Castle Howard trees and plants from across the world is set in a beautiful landscape of parkland, lakes and ponds. The charitable trust that runs the Yorkshire Arboretum also manages Ray Wood. The house is Grade I listed and there are many other listed structures on the estate, several of which are on the Heritage at Risk Register. In addition to its most famous appearance in film as Brideshead in both the 1981 television serial and 2008 film adaptations of Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited", Castle Howard has been used as a backdrop for a number of other cinematic and television settings.
Stafford Howard she was a friend and patron of Dylan Thomas. Captain Stafford Vaughan Stepney Howard, (3 September 1915 – 1991). Changed his surname from Howard-Stepney to Howard by deed poll in August 1950, on inheriting the family estates in Cumbria, which included Greystoke Castle. He stood, unsuccessfully, twice for Parliament in the Liberal interest, in south Gloucestershire in 1950 and in 1951 the Penrith and the Border constituency. He was however a parish and county councillor, chairman of Penrith and Border Liberal Party, chairman of the Ullswater Outward Bound Trust, served on the Lake District Planning Board and the Ullswater Preservation