A BRIEF HISTORY OF WAYNE MANOR
EIGHT MANORS
GOOD MANORS
1
1966: Batman: Pasadena
When the po-faced Caped Crusader of the 1940s got his own TV show in the
Swingin’ Sixties, a more knowing audience expected – and got – a camply
satirical take on the notion of a costumed crimefighter.
Not blessed with lavish production values, the series and its spinoff film,
followed established Hollywood tradition, turning for their major location to Los
Angeles’s genteel neighbour, Pasadena.
Stately Wayne Manor, where bachelor millionaire Bruce Wayne was able to
give houseroom to his youthful ward Dick Grayson without attracting the
attention of social services, was the 10-bedroom, 1928 Tudor-style mansion
at 380 South San Rafael Avenue, in South Arroyo on the city’s leafy western
fringe.
You’ll find, as Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) did when he turned up here in
an attempt to incorporate movie-star Kit Ramsay (Eddie Murphy) into his nobudget sci-fi epic, that the mansion isn’t visible from the street.
Don’t miss: erm… the entrance gate.
2
1989: Batman: Hertfordshire
For more than 20 years, San Rafael Avenue remained the home of Batman
until, in 1989, Warner Bros handed over what we would now call a reboot to
up-and-coming wunderkid Tim Burton, hot from Beetlejuice. Burton grabbed
the project and ran with it, imbuing it with his unique brand of Nursery
Nightmare Grotesque. Filming at Pinewood Studios in the UK, he gave
Wayne Manor its least stately, most fanciful incarnation to date with
Knebworth House, near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, north of London. Those
romantic Victorians, with their love of all things theatrically Gothic, gave the
15th century manor house a thorough makeover to the delight of film
companies over the years. Like a fruity old thespian, Knebworth is not above
appearing in such eye-wobbling gems as Viv Stanshall’s magnificently barking
Sir Henry At Rawlinson End, beyond camp and out-the-other-side splatterfest
Horror Hospital and that classic of the soft-core nunsploitation genre, Sacred
Flesh.
Don’t miss: the herb garden, designed by Gertrude Jekyll as an interlaced
quinqunx.
http://www.knebworthhouse.com/
3
1989: Batman: Hertfordshire
Barely ten miles from Knebworth stands its more refined sister, Hatfield
House – Blanche Hudson to Knebworth’s Baby Jane. Hatfield, which retains
its staunchly Jacobean appearance, supplied the baronial splendour of
Wayne Manor’s interior. Built in 1611 on the site of the Royal Palace of
Hatfield, childhood home of Queen Elizabeth I, is another screen veteran, but
has also had its moments of fun – Sir Ralph Richardson riding a tea-tray down
its staircase in Greystoke, The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes, and
pneumatic archaeologist Lara Croft: Tomb Raider calling it home. Tim Burton
returned to Hatfield for the mansion of obnoxious Veronica Salt in Charlie And
The Chocolate Factory.
Don’t miss: the library’s 22 feet-long illuminated parchment roll showing the
pedigree of the Queen back to Adam and Eve.
http://www.hatfield-house.co.uk/
?
1992: Batman Returns
Outlandish villains overshadow the nominal hero in Tim Burton’s deliriously
operatic, which deserts the UK for vast and elaborate studio sets in
Hollywood. LA does not have a Knebworth, and the film depends entirely on
miniatures and matte paintings.
4
1995: Batman Forever: Long Island
As Joel Schumacher steers the franchise closer to 60s zaniness, Wayne
Manor itself becomes more staid. It’s now become the Webb Institute of Naval
Architecture at Welwyn Preserve in posh Glen Cove on the north shore of
Long Island. Formerly The Braes, estate of Standard Oil boss Herbert L Pratt,
the house was bought in the 1940s by shipbuilder William Webb, who
converted into a training establishment. Glen Cove is home to plenty of
screen-friendly estates, some of which are open to visit.
The Webb Institute was again for the 2014 TV series Gotham.
Don’t miss: the other Long Island mansions, including Old Westbury (North By
Northwest) and Sands Point (The Godfather).
