With Valentine’s Day upon us, I have come over all soppy and
decided to share some British locations associated with some of the many
romantic moments featured in our nation’s works of film, TV and
literature. So get out the heart-shaped
chocolates and enjoy.
Gunwalloe, Cornwall: Dwight
marries Caroline in Poldark
I have already described some of the Poldark locations in an
earlier post, including the location of Nampara, where Ross and Demelza build
their life together. I do not tear up
easily, but one scene in series 3 even got me going, when Caroline Penvenen and
Dr. Dwight Ennis, after a seemingly doomed relationship, finally tied the
knot. The church where the wedding was
filmed was the charming and very Cornish Church of St Winwaloe, nestled among
the dunes in Gunwalloe near the Lizard Peninsula. Being of a ‘three hall’ design, the present
day church is thought to date from the 15th century, although the
original chancel and nave were probably 13th century, and there is a
Norman font.
St Winwaloe Church and Church Cove - geograph.org.uk - 981092. Photo by Rod Allday, via Wikimedia Commons.
Valency Valley,
Cornwall: Thomas Hardy meets his first wife
Staying in Cornwall, but this time near the north coast, the
Valency Valley is a lush hideaway just inland from the picturesque harbour
village of Boscastle. Set in an isolated
position on the northern slopes of the valley is the Church of St Juliot. In 1870 Thomas Hardy, who at the time was an
aspiring architect, arrived at the church to perform work on its restoration
following the death of the person originally hired to do the job. While there he met and fell in love with his
first wife Emma, the rector’s sister-in-law and their courtship inspired one of
his works, the novel ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes’.
Mapperton House,
Dorset: Bathsheba and her triangle of suitors
Continuing the Hardy theme, Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy’s Far
From The Madding Crowd must surely be one of English literature’s most
fascinating and complex characters, a woman ahead of her time for her fierce
independence. When she inherits a
farmhouse and takes up residence there she find herself pursued by a trio of
suitors: Gabriel Oak, a shepherd from her past who asks her to marry him but is
rejected – although he gets his girl in the end; Sergeant Francis Troy, who
succeeds in wooing her but turns out to be really bad news; and the lonely
farmer William Boldwood, who Bathsheba foolishly leads on with a Valentine
saying “Marry me” but who eventually succeeds in gaining her hand in marriage
only for it to end in tragedy through a fatal spat with Troy. The 2015 film version of the story, starring
Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba, captures all this wooing and wedding
perfectly. Bathsheba’s farmhouse in the
film is portrayed by Mapperton House near Beaminster in the Hardy county of
Dorset, a Jacobean manor house and home to the Earl and Countess of
Sandwich. The house is open to visitors
on guided tours only.
Apple Tree Yard,
London
The scene of the al fresco knee trembler involving Yvonne
Carmichael and her mysterious lover in the book and TV series of the same name
actually exists as Apple Tree Yard in real life. It is an insignificant alleyway behind Jermyn
Street in Mayfair. However, the makers
of the TV production were unable to use the yard for the series because of
building work going on there for a major redevelopment, so a similar alleyway in
the City had to be used instead.
Romantic locations
galore in Four Weddings and a Funeral
The 1994 romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral,
starring Hugh Grant and Andi McDowell, takes us on a tour of romantic locations
in south-east England for the wedding scenes.
Wedding No. 1 takes place in St Michael’s Church, Betchworth near
Reigate, with the reception filmed at a property named Goldingtons in Sarratt,
Hertfordshire, which went up for sale in 2015 for a cool £4.5m. No. 2 is conducted at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, with Luton Hoo Estate near Luton being used for the
reception. The third wedding service was
supposed to take place in Perthshire in the film, but was actually filmed at
Albury Park, Guildford, Surrey, with the reception at Rotherfield Park near
Alton, Hampshire. The final wedding is
scheduled to take place at St Bartholomew-the-Great in Clerkenwell, but turns
into a non-wedding when Charles has second thoughts.
A wealth of stately homes:
Pride and Prejudice
The 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice has Mr Darcy
sneering at everyone in a lavish ballroom, meant to be the Netherfield
Ballroom. His dance with Lizzie on this
occasion marks the beginning of their
romance. Netherfield Park, where the
scene takes place, is the home of Mr Bingley, a wealthy gentleman from the
city, and the exterior of the property is represented by Edgecote House in
Northamptonshire, while the ballroom scene was shot in the ballroom of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. Later on in the
series Darcy has an awkward encounter with Lizzie dressed in wet underclothes
following a swim in a lake on a hot day.
