Visiting Cotswolds in Autumn
November 14, 2023
Bath Filming Locations:
The Best Places to Visit
Why is Bath a Famous Filming Location?
Bath and the surrounding region has been one of the most popular areas for film and TV productions for decades. The combination of picturesque towns, villages, houses and cottages scattered throughout regions such as the Cotswolds, the Mendips and Wiltshire make it ideal for historical productions. In particular, filming in Bath offers filmmakers a stunning backdrop with the city’s unique charm and timeless appeal. Cities like Bath, Wells, and Bristol provide picturesque and diverse settings for anything from crime shows to gritty inner-city dramas.
Bath itself is one of the most enduring and popular film locations in the UK on account of its classic Georgian architecture and undeniably picturesque aesthetic. For those who enjoy discovering movies in Bath or who are simply fans of period productions, visiting this region is like stepping into the scenes of their favourite shows!
Image - Jane Austen Costumes
Popular Productions Filmed in Bath
So many productions have been filmed in Bath that it is hard to know where to begin! Here’s a list of other TV and films that prominently featured Bath…
- Persuasion (all three film adaptations - the 1995, 2007 and recent 2022 versions)
- The Duchess 2008 (starring Kiera Knightley and Ralph Feinnes)
- Vanity Fair 2004 (starring Reese Witerspoon)
- Les Misérables 2012 (starring Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russel Crowe)
They all feature Bath prominently, as have many other smaller budget releases such as 2023’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry starring Jim Broadbent, featuring the Bath Skyline.
Image - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Pro Tip: Stay up to date with filming in Bath through the ‘Bath Film Office’ website.
TV Filming Locations in Bath
Bath has also been the backdrop to numerous TV shows as well. The most recent phenomenon of course being Bridgerton, with filming for the fourth season due to begin in September 2024. And more recently, McDonald and Dodds has proven to be a popular detective series set in the city, following the exploits of a young black female detective teaming up with a more weary, older male colleague.
Unlike most productions in Bath, this one spreads out all over the city, including residential areas and grittier locations such as warehouses and industrial spaces - places that most visitors won’t ever see. But then that’s probably to be expected from a crime drama which focuses on catching serial killers and the characters that make up the darker underbelly of society!
Image - McDonald and Dodds, credit Mammoth Screen
Smaller productions also use Bath on occasion, such as the adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, released in 2021, whilst numerous other shows continue to dip into the city to shoot the odd scene or two on one of its picturesque streets.
Filming in Bath
Bath is constantly in demand as a filming location, and here are a few of the more popular films and TV shows filmed in Bath…
Bridgerton Bath Filming Locations
This smash-hit Netflix show, whilst set in London, (like most Georgian period productions) is filmed predominantly in Bath. Based on a series of books inspired by the works and times of Jane Austen, it’s not surprising Britain’s most Georgian city, Bath, features heavily throughout the series.
Where is Bridgerton Filmed in Bath?
One easily recognised location is the Featherington’s home or No. 1 Royal Crescent. This stunning townhouse found at the end of the magnificent Royal Crescent is used for all the external shots of the Featherington’s home.
Image - Bridgeton, credit Netflix
Image - No.1 Royal Crescent
The Holburne Museum as a Filming Location
Another easily recognisable location is The Holburne Museum, which plays the part of Lady Danbury’s townhouse, where her many numerous, and glamorous, balls are held (which are filmed across town inside the ballroom of the Assembly Rooms).
Image - Bridgeton, ©Liam Daniel Netflix
Image - Holburne Museum
Abbey Green & Bridgeton’s Modiste Shop
Bath has a multitude of evocative streets and several are used for town scenes, for setting the scene or to act as the locations for various characters to interact and share gossip. Most notable (and recognisable) of these is Abbey Green, the small square where Penelope and Eloise regularly tittle-tattle over the latest rumours doing the rounds in high society. The Modiste’s shop (in real life, the Abbey Deli) is also located here.
Image - The Abbey Deli
The Assembly Rooms & Bridgeton
Balls, of course, are a regular feature in Bridgerton providing opportunities for glamour and spectacle but also a place for the key characters to interact and gossip as well as a little drama. Bath’s Assembly Rooms (fastidiously restored following their destruction by German bombs in World War 2) predictably features in numerous scenes, with little changed for filming other than the lowering of the priceless crystal chandeliers to add a touch of dramatic effect to the shot.
Sadly, the Assembly Rooms are now closed to the public until 2026. The National Trust is undertaking an ambitious scheme of work to develop them into a world-class attraction, chronicling life for the well-to-do in Bath at the time of Jane Austen’s residence in the city at the start of the 19th century.
