Sumith Prasad
Most of Stacie Passon’s mystery thriller film ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ takes place in the castle of the Blackwood family, which includes the sisters Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood and Constance Blackwood. After the murders of their parents, they stay in the castle with their uncle Julian, who nearly died along with his brother and the latter’s wife. The castle in the movie is a real building that dates back to 1835 in Ireland. Passon and cinematographer Piers McGrail turned the captivating establishment into a mysterious manor where secrets concerning the Blackwoods are hidden!
The Manor in Manor Kilbride
The castle in ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ is a country house simply known as “The Manor.” The establishment is located in the village of Manor Kilbride in County Wicklow, Ireland, around 800 meters off the N81. The property is around 10 km from Blessington and 30 km from Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. The 7,000-square-foot two-story home with six bedrooms is situated on a 13.7-acre property. While Stacie Passon was shooting the film in the country house, the property was owned by Margaret Cully, who lived in the home for more than fifty years.
Built in 1835 in the Elizabethan Gothic style, The Manor has majestic reception rooms with paneled ceilings. During Cully’s time, the drawing room walls were decorated with fourteen landscape murals hand-painted by Edwin Hayes, a renowned marine artist. The property also includes a parkland, woodland, private lake, and a captivating garden, which is the labor of love of Cully. “From early spring there are thousands of daffodils, bluebells, a display of rhododendrons – some over 100 years old,” she told The Irish Times. Scots pine, Spanish chestnut, and black poplar are only some of the trees that can be found on the grounds of the country house.
The Manor is listed as a heritage guesthouse in Hidden Ireland. It is located at the entry point to the Wicklow Mountains National Park, a 51,000-acre protected region in the country. Cully also received guests from May to September, who didn’t forget to appreciate the “charm” and “character” of the house. The owner put the home for sale in 2019, over a year after the premiere of the film. The property was valued at €2.25 million at the time. Cully expressed her wish to see a family moving into the place where she brought up her four children. According to Colliers, it was eventually sold and the current owner’s identity has been kept private.
Manor Kilbride, where the country house is located, is a scenic region and the first main settlement near River Liffey. The Brittas River flows through the region. The Manor also has a bridge that spans the same river. The village is known after another manor built by Sir Lorenzo Moore in the Tudor Revival style in the early 19th century.
Read More: Is We Have Always Lived In The Castle a True Story?
