The True Story Of The Haunted Hotel In A24's The Eternal Daughter
When director Joanna Hogg embarked on her journey to find a location for her atmospheric, vaguely Gothic ghost story "The Eternal Daughter," she was looking for a place that would give her the creeps. So, quite naturally, she began searching on the internet for haunted manors in the United Kingdom. She explained in an interview with RogerEbert.com that she:
"...was Googling houses around the country, and it was very much about finding an image of a building that made me feel a little bit scared. So I looked at Scotland, I looked in Cornwall. I looked at the most haunted houses in the UK. Then I saw an image of Soughton Hall in north Wales, and it just looked frightening, but also very beautiful."
Although Soughton Hall doesn't seem as though it's populated by any actual ghosts, it is haunted by something perhaps more poignantly in line with the narrative of this film: memories.
"The Eternal Daughter" stars Tilda Swinton in dual lead roles: a filmmaker, Julia, and her elderly mother, Rosalind, who embark on a trip to a remote hotel that was once a private residence owned by their ancestors. Knowing that Rosalind has cherished childhood memories of the estate, Julia hopes to connect with her mother and write a screenplay about their relationship. But from the very beginning, this isolated hotel is ... well, strange. Julia and Rosalind appear to be the only guests in the entire place, cared for by the sole hotel employee on the premises, who is comically disinterested in her duties as hostess. Although they appear to be alone, Julia is kept up at night by loud noises from the unoccupied room above her, and can't shake the feeling that the hotel is haunted by some unseen entity.
Joanna Hogg's direction of "The Eternal Daughter" goes a long way in giving the film its sense of atmosphere, but the choice to film at the historic Soughton Hall turns it into a proper gothic ghost story.
The history of Soughton Hall
Soughton Hall was built in Flintshire, Wales, in the early 1700s, and was completely overhauled nearly 100 years later. The architect on the building project was Sir Charles Barry, whose work may be familiar to period drama enthusiasts: Not only was he responsible for redesigning the Houses of Parliament after they were destroyed in a devastating 1834 fire, but he was also the mastermind behind Highclere Castle, the famous filming location of "Downton Abbey." Soughton Hall was owned by the Bankes family, prominent landed gentry based in Dorset, from the early 1800s all the way through the 1980s, when the house was finally sold off. Much like the hotel in "The Eternal Daughter," Soughton Hall was transformed into an event venue, where one could get married or, in the case of Joanna Hogg, quietly film an eerie ghost story in a sudden burst of pandemic-induced creativity.
The 20th century history of Soughton Hall even more closely aligns with the events of "The Eternal Daughter." In the film, Rosalind is reminded of her childhood memories at the manor house: She spent a great deal of time there under the care of her aunt, especially during World War II, when children were shipped away from the major cities to protect them from the nightly bombing raids. Each room for her holds complicated emotions: Cherished days spent with friends and family, tinged with the unmistakable melancholy of a distinctly traumatic time.
Melancholy memories
The youngest generations of the Bankes family have similarly hazy memories of their time visiting Soughton Hall. In an interview with the BBC, Will Banks spoke of spending Christmas there as a young child back when his great-grandparents still lived in it as a primary residence, and having "tea with her [his great-grandmother Elizabeth in the library at Soughton." Like Rosalind, very specific things stuck out in his memory, such as "driving my grandmother's car down the long drive, sitting on her knee."
But the family in residence were hardly the only people who lived in Soughton Hall, and as we see with Joseph Mydell's caretaker Bill, there's an endless series of servants, groundskeepers, and other members of staff who have a powerful connection to the property as well. Eve Taylor spoke to Welsh News Extra about her fond memories of growing up in the shadow of the mighty country house. Her family had been connected to the estate since the beginning of the 20th century, when her great-grandfather took a job at Soughton Hall working as a gamekeeper. Each generation after was employed in some capacity by the Bankes, and as a child in the 1940s, Eve lived in an apartment above the estate's stables, since her mother worked as a maid there. "There were still horse carriages in the garages when I was there as a child. They weren't used and I remember looking at them and thinking they looked quite forlorn and a bit ghostly," she reminisced. "I was very close to my grandparents. They were lovely people and I loved living there. It was idyllic."
These stories, along with the manor's 300-year history, paint a picture of a home teeming with memories. When we see Soughton Hall on screen in "The Eternal Daughter," every room, hallway, and staircase feels heavy with ghosts of a different sort — not supernatural in origin, but the feeling of every figure who ever lived there still occupying the space. This house mattered to them in a thousand tiny ways, and it's as though they are kept alive, still roaming the halls, because of that emotional connection. The idea that lives spent in a place leave a mark on it. And if this is the case, that there is an element of reunion in visiting spaces that meant a great deal to our loved ones.