Movie settings and wedding venues The story of Highclere castle, the setting of Downton Abbey, is of one manor that survived the turmoil by changing with the times. The castle has been home to the Carnarvon family since 1679. The fifth earl, an Egyptology enthusiast named George Herbert, is famous for having underwritten and accompanied the archaeologist Howard Carter when the latter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, in 1922. The current Earl of Carnarvon, 56-year-old Geordie Herbert, is the eighth.