estate and is not part of Hopetoun House itself.

In The Secret Agent (2016), Hopetoun House performs two separate roles in Victorian London. Its interiors represent the residence of Lady Blackwood, an aristocratic supporter of the anarchist Michaelis. The Assistant Commissioner visits her while investigating the political circumstances surrounding the attempt to bomb Greenwich Observatory and the connections between Michaelis and influential members of society. The grounds are used separately as Greenwich Park, through which the intellectually disabled Stevie carries the explosive device prepared by Adolf Verloc. Stevie trips before reaching the observatory and is killed when the bomb detonates prematurely. Hopetoun’s formal residence and open parkland thus appear as two supposedly distant London locations within the same story.

In Belgravia (2020), Hopetoun House represents the Brussels home of James and Anne Trenchard during the opening section set in 1815. James has become wealthy by supplying the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, and his family is living in Brussels as the allied armies prepare to confront Napoleon. The rooms and staircase at Hopetoun are used during domestic scenes involving James, Anne and their daughter Sophia, who is secretly involved with Lord Edmund Bellasis. The family prepares for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball and later waits anxiously for news after the officers leave to join the Battle of Waterloo. The actual ballroom sequence was filmed at the Assembly Rooms in Bath, while Hopetoun supplies the Trenchards’ residence and associated interiors before and after the ball. The later London home of the Trenchards was assembled from other Edinburgh and English properties.

In The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020), Hopetoun House provides the principal exterior identity of the royal palace in the fictional European kingdom of Montenaro. Stacy, Prince Edward, Kevin and Olivia travel to Montenaro after Duchess Margaret unexpectedly inherits the throne and separates from Kevin. Their car approaches Hopetoun’s eastern façade and forecourt, where Margaret welcomes them to the palace. The house continues to establish the royal residence as Stacy attempts to reunite Margaret and Kevin, while Margaret’s cousin Fiona plans to impersonate her and seize access to the royal treasury. Several Scottish houses and constructed interiors were combined to create the complete palace, but Hopetoun’s façade, courtyards and selected rooms provide its most recognisable visual identity. The coronation itself was filmed at Glasgow Cathedral rather than at Hopetoun.

In The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021), Hopetoun House returns as Montenaro Palace and also represents part of Manderston Academy, the boarding school attended by Fiona Pembroke and Peter Maxwell as children. The rear of the house appears in flashbacks showing the young Fiona being left at the academy during the Christmas holidays, an event that contributes to her resentment towards her absent mother. Within the palace storyline, the Red Drawing Room becomes Queen Margaret’s drawing room and is used repeatedly as Margaret, Stacy, Fiona and Peter formulate a plan to recover the stolen Star of Peace. Other State Rooms appear during their discussions and preparations, while the Dining Room is used during a late breakfast. The stable courtyard receives the van used to deliver flowers connected to the operation and is also where Stacy speaks with Mother Superior. The large Christmas festival held in front of the palace was staged against Hopetoun’s main façade and forecourt.

In The Buccaneers (2023–), Hopetoun House provides much of the interior of Tintagel Castle, the ancestral home of Theo, Duke of Tintagel, and his mother, the Dowager Duchess. The State Rooms, sitting room, hall and carved Tribune Stairs appear as Nan St George is introduced to Theo’s aristocratic household and becomes increasingly involved in the rivalry between Theo and his closest friend, Guy Thwarte. These interiors recur during the courtship, engagement and family scenes at Tintagel, including private conversations between Nan, Theo and the duchess. Hopetoun does not supply the complete castle: Culzean Castle, enhanced with visual effects, provides the clifftop exterior facing the sea, while Drumlanrig Castle supplies another exterior entrance and the University of Glasgow is used for the Tintagel ball. The windows at Hopetoun overlook the surrounding parkland, although editing makes the same rooms appear to face the Cornish coast.

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