Downton Abbey is its stage name; its real name is Highclere Castle

Patrick van IJzendoorn, Flickr

In its first season, Downton Abbey ballooned into one of PBS' biggest hits ever. Its rating last Sunday beat everything else scheduled against it on U.S. broadcast and cable television, except the Super Bowl.

Highclere Castle, the real Downton Abbey, was completed in 1842 by Charles Barry, who also built the Houses of Parliament.

The LA Times Blog recently posted 10 facts about the show's real castle. Even its current mistress, Lady Carnarvon, doesn't know everything; she puts the number of rooms at "probably 200 or 300 rooms, and 50 to 80 bedrooms." Sixty to eighty people work at Highclere Castle, close to ten times the staff shown on the TV series.

...that gigantic portrait of a man on a horse that’s often visible behind Hugh Bonneville’s head in the dining room on “Downton Abbey” is a 1635 portrait of King Charles I by Anthony van Dyck. “That painting is particularly fine, but there are three Van Dycks in the dining room,” Lady Carnarvon said, adding that Highclere is full of art and antiques. “There are 15th century Italian embroideries in the Music Room, and 18th century silk bed hangings, and 400 years worth of European and English paintings and furniture throughout the castle. Not to mention those 5,000-year-old antiquities from Egypt.”

And yes, tours are available.