5
1997: Batman And Robin: Beverly Hills
Big stars and ponderous sets prove no substitute for top-flight character
actors having a ball on cardboard sets as Schumacher completely misses the
freewheeling 60s vibe of the TV series. There’s nary a glimpse of the house
itslef, but the formal gardens of Wayne Manor are the grounds of the
Greystone Mansion, built in 1928 in the Tudor Revival style for oil tycoon
Edward L Doheny, as part of the Doheny Estate in the heart of Beverly Hills. It
was meant as a present for his son, Ned, but the young scion didn’t enjoy it
for long.
Four months after Ned, his wife Lucy and their five children moved into
Greystone, Ned died in a mysterious murder-suicide with his secretary, Hugh
Plunket. The estate is now a park, owned by the city of Beverly Hills. Entrance
is free, but the mansion – a frequent movie location – is off-limits.
Don’t miss: peering through the glass doors for a glimpse of the Green
Goblin’s ‘New York’ penthouse from the three Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies.
6
2005: Batman Begins: Buckinghamshire
Bruce Wayne was banished to the wilderness until the Nineties generation
had atoned for its sins and he could return with a serious origins story.
Christopher Nolan comes remarkably close to convincing you that dressing up
as a tiny flying mammal is a rational counter to organised crime. With a
production based back in the UK, there’s once again the opportunity to use a
genuine stately home. In this case it’s Mentmore Towers, built in the 1850s for
the Rothschild banking family in the Buckinghamshire countryside.
Closely based on a genuine Tudor manor house in the Midlands, the Victorian
house has ad an eventful history, making headlines in 1977 when its contents
were sold by Sothebys (and a hidden stash of silverware discovered beneath
a trapdoor). It became the headquarters for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's
University of Natural Law – pioneers of yogic flying. After the meditators had
flown, plans to turn it into a luxury hotel stumbled on for decades but,
fortunately, the economic downturn stymied the intended addition of a new
wing. Mentmore remains currently vacant, though its grounds are now a golf
course.
Don’t miss: a round of golf. Obviously.
?
2008: The Dark Knight
There’s no Wayne Manor at all in The Dark Knight. With the country pile
reduced to rubble, Bruce Wayne has to slum it in the penthouse suite of what
was the 40-story Hotel 71, now reborn as the Wyndham Grand Chicago
Riverfront, on East Wacker Drive in Chicago. Life is tough. The lobby of One
Illinois Center, which is part of the same complex, was transformed into the
main living area and surrounded by green screens so that views over the city
from the Wyndham could be added digitally.
Don’t miss: the hotel’s sweeping views of the city skyline and the Chicago
River.
7
2012: The Dark Knight Rises: Nottingham
For the climactic third film of Nolan’s epic trilogy, Wayne Manor is rebuilt,
brick-by-painstaking-brick. And it doesn’t just look as good – it looks even
better. Far from being a newer version of Mentmore, this is the genuine 16 th
Century Tudor original on which it was based. Wollaston Hall, on the edge of
Nottingham, houses a quirky Victorian museum of natural history, which dates
from a pre-conservation era when the standard response to discovering a rare
creature was to shoot it and mount it for posterity.
Don’t miss: the museum’s amazing delicate glass models of sea creatures,
and George, the unashamedly well-endowed stuffed gorilla.
8
2012: The Dark Knight Rises: London
With Wollaton Hall stuffed to the gills with Victorian taxidermy, a different
house was needed to provide Wayne Manor’s tastefully elegant interior. As
befits a multi-squillionaire like Wayne, his interior decoration is the work of
most fashionable and influential designer available – albeit from the 18th
Century. The rooms and staircases are those of Osterley Park House, in West
London, the work of Robert Adam. Together with his less famous brother
James, Adam pioneered the integration of architecture with fixtures and
fittings that we take for granted today. Now owned by the National Trust and
open to visitors, Osterley has been painstakingly restored to appear exactly
as it would have done at its 1782 peak.
Don’t miss: the still-visible pencil outlines on the original hand-painted
wallpaper.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/osterley-park/