This scene, which was voted one of the best on British TV, was shot at
Lyme Park in Cheshire.
Teversal Manor, Nottinghamshire: Lady Chatterley's Lover
The racy novel by D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, is
centred on the tragic couple Lady Constance Chatterley and her paralysed
husband Clifford. At night Constance
creeps from their home, Wragby Hall, to
spend time with her lover Oliver Mellors the gamekeeper. The house believed to have provided the
inspiration for Wragby Hall was Teversal Manor, near Mansfield,
Nottinghamshire, which was put up for sale in 2013 for £1m.
Stokesay Court,
Shropshire: Atonement
The novel Atonement by Ian McEwen explores the ill-fated
romance between Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner, the son of the family’s
cleaning lady. In 2007 the novel was
made into a film, and the Tallis family home which was the scene of the
beginning of the couple’s romance was represented by Stokesay Court in Onibury,
Shropshire, built by Victorian merchant John Derby Allcroft. Not to be confused with the much older
Stokesay Castle, an English Heritage site to the north, just south of Craven
Arms.
Blackpool: a very Coronation
Street romance
The fictional Coronation Street couple Roy and Hayley
Cropper were once described as the greatest soap couple of all time. They were also possibly the most unusual,
given that Hayley started out as a bloke and was the first transgender
character in a British soap opera.
Unfortunately, the romance between the two comes to a sad end when
Hayley is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Following the diagnosis the couple head to
Blackpool to try and grab some last happiness together, for example dancing in
the Tower Ballroom. Following Hayley’s death, Roy scatters her ashes in the sea
at Blackpool.
Carnforth Station: Brief Encounter.
One of the most memorable images from 1940s British cinema is
that of Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson gazing meaningfully into each other's
eyes in a station cafe in Brief Encounter. Those who want to relive
that romantic moment should head for Carnforth, because it was the cafe at Carnforth Station, now known as the Brief Encounter
Refreshment Room, which was used in the film with the station acting as Milford
Junction. It is a fitting name, because at that time Carnforth was a
major junction in the railway system of the north-west, and during the war
thousands of servicemen passed through on the way to their overseas
destinations. However, Carnforth was a victim of the Beeching rail cuts
in the 1960s, and the station was turned into a mere branch line station with a
lot of the buildings from its heyday falling derelict. Recent restoration
work has resulted in the opening of the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre,
incorporating that famous cafe.
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Carnforth Station waiting room. Photo by Deben Dave, via Wikimedia Commons.
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High Sunderland Hall, Yorkshire: Wuthering
Heights
Wuthering
Heights, the property at the heart of Emily Bronte’s novel of the same name, is
the scene of a classic story of love and revenge, charting the doomed love
affair between Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of the property’s owner, and
the dark and brooding Heathcliff, an orphan boy brought by Earnshaw to live
with the family following a trip to Liverpool.
The inspiration for the exterior of Wuthering Heights is thought to be
High Sunderland Hall near Halifax, while the location of the property is
assumed to be Top Withens, the site of a ruined farmhouse near the Bronte
family’s home village, Haworth.
Tretower
Court, Powys: The Libertine
The
Libertine, starring Johnny Depp, is a historical romp centred on a drunken,
sex-mad poet called John Wilmot, or the Earl of Rochester, a friend of King
Charles II. Wilmot falls in love with an
actress he has decided to make into a star.
Much of the film was made in the Isle of Man for tax purposes, but
several key scenes were filmed at the 14th century Tretower Court, a
medieval courtyard house and adjoining castle near Crickhowell, Powys. Apparently Depp joined some of the locals
for a drink at the Bear Hotel, where some of the crew members were staying.
Cumbernauld: Gregory's Girl.
Gregory’s
Girl, released in 1981, is a romantic comedy with a Scottish accent which
launched the film acting career of John Gordon Sinclair, who was just 19 at the
time of filming. Much of the action takes
place in and around the New Town of Cumbernauld in North Lanarkshire. The site was designated for a New Town in
1955, and the town has since grown to be the ninth most populated locality in
Scotland. Among the industries which
have grown up around this population are the studios for the TV series
Outlander, which makes much use of the surrounding area.