Image - The Assembly Rooms
You can learn more about the National Trust’s restoration project, and when it plans to re-open. Other popular filming spots include Alfred Street, besides the Assembly Rooms, nearby Trim Street, Beauford Square and Edward Street. There are more, of course, and perhaps embarking on your own adventure ‘off the beaten path’ is the best way to find them.
Persuasion Filming Locations
Jane Austen spent four years of her life in Bath resisting her parents’ desire to marry her off to some older, unappealing gentleman in order to secure the family’s finances. Persuasion, like Northanger Abbey, was based on her observations and experience of high society in Bath. And unsurprisingly, the city has been used as a location for several scenes in the recent (and earlier) film adaptations of Persuasion.
Where Was Persuasion 2022 Filmed in Bath?
The most recent 2022 Persuasion adaptation was filmed across Bath, with several scenes shot on Bath Street (the iconic street lined with elegant columns beside the new Thermae Bath Spa), in front of the Royal Crescent and along Brock Street, the beautiful Georgian road connecting the Crescent to the other magnificent Georgian residential masterpiece, the Circus. If you head a little further south, Gravel Walk, the rather lovely path that runs behind Brock Street was also used extensively to show the comings and goings into town.
Image - The Circus
Image - The Circus
1995 Persuasion Filming Locations in Bath
1995’s Persuasion also made extensive use of Bath as a film location. The Bath townhouse rented by Sir Walter Elliot is at 95 Sydney Place, just along from the Holbourne Museum, and today is the Walter Elliot Guesthouse, so an overnight stay is an option for die-hard fans. Other often-used filming locations turn up too, such as Abbey Green, Bath Street and the Assembly Rooms.
Image - Abbey Green, Bath
Other 1995 Persuasion Filming Locations
One other location, not in Bath, but only a 10-15 minute journey south of the city is The George Inn, in Norton St. Phillip. This stunning medieval inn was used as the inn in Lyme Regis, where Anne, Wentworth, and Elliot first encountered each other while staying in its rooms. It’s a spectacular historical building and was also used as a location in Remains of the Day, as well as being the bawdy inn in which Moll Flanders recounts her extraordinary life’s story in the 1996 BBC adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s salacious tale.
The Duchess Filming Location
So many period dramas have been filmed in Bath that it's often easier to stop at a spot and try to recall how many times you’ve seen it in various guises and productions. One location that is great for this is Great Pulteney Street.
This grand avenue, along with the remarkable Pulteney Bridge, was commissioned by Lord Bath (William Pulteney) in 1789, on the south side of the river Avon. Bath was continuing to grow quickly, and he wanted to encourage the historic town to spill over the waterway, offering him and his friends the chance to cash in on Bath’s continuing boom.
Image - Holburne Museum on Great Pulteney Street
Sadly for Pulteney, a stock market crash a few years later brought any further development to a standstill, and the project was abandoned, but Great Pulteney Street remains one of the most impressive Georgian streets in the UK. It’s therefore been used on numerous occasions as a shoe-in for Georgian London featuring extensively in The Duchess, Vanity Fair and other shows set in the 1700s.
Bath Weir Filming
One final location worth sharing, but which few would guess is Bath, is the location of some of the final scenes in Les Misérable. Inspector Javert, played by Russell Crowe, having chased Val Jean through the sewers of Paris emerges into the open air along the River Seine, and, having realised that he has spent his life pursuing a good and innocent man, commits suicide by throwing himself into the weir in the river. That weir is Bath’s weir on the Avon, and the balustrades he stands on before he jumps are the wall on the northern side of the river, just beside Pulteney Bridge.
Image - Les Misérables, ©Universal Pictures
Image - Bath Weir
Image - Bath Weir
Film & TV locations Around Bath
What Films and TV Productions Have Been Shot near Bath?
With Bath sitting at the southern end of the Cotswolds, it’s not surprising that numerous other TV and film productions have been shot in the area. Locations like Castle Combe and Lacock are picture-postcard, historic, preserved villages and are ideal locations for filming period and fantasy productions. Towns and villages such as Frome, Corsham, Biddestone, Marshfield and Luckington possess a charm of their own that has not gone unnoticed by film-makers either. All of these places are less than 30 minutes away from Bath itself.
Castle Combe Filming Locations
Castle Combe hit the big time in 1968 when the original Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison was filmed there. More recently (in the past few decades) it has been the village that has been the backdrop in Stardust, Warhorse and The Wolfman.
Image - War Horse, credit DreamWorks Pictures
Harry Potter Filming Locations
If an introduction to Harry Potter is required, you’ve probably been living under a staircase for the last 25 years! This fantastical wizard-based phenomenon takes place in a semi-mythical land, but much of the film series used the same locations time and again with one such location being Lacock.
