How Stanley Kubrick transformed genteel Highclere mansion into Hollywood hothouse because of his fear of flying



Pictures reveal unlikely locations for scenes from Kubrick's cult movies

Legendary director shot many of his most famous films in UK

American moved to Britain after becoming disenchanted with Hollywood



The gilded interior of Highclere Castle will be familiar to legions of Downton Abbey fans as home to the aristocratic Grantham family.

But the stately home played host to some less dignified scenes in the past, when it served as the location for an orgy in Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut.



The 1999 film is one of many the legendary American director - who was rumoured to be terrified of flying - shot in his adopted home of Britain, and the Berkshire mansion is one of a host of unlikely locations around England that pop up in Kubrick's work.



Highclere Castle: The stately home in Berkshire - the real-life location of Downton Abbey - doubled as a grand Manhattan mansion in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut

What would the Dowager Countess say? Kubrick filmed the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut at Highclere Castle - also the setting for television's Downton Abbey



Much of the action in his cult war film Full Metal Jacket unfolds in the steamy jungles of Vietnam, but many of the iconic movie's scenes were actually filmed in a gritty corner of east London.

Anglophile: New York-born Stanley Kubrick moved to the UK permanently in the early 1960s

Travel-phobic Kubrick used imported palm trees to help transform fields in the Kent and Essex countryside into the landscape of 1960s Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket, while Berkshire's Highclere Castle - otherwise known as television's Downton Abbey - doubled as a lavish Manhattan mansion for the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.

Many less-than salubrious London landmarks can be spotted when watching Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange - from the Wandsworth underpass where the 'droogs' attack a homeless man, to grim Thamesmead tower blocks that loom in the background as Alex and his gang stalk the streets.

The notoriously demanding director is said to have agonised over finding the right location to shoot his films, and spent two months poring over a decade's worth of architectural magazines before settling on the appropriate settings for A Clockwork Orange.



The director eventually chose the Thamesmead South housing estate as the backdrop for Alex's crime spree, and South Mere lake, Princess Alexandra Hospital, and HMP Wandsworth all feature in the movie.

New York-born Kubrick moved to the UK permanently in the early 1960s after becoming disenchanted with Hollywood following studio disputes surrounding the western One-Eyed Jacks, which he had been slated to direct. Marlon Brando, the film's star, eventually directed the picture himself.

Iconic: A south London housing estate provided the stomping ground for Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange

Thamesmead: The legendary director preferred to shoot his films in his adopted home in the UK due to his fear of flying

Sinister: A harrowing rape scene in A Clockwork Orange was filmed in a house in Radlett, Hertfordshire

Full Metal Jacket: Stanley Kubrick recreated the war torn city of Hue, Vietnam, at Beckton Gas Works in east London

Cult classic: Imported palms were used to create a South East Asian landscape in fields in Kent and Essex

Countryside: One of the English fields used to represent Vietnam in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket

Bassingbourne Barracks: Scenes of recruits marching around Parris Island, South Carolina in Full Metal Jacket were shot at this Cambridgeshire base

Meanwhile Kubrick set up home in Britain, where he went on to shoot some of his most famous movies.

His first UK film was Lolita, an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel, in 1962, which saw Kubrick use a suburban house in Buckinghamshire as the New Hampshire home of character Charlotte Haze.

Sci-fi favourite 2001: A Space Odyssey, which became an instant cult classic in 1968, was also shot largely in England, including at Surrey's Shepperton Studios, while the creepy Overlook Hotel from Kubrick's psychological horror The Shining was created at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood - then the largest set ever built.

The notoriously demanding director is said to have agonised over finding the right location to shoot his films, and spent two months poring over a decade's worth of architectural magazines before settling on the appropriate settings for A Clockwork Orange in 1971.



The director chose the Thamesmead South housing estate as the backdrop for Alex's crime spree. South Mere lake, Princess Alexandra Hospital, and HMP Wandsworth all feature in the movie.

New York via Luton: Other scenes from Eyes Wide Shut, which starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, were filmed in the luxury Luton Hoo Hotel in Bedfordshire Lolita: Kubrick shot much of his adaptation of Nabokov's classic novel in Britain

Unlikely: This house is Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, doubled as Charlotte Haze's New Hampshire home in Kubrick's adaptation of Nabokov's Lolita

Barry Lyndon: The final duel between Barry and Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick's 1975 film was shot in the Tythe Barn in Glastonbury, Somerset

Barry Lyndon: Kubrick's 1975 film starred Ryan O'Neal as Redmond Barry



