The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 15Travel UK
SCREEN
AS SEEN ON
4
Castle Ward (Winterfell Castle),
Ballintoy Harbour (Iron Island) and
of course Dark Hedges, the road
that tunnels through twisted
beech trees (aka the King’s Road).
The former bishop’s palace at
Culloden makes a fine place to
stay (B&B doubles from £280;
cullodenestateandspa.com).5 SYMONDS YAT
HEREFORDSHIRE
At first sight, a genteel
riverside resort on the banks
of the River Wye seems an
unlikely setting for the Netflix
comedy-drama Sex Education.UK film and TV locations are enjoying a boom. Andrew Eames picks the best
F
ilm and television production in
the UK is in a very good place,
according to a report from the
British Film Institute published
last week. Spending increased
74 per cent from 2016 through to 2019,
and initial figures from 2021 point to a
very quick post-lockdown recovery, partly
thanks to the UK’s tremendous variety of
outdoor settings. Meanwhile “set jetting”
— travelling to visit locations seen on
screen — is on the up too; TV tourism was
worth almost £500 million from 2016 to- Here’s our pick of UK spots with
a claim to fame (contains spoilers!).
1 GLENFINNAN VIADUCT HIGHLANDS
This spectacular viaduct on the railway
from Fort William to Mallaig was relatively
unknown until a certain boy wizard
followed the Hogwarts Express across it
in his flying Ford Anglia. Since then, the
region’s economy has flourished, with the
Jacobite steam train crossing the viaduct
four times daily in season. There’s no
Potter merchandise, however, and the
owners are not even allowed to mention
he-who-must-not-be-named. Train fans
can rent the Glenfinnan Sleeping Car (one
night’s self-catering for ten from £210;
glenfinnanstationmuseum.co.uk).2 THE NORTHERN QUARTER
MANCHESTER
Film directors have long been fans of
the Northern Quarter, mostly because its
brownstone buildings with external fire
escapes make it an inexpensive stand-in
for New York. Marvel’s Morbius was partly
filmed here, as were bits of The Crown and
Captain America, and iconic yellow cabs
are regular visitors. With its murals,
shared workspaces and hipster vibe, it’s
an agreeable and creative place to hang.
As is the new Leven Hotel (room-only
doubles from £99; liveleven.com).3 HIGHCLERE HOUSE HAMPSHIRE
It’s not particularly old, nor particularly
grand, but Highclere — a stately pile
owned by the 8th Earl of Carnarvon —
certainly had its fortunes transformedBut why shouldn’t a sex therapist and her
teenage son Otis settle in a spectacular-
looking place where visitors’ pulse rates
are more typically raised by kayaking?
Much of the action is at Otis’s school (a
building in Cardiff ), but his teenage angst
is only exacerbated by having to live in a
beauty spot with a highly embarrassing
mum. Their house, the Chalet, can be
rented in real life as a holiday let (four
nights’ self-catering for ten from £4,200;
thechaletsymondsyat.co.uk).6 OLD MAN OF STORR ISLE OF SKYE
The Old Man is an iconic upright pinnacle
that rears up above a typically Hebridean
backdrop of misty moorland, loch and
sea. It sits on the edge of the Quiraing, an
otherworldly boggy plateau, well suited
to scenes from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus,
as was some of Michael Fassbender’s
Macbeth, which were both shot here. The
crews built a handy pathway up, and it’s
now the most popular walk on the island.
Stay where some of the stars did, in the
Skeabost (B&B doubles from £159;
skyehotel.co.uk).7 PORT ISAAC CORNWALL
This Cornish fishing village is instantly
identifiable as Doc Martin’s Portwenn.
It’s a rugged setting, squeezed between
headlands, with a little harbour still used
by crab fishers — some of whom formed
a group called Fishermen’s Friends, the
subject of the 2019 film of the same name.
The village is served by a narrow street
that swoops down one side and then
hares up the other, while a path branches
off, up past where Martin Clunes’s Doc
Martin had his surgery. Aficionados can
stay in his two-bedroom house, Fern
Cottage (one night’s self-catering for
four from £326; docmartinhouse.co.uk).8 WEST BAY DORSET
The setting for Broadchurch, starring
Olivia Colman and David Tennant,
is a holiday town at the end of a line of
imposing Jurassic cliffs. It’s a relatively
inconspicuous place, which is partly
the point, because even somewhere so
superficially untroubled can conceal
savage undercurrents of human
behaviour. Stay along the shore in Lyme
Regis, also a celebrated film location (for
The French Lieutenant’s Woman) in the
Alexandra Hotel (B&B doubles from £280;
hotelalexandra.co.uk).9 GLEN COE HIGHLANDS
This giant glacier-carved glen has a
history of treachery dating to when
38 hospitable MacDonalds were
massacred in their beds by their overnight
guests. That makes it a perfect setting for
the tragic denouement of Skyfall, in which
James Bond’s remote family property
goes up in flames and M dies in his arms.
Adjacent Glen Nevis was also the location
for much of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.
The starry place to stay hereabouts is
where Queen Victoria did, at Inverlochy
Castle (B&B doubles from £337;
inverlochycastlehotel.com).10 BOURNE WOOD SURREY
This little-known but extremely versatile
mix of trees and clearings first came
to prominence in the battle scene in
Gladiator, and since then has played
its part in a whole raft of productions,
including Warhorse, Thor, Wonder
Woman (left), Transformers 3 and The
Witcher. Mostly pine trees on sandy
soil, it can pass itself off as central and
eastern Europe, or even the Baltic,
unlike its adjacent town, Farnham,
which is unmistakably English.
Stay at Bel and the Dragon, a
stylish roadside inn in Churt
(B&B doubles from £70;
belandthedragon-churt.co.uk).when it was cast for the title part in the
costume drama Downton Abbey. Visitor
numbers doubled, and the earl has been
able to repair the holes in his roof. Stay
in nearby Kintbury on the Kennet & Avon
Canal, where the Dundas Arms is another
slice of English country life (B&B doubles
from £120; dundasarms.co.uk).4 DARK HEDGES CO ANTRIM
Once known for producing huge ships
including the Titanic, Belfast’s former
Harland & Wolff shipyard now hosts the
Titanic Studios, the main facility for Game
of Thrones. Although the producers made
a speciality out of exotic locations, they
also ventured out locally, specifically toe),
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IAN WOOLCOCK, SIMON BELCHER, ADRIAN SHERRATT/ALAMY; KEN GOFF, MARCO BOTTIGELLI/GETTY IMAGES; KOBAL COLLECTION/SHUTTERSTOCK