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The country manor in Northamptonshire, once an obscure hidden gem, is being plagued by people dancing to Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Send for the National Guard! The great unwashed masses have descended upon the stately home where Saltburn was filmed. Charles Stopford Sackville, the owner of Grade-1 listed Drayton House in Northamptonshire, has complained to the Mail on Sunday of being besieged by an unholy trifecta of content creators, Jacob Elordi enthusiasts and Emerald Fennell fanatics.
“I never envisaged the amount of interest there would be. It’s quite weird,” he told the Mail. “I don’t take it as flattering. How would you feel if people were taking pictures outside your house? I’d prefer the interest to blow over but I can’t make it blow over.”
While there is a public footpath which runs through the estate, this hasn’t been enough to satisfy the most determined Saltburn stans – according to Sackville, more than 50 people have been caught trespassing on the grounds. Many have filmed themselves dancing in front of the house to “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, in a tribute to one of the film’s most iconic scenes.
Sackville is a family friend of director Emmeline Fennell’s parents, which is one of the reasons why she chose the property as her film’s primary location. According to Variety, no one involved in Saltburn was allowed to disclose the estate’s location, but a beady-eyed reporter at Tatler figured it out straight away from the trailer alone. Now the cat is out of the bag, but it seems unlikely, given the shelf-life of the average TikTok trend, that people will be making the pilgrimage for years to come.
It’s hard to know who to sympathise with in this scenario: the people travelling into the depths of Northamptonshire to film a TikTok dance or a member of the English upper classes being terrorised by the hoi-polloi. There is only one solution: Drayton Manor should be expropriated by the state and turned into a publicly-owned Saltburn theme park, but not before everyone involved is arrested.
@beansandpeas0701 Post cheeky pint at the snooty fox #saltburn #draytonhouse @Megana ♬ Murder On The Dancefloor - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
@mollyrichardsx Of course we had to visit when we realised it’s just down the road #saltburn #saltburnhouse #draytonhouse #northamptonshire #barrykeoghan #jacobelordi #fyp #sundaywalks ♬ Murder On The DanceFloor - speduqaudio