Jane Eyre, the estate agent

The Times publishes an article exploring how estate agents in Derbyshire are expecting the recent BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre to boost local prices:

Brooding sexual chemistry and repressed secrets drove the plot of the BBC’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which ended earlier this month. For some television viewers, though, the real star of the series was the Derbyshire countryside, which served as its melodramatic backdrop. (...)

The latest television version of Jane Eyre certainly showed off the area to dramatic effect: one of the most spectacular locations featured in the four-part series was Haddon Hall, which doubled as Thornfield, the home of Edward Rochester (played by Toby Stephens) which went up in flames. (The pyrotechnic special effects were so convincing that more than 100 local residents called the fire brigade during filming.) Dovedale, which spans the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire and was declared a national nature reserve earlier this month, was used in the first episode, when Rochester, looming out of the mist on a black stallion, met Jane (played by Ruth Wilson) for the first time. The Goyt valley was the setting for the home of St John Rivers, Jane Eyre’s saviour, while Ilam youth hostel served as Lowood school. (...)

Cauldwell believes the “Jane Eyre effect” may change that. “The exposure on television is undoubtedly going to have an impact,” he predicts.
The problem for many buyers, however, is shortage of supply. “Really good houses in the Peak District just don’t come up that often — £1m sales come up less than once a month,” says Cauldwell. “It is not that the houses aren’t there, just that once people are here, they don’t leave. I have houses on my books that have been in the same family for 25 and 42 years. Once I have sold them, they won’t be on the market again for another 20 years or so.”
Added to this are a number of unusual factors that restrict supply. The Peak District National Park Authority is highly restrictive about the building of new homes and is keen to encourage affordable housing for the locals. A number of villages are also stil almost entirely owned by large estates. If you want to live in Tissington, near Ashbourne, for example, you must apply to rent from the FitzHerbert family. Vast swathes of the county still belong to the Duke of Devonshire, whose seat, Chatsworth, served as the backdrop to Rochester’s proposal to Jane Eyre at the end of the third episode. (...)
For Jane Eyre obsessives on a smaller budget, however, there is an alternative. Many of the series’s interior scenes were shot in a disused warehouse on an industrial estate in Chesterfield. The bustling market town, with its famously crooked church spire, may not be the county’s most fashionable choice, but there ar still plenty of good three-bedroom terraced houses to be had in it for less than £100,000.

Picture is courtesy of PennyforyourDreams.

Categories: In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV