MURDER AT THE MANOR: WROTHAM PARK AND SYON HOUSE/GOSFORD PARK

A classic whodunnit in the style of Agatha Christie, Gosford Park sees a group of wealthy guests plus their servants gathering for a shooting weekend at Gosford Park, owned by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon).  During the course of the weekend, Sir William’s body is discovered slumped in his chair.  The rest is a familiar round of police questioning, with plenty of likely suspects.  

The gruesome event is offset by the sumptuous interiors of Sir William’s home, with most of the scenes filmed at Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire, for the downstairs and Syon House, West London, for the upstairs and bedrooms.  Near the start of the film we are shown the outside of the home of Lady Trentham, one of the guests.  This was filmed at Hall Barn, Buckinghamshire.

Wrotham Park 1820, courtesy of the British Library, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wrotham Park is to the south of Potters Bar in Hertfordshire.  The house dates from 1754 when it was designed for Admiral John Byng, and it is surrounded by a vast estate of 2,500 acres.  The house remains in the hands of the family to this day, and is not open to the public.  However, it is made available to film crews for filming, most recently being used for the ITV series Code of Silence.

Interior - Syon House - London, UK - DSC07437.  Photo by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons.

Syon House, the London Home of the Duke of Northumberland, is near Hounslow in West London and is surrounded by Syon Park.  The house was built in the 16th century on a site originally occupied by Syon Abbey.  The house and park are open to visitors, who as well as the magnificent interior can marvel at the beauty of the Great Conservatory. Hall Barn is not normally open to the public, except for open-air theatre productions in the grounds.

A RAILWAY ROMANCE: BRIEF ENCOUNTER/CARNFORTH

 

Brief Encounter, a 1945 film directed by David Lean about two married strangers who meet by chance on a railway station, is highly evocative of a time when everyone travelling by train seemed to be dressed up to the nines and speak with cut-glass accents.  Just as evocative is the location of much of the film’s action, a train station full of period touches such as those which can be found on heritage railways up and down the land.

The opening scene takes place on a station platform with a steam train rushing past and a vintage round clock with Roman numerals hanging from the platform roof.  We are then shown a sign with a hand pointing to the ‘Refreshment Room’.  This was before the days of Costa and Starbucks, when everyone drank cups of tea served from giant tea urns.  Here we get our first glimpse of the star-crossed lovers of the ‘brief encounter’ in question, Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard).  Later, the film backtracks to the moment the pair first met, and during this scene a sign comes into view saying ‘Milford Junction’.  This is the name of the station in the film, but in real life it is Carnforth station. 

When watching the film for the first time recently, I heard Laura saying she had popped into Boots for a book, and then there is a scene with her getting her book and moving to another section of the premises where there are toothbrushes and so forth.  I thought I was hearing things, but on doing some research I discovered that up to 1966 Boots the Chemist did indeed have a library service.  The street scenes in the film were shot a long way from Carnforth, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.  According to an online discussion about the location, the Boots of the film is now a Chinese restaurant.  A later scene involving a boating lake was filmed in Regent’s Park.  Another scene in the film whisks us off to the Lake District, where the little bridge seen in the film was filmed at Middle Fell Bridge. Langdale Beck. 

2018 at Carnforth station - the heritage centre. Photo by Geof Sheppard, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Film enthusiasts will be pleased to know that Carnforth Station has preserved the famous tea room as the Brief Encounter Refreshment Room, looked after by the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre.

Map of Carnforth.

DALLIANCES IN DORSET: EMMA (1996)

 

One thing is guaranteed when it comes to film adaptations of Jane Austen novels: that they will be a feast for the eyes.  Not only for the dashing young men with their flowing locks and sexy boots, and the English roses with heaving bosoms vying for their attention, but also for the idyllic English town and country scenes, which invariably include a range of stately homes.  The 1996 film Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow as compulsive matchmaker Emma and Toni Collette as friend Harriet Smith, is no exception, with a variety of charming locations mainly in Dorset.

The first big property to feature in the film is Hartfield, home of Emma Woodhouse and her family, where Emma is seen discussing a wedding with her father.  The location used as the exterior of Hartfield is mostly Came House in the village of Winterbourne Came, Dorset.  However, some of the interior scenes were filmed entirely elsewhere.  The dinner party scene in which Emma introduces Mr Elton (Alan Cumming) to Harriet was filmed at Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire, while Hartfield’s book-lined gallery was filmed in the Long Gallery of Syon House, west London.

Came House (2) - geograph.org.uk - 855736. Photo by Mike Searle, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Another imposing property in Dorset used in the filming of Emma is Crichel House near the village of Moor Crichel, to the north of Wimborne.  In the film the property plays the part of Donwell Abbey, home of a local landowner called George Knightley.  A lake on the estate features in a lakeside archery scene.  Meanwhile, another property, Claydon House in Middle Claydon near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, lends its elaborate North Hall for the filming of the grand dance, in which Harriet is snubbed but subsequently rescued by Knightley.  Another local man made good, Mr Weston, who married Emma’s former governess (played by Greta Scacchi) occupies a grand property called Randalls.  This honey-coloured property in real life is Mapperton, home of the Earl and Duchess of Sandwich, which is located a short distance to the east of Beaminster, Dorset.

Mapperton House - geograph.org.uk - 517671. Photo by Chris Downer, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Aside from the sumptuous residences seen in the film, there are picturesque street scenes depicting the local village Highbury (Surrey), where Mr Elton is the vicar.  The street scenes used in the film were filmed in the Dorset village of Evershot, about 7 miles south of Yeovil.  The Old Manor House in the village is used as the schoolhouse, while the post office building is used for the haberdashery store.  In order to make the street scenes more authentic for the period, the main street, Fore Street,  was festooned with sheep pens and straw for the filming.  The filming is transferred to the neighbouring county of Somerset for the scene in which Emma visits a sick lady, Mrs Clark.  The venue for this scene is the Helyar Almshouses in the village of East Coker about 3 miles south of Yeovil.

Evershot, Tess Cottage and the church - geograph.org.uk - 447131. Photo by Chris Downer, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Came House was built for John Damer in 1754 from a handsome light-coloured stone.  Lying about a mile south-east of Dorchester, nowadays the house is, appropriately enough, used as a wedding venue.  Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire, about 5 miles south of Reading, has been home to the Dukes of Wellington since 1817 and is open for pre-booked tours only.  Syon House, across the River Thames from Kew Gardens, has been used extensively in filming.  Forming part of Syon Park, the house has been the home of the Dukes of Northumberland for over 400 years.  The house and gardens are open to the public, with a mix of guided and self-guided tours of the house.

Crichel House is a Classical Revival country house built for the Napier family.  The property and grounds are not open to the public apart from specific events.  Claydon House is a National Trust property and is open to the public from April.  The North Hall is a riot of rococo in yellow and white.  Mapperton House originates from the 11^th century, but a Tudor manor house was built on the site by Robert Morgan in the 1540s, and rebuilt the following century by Richard Brodrepp.  The property is now the  home of the Earl and Duchess of Sandwich. The Gardens and cafe are open from March, and the house from April.

Evershot is the second highest village in Dorset and the source of the River Frome.  The village featured heavily in Thomas Hardy’s works, most notably Tess of the D’Urbervilles.  East Coker lies over the county border in Somerset, and has a history stretching back to Roman times: a Roman villa was discovered there in the 18^th century.  The Helyar Almshouses were built in the mid-17^th century by the Archdeacon of Barnstaple.  The construction took twenty years due to an enforced interruption brought about by the Great Plague.

 

CRACKING THE CODES: THE IMITATION GAME/BUCKINGHAMSHIRE/SHERBORNE/LONDON

 

Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire started out as a mansion in 1711, later to be pulled down.  The house which was subsequently built on the site was bought by MI6 in 1938 for use by intelligence personnel in the event of war, which turned out to be a wise investment as the centre proved to be a key factor in the country’s victory over Germany in World War Two.  During the War a young Cambridge graduate, Alan Turing, arrived at Bletchley Park and was put in charge of Hut 8, which dealt with German naval cryptanalysis.  While there, he became engaged to Joan Clarke, a fellow cryptanalyst, but they never married as Turing later came out as a homosexual. 

Bletchley Park Mansion. Photo by DeFacto, via Wikimedia Commons.

This story is played out in the film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan, and Bletchley Park appears as itself in the interior shots.  For the exteriors Joyce Grove in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire, was used in the filming.   For the town of Bletchley itself, scenes were shot in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where one of the buildings stood in as Joan’s lodgings.  The town was also used as the scene of a meeting with a possible Soviet spy, and a pillar box was erected opposite 68 Church Street for the scene. 

