The cathedral city of Wells in Somerset has more of the feel
of a market town than a city, but a city it is due to the presence of the
aforementioned cathedral. Its size has
led to it being commonly described as England’s smallest city. Traditionally, visitors have flocked to the
city to admire the cathedral and the adjacent Bishop’s Palace with its famous
swan-filled moat. However, in more
recent years film and TV buffs have started coming here, what with Wells’
starring role in a number of film and TV productions. One film in particular is linked to the city,
and that is Hot Fuzz, an action comedy about a police officer who is moved from
the crime-ridden streets of London to the sleepy village of Sandford (aka Wells) expecting to be bored stiff, only to find that the village is a
hotbed of violent crime.
When filming took place in 2006, much was made of the city’s
picturesque centre, in particular the main street and the Market Place, with
its Bishops Eye Gate and the Penniless Porch, two arched entrances leading to
the walled precinct known as the Liberty of St Andrew, within which are the
Cathedral, the Bishop’s Palace and the Vicars’ Close. The Penniless Porch, built around 1450, was
named after the beggars who used to hang around there in those days. The moat surrounding the Bishop’s Palace is
where PC Angel is seen jogging in an early scene. The Palace is also where Angel is seen
meeting with the Neighbourhood Watch, and a night-time meeting described as taking place at the "castle" was also filmed outside the Palace (Wells does not have a castle).
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| Wells, Somerset, 24 June 2013. Photo by Barry Lewis, via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Wall and moat surrounding Bishop's Palace, Wells - geograph.org.uk - 1752894. Photo by Derek Harper, via Wikimedia Commons |
Two of the city’s pubs feature heavily in the film. When PC Angel first arrives from London he is
put up in the Swan Hotel. The local
watering hotel where the cops meet up for a drink is the Crown, whose exterior
features in many shots, although the interior scenes were filmed in The Royal Standard of England in Forty Green, Beaconsfield. The city’s pint-sized entertainment venue,
appropriately named The Little Theatre, also makes an appearance.
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| The Swan hotel - geograph.org.uk - 188448. Photo by Sharon Loxton, via Wikimedia Commons |
Perhaps the most unlikely star location of the film is the
Somerfield supermarket (no longer a supermarket since the demise of the
Somerfield chain). The supermarket’s
charming but sinister manager, played by Timothy Dalton, is at the centre of
the series of grisly murders taking place in the village, and the supermarket
is one of the scenes of a prolonged gunfight towards the end of the film. Apparently, the director of the film used to
work at the store. Another scene
featured in the violent climax is a model village, but visitors in search of
Hot Fuzz locations need not bother looking for it as Wells does not actually
have a model village in real life.
Other film and TV productions which have featured Wells include Wolf Hall, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Libertine, The Hollow Crown and Poldark in which the Town Hall doubled as the Warleggan Bank.
Wells is to the south of Bristol, just under an hour by car
from there, or reachable from junction 23 of the M5 motorway. There is also a regular bus service from Bristol,
but no rail service.
