Fans are flocking to the mansion from the movie “Saltburn” — reportedly trespassing on private land and dancing wildly outside the gates of the residence to post on social media — to the apparent annoyance of its real-life owner.
To those familiar with the movie, an aristo-gothic sexual thriller released in 2023, the sprawling estate serves as the ancestral home of one of the main characters: Felix Catton, played by actor Jacob Elordi.
The residence — complete with stately rooms, lush green lawns and bodies of water — is the setting for most of the film and is where the relationship and tensions play out between Catton, his family and his friend Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan).
In real life, the 127-room limestone building is actually called “Drayton House” and can be found in Northamptonshire, England. The property’s owner, Charles Stopford Sackville, told the British tabloid, the Mail on Sunday, that he did not find the amount of interest in his property “flattering” and that security now patrols the estate after dozens of trespassing incidents. “How would you feel if people were taking pictures outside your house?”
A representative for Stopford Sackville declined to comment when reached by The Washington Post on Monday.
A TikTok tutorial on how to get to the 700-year-old property — which has been viewed more than 3 million times — potentially fueled the mass pilgrimage. Many watchers tagged their friends in the comments writing messages like: “We need to go here.” There were a slew of videos on TikTok as of Monday with multiple people documenting their own trips to the state. Some took their dogs, others stopped in a nearby village for lunch along the way.
‘Saltburn’ seduces with every frame, but leaves you wanting more
Rhian Williams, a public relations and marketing consultant who lives in the area, posted the video. “If you’d like to visit the Saltburn house in Northamptonshire, follow me,” she says, directing people past the Snooty Fox pub, cottages and horses. In the footage, Williams notes that a public path runs through the property but said in an email to The Washington Post on Monday that “there is absolutely no reason for people to stray” from the path and go onto private property.
Williams, 47, said that she had “no idea” when she shared the video that her TikTok would generate so much interest. “I haven’t got many followers on TikTok so didn’t think it would go viral,” she said. “When hundreds of people started sharing and commenting on my video, it added rocket fuel to my posts.”
Williams said that the fact that the movie was filmed at Drayton House was already public before she shared her video in January. It was identified by Tatler magazine in August.
In her email, she urged those planning a visit to Drayton House to “be good countryside citizens” and be respectful of their surroundings.
The county of Northamptonshire is “often overlooked” by tourists and Brits despite its beauty, Williams said, explaining that she had hoped her videos would draw attention to the general area. “It’s brilliant to see such a hidden corner of our beautiful Northamptonshire in such a major film like ‘Saltburn,’” she said.
Records for Drayton House date back as far as 1328, according to Historic England, a government body that protects historic buildings, monuments and parks. The residence is not open to the public and the owner, Stopford Sackville, told the Mail that he was paid to let producers use the house for filming.
The property had never been used on the big screen before, the movie’s writer and director Emerald Fennell told House and Garden magazine in January. “That’s why the house was so important,” Fennell said of Drayton House. “It needed to be something that hadn’t been used before. This hadn’t been photographed even, let alone put on film.”
In a scene that “Saltburn” watchers have hailed as “iconic,” the character of Oliver Quick danced nude around the mansion to the song “Murder on the Dancefloor,” by British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
That scene vaulted the 2001 song back into the top 10 of the U.K. Singles Chart, more than 20 years after it was first released. And it has inspired many to travel to the house and do their own dance outside the gates — though most seem to have kept their clothes on.
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