Church Street, Chesham - geograph.org.uk - 111011. Photo by Cathy Cox, via Wikimedia Commons.

During the film there are flashbacks to Turing’s schooldays, much of which were spent at Sherborne School.  The real-life school in this attractive small Dorset town was used for the school scenes in the film, with its lovely honey-hued stone buildings and arched cloisters much in evidence.

Naturally, any film about the intelligence services will have scenes shot in London.  The evacuation scenes were filmed at King’s Cross Station, while the interior of the MI6 Headquarters was filmed in the Lethaby Building on Southampton Row, seen in the scene where Joan turns up as the only female answering an advertisement for crossword solvers.  In one scene, Turing is seen cycling through a bombed out part of the city; heaps of rubble were dumped in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, for the filming of the scene.  In another throwback to the Blitz, the disused Aldwych Tube Station serves as an underground refuge for the populace. 

Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, has been turned into a museum commemorating its time as a code-breaking centre.  Guided tours are available, and the museum is open 6 days a week.  Joyce Grove, a country house built in the Jacobean style, is owned by the Sue Ryder charity.  Sherborne is a pleasant small town in north west Dorset, with its Abbey, founded in 705, as the focal point of the town.  Chesham is a market town 11 miles south east from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Sherborn Abbey.

Map of Bletchley Park and surrounding area.

Map of Sherborne. 

WHEN IS CORNWALL NOT CORNWALL? REBECCA 2020

 

I read Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca for the first time this year during lockdown.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I found it to be one of the most amazing stories ever written.  Inevitably, such a famous novel found its way to the big and small screen, most famously in 1940 with Laurence Olivier playing the tragic Mr de Winter and Joan Fontaine playing his socially awkward second wife, struggling to step into the footsteps of the first Mrs de Winter, the Rebecca of the title. Shortly after I read the novel I learned that a new version was to be released, with Armie Hammer playing opposite Lily James, and with Kristin Scott Thomas as the forbidding head housekeeper Danvers.

 

I rushed to watch this new version, in anticipation of seeing some familiar scenes from my native Cornwall,  However, it turns out that just about anywhere other than Cornwall was used for the locations (at least the film used UK locations, unlike the 1940 version, which was largely filmed in California). 

 

As in the original, the film kicks off in the South of France, but the hotel suite occupied by the dreadful Mrs Van Hopper and the “new Mrs de Winter-to-be” is not in France at all, but was filmed at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, which has a suitably chateau-like appearance.  The Manor was built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in 1877 as a summer bolt-hole for entertaining.

                                  Waddesdonterrace. Photo by Giano, via Wikimedia Commons.

The first glimpse of Manderley as the newly weds drive up to the property was filmed at Cranborne Manor, midway between Wimborne Minster and Salisbury.  The great entrance hall where the couple are greeted by the servants was filmed at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, which was also used for a pivotal point in the story when Mrs de Winter mark 2 is tricked into choosing an ill-advised costume for the summer ball she and Max are hosting at Manderley.  The painting which provides the inspiration for the outfit is in real life a portrait of Mrs Hugh Hammersley, which is to be found in Hatfield House.  The Persian rugs and wood panelled walls seen in the interior scenes were also from Hatfield.    

 

Cranborne Manor - geograph.org.uk - 1223951.  Photo by Mike Searle, via Wikimedia Commons.

As Mrs de Winter is seen exploring Manderley, there are many works of art in view.  Some of these are from the interior of Petworth House, West Sussex, which was used for some of the scenes.  Meanwhile, for Rebecca’s wing of Manderley, which has been kept as a shrine to her by Danvers, we are transported to Dorset, to Mapperton House, which is also where the accident with the precious porcelain was filmed.  The East Wing bedrooms, however, are from Loseley House near Guildford.

In the ‘downstairs’ part of Manderley, where the servants hang out, we see the basement kitchen and the corridors leading to and from it.  The kitchen area of Osterley House in the London Borough of Hounslow was used for these scenes, with some crockery and food items added in to complete the scene.  Osterley House also provided the stables for the scene in which Mrs de Winter was persuaded to try her hand at horse riding by Rebecca’s cousin, Jack Favell (Sam Riley). 

 

                                 Osterley Park 800. Photo by Sannse, via Wikimedia Commons.

