The estate Dracula purchases in England is called Carfax. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Jonathan Harker helps arrange the transaction for the Count, who intends to establish himself near London and expand his influence in England.
Carfax is an old, partly ruined estate beside an insane asylum operated by Dr John Seward. Its isolated grounds, chapel, and neglected buildings make it an ideal Gothic setting and a practical refuge for Dracula. The Count has fifty boxes of Transylvanian earth shipped to England, because he must rest in earth connected with his homeland.
Carfax is only one of several properties Dracula acquires or uses around London. Van Helsing and his allies discover that the boxes have been distributed among these locations, allowing Dracula to create multiple daytime lairs. They place consecrated objects in the boxes to make them unusable, gradually cutting off his escape routes.
Readers sometimes confuse Carfax with Whitby, where Dracula first arrives in England, or with Harker’s home. Whitby is the coastal arrival point; Carfax is the London-area estate that becomes the centre of the vampire’s English operations.