How Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy’s wet shirt saved Lyme Park’s fortunes | Manchester News

It may be hard to believe but it’s 30 years since Pride and Prejudice graced our TV screens in 1995.

The adaptation of Jane Austen’s romantic novel captivated 10 million viewers in the UK – and many more worldwide – when it debuted as the perfect Sunday night escapism.

In one of the most memorable scenes in TV history, hearts were set aflutter when Colin Firth as the novel’s hero Mr Darcy appeared in a soaked shirt after apparently swimming in the Pemberley pond.

The scenes were filmed at Lyme Park on the border of Greater Manchester and the Peak District, which has been a part of my life since childhood visits and where I briefly became a student volunteer.

Prior to filming, the site had been undergoing financial challenges to the extent that workers gave us free family tickets during a school trip to boost visitor numbers.

But its fortunes changed once the producers of Pride and Prejudice settled on it as the exterior of Mr Darcy’s home at Pemberley.

Kat Croxford, house manager for Lyme Park, says it was drawing about 50,000 visitors annually before 1995 but now attracts about 350,000 tourists, including from China, Japan and the US – keen to see the famous lawn view and recreate scenes from the drama.

“They specifically ask where Mr Darcy jumped into the lake and and where he met Lizzie in the garden and they absolutely want to recreate that, so we try to dissuade people from actually jumping in into the lake and getting their shirt wet.”

In reality, the actor never did take the plunge at Lyme, as a stuntman was used in case Firth caught an underwater bug.

The drama’s location manager Sam Breckman says the possibility of catching the infectious Weil’s disease – spread by certain animals – meant “there was no point”, partly due to insurance coverage.

“So you can’t put an actor into potentially infected water but you can put a stuntman in it ironically.”

Underwater swimming scenes were instead filmed by Firth in a water tank at a London studio.

As the actor has previously stated, he is never actually shown “emerging” in a wet shirt, with scenes edited to him striding through the park “looking a little damp”.

He told American chat show host Jimmy Fallon in 2014: “They took out a plastic spritz and went, ‘Oh, you look like you’ve just been for a swim’.”

Back in the early 1990s, it was still less common to see northern locations on TV other than the Coronation Street cobbles.

So when the grandeur of Lyme appeared in the drama’s trailer, I recall the excitement of my Dad and I at seeing a place we knew so well.

Mr Breckman – who oversaw 24 outdoor sites for the £6m flagship production – says they wanted a “significant” northern setting.

He explains it “needed to look like the most beautiful place imaginable, showing power, wealth and extreme good taste” in contrast to the “over the top” grandeur of Darcy’s domineering aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

The crew considered “all the big houses up north”, including Chatsworth and Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, along with Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, says Mr Breckman.

But they chose Lyme Park in Stockport, partly due to logistical reasons and “because it hadn’t been featured in anything”.

“It was fairly unique in its design and setting within the moorlands. It just had the right feel.”

Ms Croxford says the show “still has a huge impact even 30 years after the filming”.

“It’s a real cult classic.”

In the medieval era, Lyme Park had been part of a royal hunting ground in the Forest of Macclesfield, Cheshire but was granted as a reward to Sir Thomas Danyers who helped save Edward III’s son during a battle with the French in 1346.

Ownership then passed through his descendants until 1946 when rising costs led to the handover of the property to the National Trust charity, although the site was managed by the local authority in Stockport.

When the Pride and Prejudice producers chose the location, it coincided with Stockport Council handing back the park to the National Trust, which meant the drama couldn’t film indoors. So Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire was used for Pemberley’s interior scenes.

Mr Breckman recalls a “long process” to convince the National Trust to permit filming at Lyme because, he says, they initially “didn’t want a poxy film crew” working on-site for weeks as it would be “too much hassle”.

But visitor numbers “went through the roof” after the drama, starring Jennifer Ehle and Alison Steadman, premiered on 24 September 1995.

The 70-strong cast and crew on the Lyme Park shoot stayed in a nearby hotel having a “great time”, he added.

“We travelled all over the countryside like a circus… we were a very small, lean, keen family.

“None of us understood or realised the impact it would have, especially the [wet shirt] scene with Colin.”

Yet from Bridgerton to Peter Kay, the scene has gone on to be much imitated but never surpassed – and was once voted the most memorable British TV drama moment of all time.

The iconic white shirt itself has been auctioned several times and was most recently bought for £25,000 by Calderdale Council in Yorkshire to display at a local museum.

Lyme Park hasn’t looked back since and I’m not going to deny I wish I had a pound for every time a visitor asked about the show while I volunteered there in the noughties.

“We were sort of a forerunner for all the other classic dramas that then took place in stately homes,” says Mr Breckman, “because then people realised there was money to make.

“Despite the inconvenience to the public, it was worth it beneficially.”

The charm endures 30 years on, as demonstrated by Lyme Park’s appearance in a recent Visit Britain advert to encourage film and TV-inspired tourism.

Enthusiasts in Regency costumes can occasionally be seen strolling through its gardens and a portrait of Firth as Mr Darcy has recently gone on display after being exhibited at Sudbury.

Reminiscing about the drama, Mr Breckman says: “None of us really thought that it was going to be a huge success. It was just a job.

“It’s that typical story of people below their class meeting people above their class and deciding to get together.

“It’s true love, isn’t it?”