For me, the biggest disappointment of the filming locations, given the gorgeousness of the Cornish coast, is that the coastal scenes were filmed outside the county, specifically at Hartland Quay, North Devon, recognisable from its unusual rock formations.

 

                Hartland Quay - panoramio (3). Photo by Matt Prosser, via Wikimedia Commons.

Waddesdon Manor is about five miles north-west of Aylesbury and is open to visitors, with advance booking only during the coronavirus pandemic.  The beautiful grounds include an aviary housing a range of exotic birds.  The house is a repository for an extensive collection of art, in particular 18^th century French pieces, this being a favourite period of the Rothschilds. 

Cranborne Manor, just outside the village of Cranborne, is notable for its gardens, originally from a design by John Tradescant in the 17^th century and rediscovered in the 19^th century, then replanted in the Arts and Crafts style a century later.  Visitors to the gardens also have access to a cafe and a shop.  Hatfield House, dating from 1611 and owned by the Cecil family for 400 years, has been used extensively in filming.  The house and gardens are open to visitors except for the winter season, when only the park and woodland walks, the cafe and shops are open. 

Petworth House is on the edge of the small town of Petworth, West Sussex.  This vast 17^th century house and its grounds are run by the National Trust.  Works of art on display in the state rooms include paintings by Van Dyck, Turner, Reynolds and Gainsborough.  Mapperton House is near Beaminster in Dorset and is the home of the Earl and Countess of Sandwich.  Both the house and gardens are open to visitors.  Loseley Park lies just beyond the southern edge of Guildford, Surrey.  The gardens are open to visitors in the summer, and the property is also available for weddings.  In normal, non-covid, times the house can be visited on guided tours.

Osterley Park and House, run by the National Trust, lies between the M4 and the Great West Road just a few miles east of Heathrow Airport.  The house is in the neo-classical style, designed by Robert Adam and is surrounded by landscaped parklands and gardens.  Hartland Quay is at the western extreme of the North Devon coast, known for its rough seas during the winter months, which have been responsible for many shipwrecks over the years.  The distinctive layered rocks seen in the film are sedimentary rocks deposited during the Carboniferous period.

FACING THE MUSIC IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: QUARTET

Quartet, released in 2012 and directed by Dustin Hoffman, is based around Beecham House, a home for retired musicians, where the residents celebrate the birthday of Giuseppe Verdi every year with a concert in his honour.  This year’s concert is disrupted by the arrival of the ex-wife of one of the residents, Jean, a diva in the true sense of the word.



Jean is played by national treasure Dame Maggie Smith (alongside such luminaries as Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins).  Another national treasure plays the role of the residence in question: Hedsor House, Taplow, between Slough and Maidenhead, which was used for almost the entirety of the filming, along with Taplow’s St Nicholas’ Church.



Hedsor House, which stands in 85 acres of parkland overlooking the River Thames, forms part of an estate dating from 1166, when it was owned by the de Hedsor family.  During the 18^th century it was home to Princess Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales and mother of King George III.  The following century it was regularly visited by Queen Victoria.  Latterly, the house became the property of the Shephard family, being gifted to one of its number, Alexander Shephard, by his great grandparents as a wedding present.  The house was requisitioned during World War 2 for military use, then in 1952 the Americans moved in, using it as a secret communications base before it was returned to the Shephards in 2003.  The house has 100 rooms and features include a ballroom, a grand hall with a gallery and a sunken garden.



Alexander and his wife now live in a farmhouse on the estate.  The main house has become popular as a wedding venue, and for filming.  One of Alexander’s sons recalls walking into the kitchen in the farmhouse during the filming of Quartet to find Dustin Hoffman sitting there, having decamped to the farmhouse while a wedding was going on in the main house.  Hoffman apparently made the bride and groom’s day by posing for photos with them.  During the filming Hoffman had a summer-house built in the grounds, and he left this for the family as a gift.



Other films featuring Hedsor House include Legend (2015) about the Kray brothers, and The Golden Compass(2007), a fantasy adventure film starring Nicole Kidman.

Map of Hedsor House and environs.

Hedsor House, Hedsor Park, Taplow, Buckinghamshire-4879995433. Photo by Ami and Debo Mukherjee, via Wikimedia Commons.

HELL'S WELLS: HOT FUZZ

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).

Wells, Somerset, 24 June 2013. Photo by Barry Lewis, via Wikimedia Commons

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.  

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.

Map of the area.