Houses in Fiction Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tara

In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel 'Gone with the Wind,' the house on Tara, a Georgia cotton plantation, was a rambling structure that didn't much resemble the palatial residence that appeared in the movie. Nonetheless, it's the idea of Tara that keeps Scarlett going. Through her efforts, Tara survives and prospers, but she herself loses everything in the process. Seven Oaks, of course, is Ashley's home, which is destroyed by the Yankees.

The exterior used for the movie Tara was built on a lot at Selznick Studios, and there is some mystery as to what exactly happened to it. It certainly bears a close resemblance to the Selznick mansion, which has cause a lot of confusion over the years. The exterior for Seven Oaks was only a matte painting and the barbeque scenes were filmed in Busch Gardens.

Answer: Thornfield Hall

Houses play a pivotal role in Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre' (1847). Thornfield Hall is the lonely manor where Mr. Rochester has hidden his mad wife. Gateshead is the splendid residence of the Reeds, the home of Jane's aunt and horrible cousins. Jane finds refuge at her cousins' home at Moor House and when she returns to seek Mr. Rochester, she finds him at Ferndean, where he has lived after the destruction of Thornfield.

At least three 'Jane Eyre' films were shot at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, the existing stately home that most closely resembles the Thornfield Hall of the book. Wycoller Hall in Lancashire is said to be Bronte's inspiration for Ferndean Manor.

Answer: Maple Grove

"So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house-the grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like." In her amazing novel 'Emma' (1815), Jane Austen employs a device she used to effect in 'Pride and Prejudice'. Both Mrs. Elton and Mr. Collins are a couple of poseurs, constantly comparing other peoples' homes with larger, grander residences (for Mr. Collins, it's 'Rosings'). This is evidence of their petite-bourgeois snobbishness and vulgarity.

Hartfield is Emma's home, while Mr. Knightley resides at Donwell and the Westons at Randalls.

Answer: Jalna

Mazo de la Roche wrote The 'Whiteoak Chronicles', a wildly and widely popular family saga, over the years 1944 ('Building of Jalna') to 1958 ('Centenary at Jalna'). The first Whiteoak gives his house the name after serving in India at Jalna. The novels centre on the very 20th century theme of 'the land' and by extension, 'the house', as magnets that draw the family back again and again.
It is said that the heritage home 'Benares' in Clarkson, Ontario, was used as inspiration for the house at Jalna.

Answer: Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbon's very funny novel 'Cold Comfort Farm' (1932) parodies the whole 'house-land-family' genre. When niece Flora, 'Robert Poste's child', arrives from London, it takes her all her urbanity and common sense to sort things out. Hautcouture Hall is the home of Richard Hawke-Monitor, the fey Elfine's beloved, and Howling is the local village. If you haven't read 'Cold Comfort Farm', don't miss it.

Answer: Talboys

Lord Peter Wimsey is the aristocratic detective in a series of novels and short stories written by Dorothy Sayers from 1923 to the late 30s. He falls in love with Harriet Vane in 'Strong Poison' (1931) and pursues her over the next five novels; they finally marry and move into Talboys in 1935 ('Busman's Honeymoon'). Talboys, unlike the cold, sterile atmosphere at Duke's Denver, is warm and beautiful (after they've solved the murder). Sayers' final work, a short story about the Wimsey children, 'Talboys'; was written in 1942.

Answer: Misselthwaite Manor

In Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic 'The Secret Garden' (1910), the dark creepiness of Misselthwaite Manor contrasts with the warm, living beauty of the walled garden that Mary and her friend Dickon bring back to life. In doing so, they revive both her crippled cousin Colin and his embittered father.

The walled gardens at Great Maytham Hall, where Burnett lived for a number of years, are apparently the inspiration for the one in the book. Dorincourt is the earl's residence in Burnett's blockbuster 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' and Coombe Manor is from her novel 'The Head of the House of Coombe'.

In the wonderful 1993 film version of 'The Secret Garden', locations for Misselthwaite Manor were filmed in Yorkshire at Allerton Castle.

Answer: Pemberley

Is it the charm and beauty of Pemberley that softens Elizabeth's heart? In Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' (1813) Elizabeth begins to see another, more attractive side of Mr. Darcy when she visits his estate and meets him there by chance. The house is more beautiful even than Rosings, where Lady Catherine de Bourgh lives, or Mr. Bingley's Netherfield Park, near the Bennett home of Longbourne.

Legend has it that Chatsworth in Derbyshire was Austen's model for Pemberley and it was used as an exterior set in the 2005 film version of the novel. Lyme Park in Cheshire was used in the definitive 1995 television production.

Answer: Belle Reve

"They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!" In Tennessee Williams' 'Streetcar Named Desire' (1947), place names are significant. The DuBois estate that once belonged to Blanche and her sister Stella is fittingly named Belle Reve, or 'Beautiful Dream'.

Although she fought, bled and 'almost died for it', Blanche has lost Belle Reve and slides into a beautiful dream of madness over the course of this wonderful, tragic play.

Answer: Brideshead

"I have been here before...and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest." Charles recognizes Brideshead in the first chapter of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel 'Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder' Brideshead is a stately residence, but in the chapel, its very heart, there is warmth and faith.

Brideshead was almost certainly modeled on Castle Howard in Yorkshire, and this lovely house was used as an exterior set both in the 1981 TV series and the 2008 film.

Answer: The Burrow

The Weasley family home, The Burrow, is the warm, crazy, magical house that becomes Harry Potter's first real home. It appears first in Joanna Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' (1997). It took the set designers over four months to create the models for the exterior and interior of the house used in the film 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' (2002).

Answer: Chesney Wold

In Charles Dickens' 'Bleak House' (1852-53), Esther Summerson is initially repelled by her real (though unknown) mother, Lady Deadlock, and by extension, the great Deadlock estate. It's cold, barren and just as ghastly as is the Lady of the house, and when that Lady lies in her mausoleum, the mausoleum becomes the house.

'The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my Lady's picture.... the light of the drawing-room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more.'

In the 2005 BBC version of 'Bleak House', Cobham Hall in Kent is used as the exterior location for Chesney Wold.

Answer: Thrushcross Grange

Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' (1847) is a novel that illustrates the fragility of civilization and urban culture (Thrushcross Grange) in the face of an assault from brutal nature (Wuthering Heights). It's one of the first novels, (certainly not the last) to do so. The civilizing influence the Grange has on Catherine does not improve her, and Heathcliffe destroys poor Edgar and his unfortunate sister in revenge for Catherine's death. Most of the book actually takes place at Thrushcross Grange, as the story is Nellie Dean's narration to Mr. Lockwood.

In the 2011 movie version of 'Wuthering Heights', Cotescue Park in North Yorkshire was used as the location for Thrushcross Grange.

Answer: Green Gables

Lucy Maud Montgomery published 'Anne of Green Gables' in 1908, and the house was closely based on her cousins' farm near Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, where she grew up. The book and the others in the series have become classics and Green Gables today is part of Prince Edward Island National Park and open to the public.

Answer: Hill House

Shirley Jackson's novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' (1959), is pretty generally accepted as one of the greatest, if not the greatest ghost story of all time. Jackson was allegedly inspired by events at Borley Rectory ('the most haunted house in England') during the 1920s and 30s, and many of the manifestations that take place at Hill House had also taken place at the Rectory.

In 1963 the book was made into one of the most terrifying films of all time, 'The Haunting', and exterior locations were shot at Ettington Park near Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is itself haunted. The execrable 1999 remake used Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire for the house exteriors.