Northanger Abbey (NH 2007)
As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a sight of the abbey — for some time suspended by his conversation on subjects very different — returned in full force, and every bend in the road was expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows. But so low did the building stand, that she found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even an antique chimney (Northanger Abbey, Ch. 20)
Thus Catherine Morland espies the eerie Northanger Abbey for the first time when she arrives with Henry Tilney. In the 2007 adaptation of Jane Austen’s least popular novel, the filmmakers nevertheless chose a location that seemed to spring from the very mind of fanciful Catherine herself. Their Northanger Abbey was going to impress; and despite the deviation from the original text, impress it does.
Lismore Castle reflects both the character of its severe master, General Tilney, and the “fevered imagination” of young Catherine. Lismore stands in Waterford County in southern Ireland, directly in between the towns Cork and Waterford. Interestingly, it has been the Irish home of the Dukes of Devonshire since 1753, meaning that family has provided locations for two of the major houses in Jane Austen’s canon (the other being the magnificent Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, which played the role of Pemberley in P & P 2005).
A “castellum” belonging to Prince John first stood at the site in 1185, and after his ascension to the throne of England 1199, the castle served as a Bishop’s Palace until 1589. That year, the famed explorer and admirer of Elizabeth I Sir Walter Raleigh purchased Lismore. 1602 was not a good year for the explorer — thrown into the Tower for high treason, he sold the land, some 42,000 acres and the castle to Richard Boyle who would eventually become the first Earl of Cork and father the man who would be known by chemistry students the world over in later centuries, Robert Boyle, of Boyle’s Law. The English Civil War was not kind to the castle, and the destruction wreaked upon it by Lord Castlehaven (that’s ironic) was barely repaired until 1800, when the “Bachelor Duke,” the 6th Duke of Devonshire began an extensive restoration project (this is the same Duke who acquired Chatsworth’s huge book and sculpture collections and Georgiana’s only son with the 5th Duke) — this was after the 4th Duke of Devonshire married Lady Charlotte Boyle, the heiress of the 4th Earl of Cork, and Lismore came into the Cavendish family. The Bachelor Duke also made an important friend out of Joseph Paxton, who was a key figure in restoring Lismore and its gardens to the grand establishment we see today. The castle has passed through the family down to the 12th Duke of Devonshire who still uses Lismore as a private residence.
The castle is not open to the public (except for large groups and wedding parties who arrange in advance and when the Duke is not at home), but the gardens are open for a fee from March to September. 
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