Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541514
what we were looking for was the real challenge that I thought it would be. Many stately homes are owned by the National Trust in the UK, so making any changes or even removing furnishings, drapery and paintings are non-starters. We looked for privately owned homes, but even then there could be a lot of restrictions. I came across 20-foot-tall paintings of ancestors that hadn't been moved in hundreds of years, rooms in which you could only open the shutters for no more than a few hours a day, drapery that might just disintegrate if taken down, and priceless antiques that homeowners were wary of anyone relocating. Houses could also be too dilapidated, too modernized or too precious, too small or way too grand to be believable. Scouting was a lot of fun though, even if I knew that the house wouldn't work at all in the first five minutes. I got a lot of ideas that I later used in the design. I also got to meet some extremely eccentric homeowners. On one scout with Nia and the producers, we were greeted by a squawking raven flapping its wings inside the entry hall. It had lived with the owners since it was a baby bird and had free reign around the house. A. FLINTHAM HALL. PRODUCTION STILL COURTESY OF AMAZON/ MGM. B. HEDDA. PRODUCTION STILL. B A