On the 4th of June Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland will finally be released on Blu-ray and DVD giving us all a chance to own our own piece of his colourful vision of Lewis Carroll’s Underworld. To mark the occasion Disney invited HeyUGuys to tumble down the rabbit hole and discover the place the adventure began – to journey with them to Wonderland!
Antony House on Torpoint in Cornwall sits on the ruggedly handsome Rame Peninsula close to Plymouth. Tim Burton plucked this Wonderland from a huddle of more than thirty historic houses for its singular beauty and extraordinary grounds. The family seat of the Carew Poles has been casting a spell over visitors for nearly three hundred years and the magic of its hidden gardens and the elegant gaze of the house proved irresistible to the visionary director. We wandered wherever Alice had trod, following her footsteps along the very same paths she had ever-so-recently chased a long eared stranger…
Our tour guide for our time in Alice’s wonderful world was the National Trust’s Harvey Edgington. An integral part of the negotiation to win the location bid, Harvey told us how valuable a deal like this can be for a stately home like Antony and the area in which it stands. At the National Trust’s Holywell Bay, another Cornish site, a scene from the Bond film Die Another Day was shot. In one month the tiny village location had a half million pound boost to its economy – such is the impact when Hollywood comes calling. In light of this Harvey told us it would have been utterly churlish not to do everything in his power to secure the Alice deal. There was a more personal twist to the story too; Antony’s pride was at stake having missed out on a cameo role, as Violet Beauregarde’s house, in Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory only a few short years before. The victory of the win was made all the sweeter by the starring role the house plays in Alice!
As we toured the grounds Harvey told us Tim had been captivated by the symmetry of Antony. He fell in love with its windows and its calm silver/grey stone face. Such was the appeal of the house that the interior scenes of Alice’s London home were also shot at Antony – in many ways it became a multi-talented member of the cast. Two of the gardeners joined us on our stroll across the lawns and through the yew hedges into secret summer gardens. Brian and Valerie described the surreality of life through the Tim Burton lens: adding white fabric roses to heavily flowering bushes in order to weigh them with fairytale opulence then bending down to discover them as scented as their living counterparts. Or discovering their trees were too quirky to be part of the ordinary world and watching life-sized fakes hammered together by a team of Burton Elves. They adored every moment of the Alice adventure and were delighted that the National Trust had allowed a hint of Wonderland to remain.
After filming wrapped the Trust commissioned an internationally renowned theatrical transformation and installation company, Dodgy Clutch, to create a visitor 
experience which would maintain the spirit of Carroll’s fantasy. On our walk we stumbled across several surprises secreted in the grounds – a forest of toadstools clustered around a Rabbit Hole slide, a riddling, writhing, Cheshire Cat hidden in the depths of a conical Yew and a clock with a familiar face at its heart that kept perfect Underworld time! In the house, too, the presence of the story was tangible and the tiny bedroom Burton (impractically) chose to be Alice’s own seemed quite poised to expect her return.
The Carew Pole family occupy Antony House still and remained there throughout filming. In fact Lady Mary was so enamoured of the process that she volunteered her services as an extra. The house manager told us the family keep to their private rooms when visitors are touring the house but in the evening they venture out to occupy the whole of their home as so many generations have done before. I fell in love with this vision of Antony as a place haunted by friendly ghosts; it seemed so much in keeping with the otherworldliness of Alice. Though staff were sworn to secrecy, when the deal was done in 2008, one hint was left for clever eyes to spot: at the crest of the staircase leading to the room that would become hers sits an oversized cup and saucer patterned with an infamous tea party. A topiary echo of this clue now tops the Yew hedge beside the house.
It is impossible to estimate the impact Alice in Wonderland will have on Antony House this year. Between the 16th and 25th of September 2008 she witnessed 200 crew 
descend on her sweeping lawns. Extra ferries were laid on every morning at 4am to lead the daily procession of extras and cast from their slumber into hair and makeup. When recruitment of extras began 3,000 people queued in the hope of winning one of 250 chances to shine. Certainly we felt the lingering excitement in the air as we picnicked under watchful eye. Already the sparkle of Alice has attracted record visitor numbers, who knows what the future may bring…
Good things according to Harvey Edgington, whose experience in bringing the tall tales of the big screen to Trust property is immense. When Pride and Prejudice was released in September 2005 the effect on Basildon Park, its location, was immediate as visitor numbers shot up by an incredible 172%. Once the contracts are secured Harvey and his colleagues are in the unique position of being able to command Hollywood to dance to the Trust’s tune on occasion. The Alice shoot had a Conservator on set daily to prevent any damage to the house or land. In the case of a location like Antony this involved such creative precautions as tennis balls on the feet of cameras to prevent damage to the floors and ingenious floating camera rigs which hovered above the action rather than from the fragile ceilings of the house.
In an outdoor location such as Freshwater Bay, used for the dramatic battle scene in Ridley Scott’s recent Robin Hood, the imperative to protect the ‘fixtures and fittings’ is just as strong. Having only the previous week seen the Bay play host to a scene for the final installment in the Harry Potter series – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Harvey went onto Ridley Scott’s set to oversee its transformation into a bloodied battle ground. Though the cliffs of Dover were added later the physical location is 100% National Trust. When informed that this Site of Scientific Interest would be hosting a scene described as “the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan retold with horses and arrows” Harvey had to remind the filmmakers that no new species were permitted to be introduced to the landscape. And then insist they remove a carpet of muscle shells they had recently added for dramatic effect, literally bringing a big budget movie to its knees!
I hope that Antony House does continue to benefit from the Burton touch – it is a simply magical place and somewhere I hope you will discover for yourselves. I am so looking forward to returning there when the Alice in Wonderland Blu-ray and DVD is released on Friday.
(All set photographs courtesy of Disney and selected location pictures by Paul Glendell. Our huge thanks to Lydia Rodrigues and Stephanie Ryan at Disney, Emma Wright and Matt White at Taylor Herring and all at Antony House!)