Harry Potter Lacock
Lacock is the ‘Big Daddy’ of filming locations in the Bath region. Owned by the National Trust since the 1950s, this perfectly preserved medieval village, along with its grand house (Lacock Abbey) featured extensively in the Harry Potter film series. With 13th-century cloisters and abbey rooms serving as the corridors and classrooms of Hogwarts, the celebrated school for wizards. Professor Snape’s classroom is the Sacristy, whilst the Chapter House doubles up as the location for the Mirror of Erised and the Study Hall where Harry eavesdrops on Malfoy spreading rumours about him.
Image - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Credit Warner Bros.
Godric's Hollow Filming Location
The village is also used for multiple scenes across the films. No 21 Church Street doubles up as Harry Potter's parents house, Godric’s Hollow, and the scene where they are killed by Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (or Philosopher’s) Stone is shot there. The house looks completely different in later films, making for a rather noticeable continuity error.
Image - Lacock Cottage
Other Harry Potter Lacock Filming Locations
Lacock also features as the village of 'Budleigh Babberton' in The Half-Blood Prince, with Harry and Dumbledore walking along Church Street and passing the 'Babberton Arms' (the Sign of the Angel) to reach Professor Slughorn’s House (4-6 Chapel Hill), also in Lacock, just on the edge of the main village, across the bridge to the north-west of Church Street.
Image - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, credit Warner Bros.
Pride & Prejudice Filming Locations
For an older generation however, Lacock is more closely associated with the period drama that launched the period drama craze in the mid 90’s - 1995’s Pride and Prejudice featuring Colin Firth.
This series was a game changer, with the BBC’s production team going to extraordinary lengths to produce an adaptation that aimed to faithfully recreate Austen’s masterpiece on screen. The outcome was a smash hit that launched the career of Colin Firth, with the image of him emerging in a wet shirt from Pemberley’s lake becoming one of the defining moments of the 1990s on the small screen.
Lacock Pride & Prejudice Filming Locations
Much of the filming for Pride and Prejudice took place in the Wiltshire countryside north and east of Bath. Lacock became Meryton, the country town where Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy first set eyes upon each other, with the Red Lion appearing as itself, but also as the assembly rooms where Elizabeth and Darcy first encounter each other in person.
Image - Lacock Village
Image - Pride and Prejudice, credit BBC TV
Lacock Abbey Pride & Prejudice Filming
Lacock Abbey also gets its share of scenes, with the cloisters doubling up as the corridors of the Oxford College, where D’Arcy and Wickham studied, and the Abbey’s Sharington courtyard, being the scene where Lydia waves from the window to her sisters following her scandalous elopement with the dastardly Wickham.
Image - Pride and Prejudice, credit BBC TV
Pride & Prejudice Filming in Luckington
Only 20 minutes north of Lacock is another key filming location, Luckington. This tiny, historic Cotswolds village is home to Luckington Court, the stunning country home that played the part of the Bennett’s country home, Longbourne. The house is privately owned, and sadly not accessible to the public, but next door is the church, which is where Jane married Mr Bingley, and Lizzie married Mr Darcy in the double wedding finale that ends the story with its happy ever after!
Image - Pride and Prejudice, credit BBC TV
Other Filming in Lacock
Whilst Lacock is best known for appearing in the Harry Potter franchise and Pride and Prejudice, it was arguably most heavily featured in Cranford. This heart-warming drama focuses on the lives of the people of the small village of Cranford as they’re swept up in changing times as the Industrial Revolution upheaves their way of life.
Cranford Lacock Filming
Unsurprisingly, the production featured the village extensively. The entire village essentially becomes a location, with various homes and buildings being used for both external and internal shots. Watching the series and then visiting the village is like walking through a living film set, and if you have the time, it’s well worth doing.
Image - Cranford, credit BBC
Lacock, being a preserved medieval village under the stewardship of the National Trust is of course, constantly being used for filming and features in too many productions to list. The most notable are; Larkrise to Candleford, Wolf Hall, Cranford, Downton Abbey, The Hollow Crown, and Fantastic Beasts. If there’s one place to come see big-screen locations made real-life, it has to be Lacock.
Pro Tip: Discover the famous filming streets of Lacock for yourself on our 'Avebury, Lacock & Ancient England' Tour
More Filming Locations Around Bath
Other towns in the area also appear regularly in film and television. Agatha Raisin, a comedy crime drama is primarily set in the villages of Marshfield and Biddestone, just a few miles from Bath.
Polark Filming in Corsham
Poldark, whilst set in Cornwall was predominantly filmed in the Bath area with Corsham and Frome playing the role of Truro in the series, with the impressive Chavenage House, Dyrham Park and Great Chalfield Manor all playing their part as the homes of the key characters and families.
Image - Poldark, credit Mammoth Screen, Masterpiece
Dyrham Park Filming Locations
All of these grand houses appear in multiple productions with the grand Georgian Dyrham Park most notably featuring in the 1990’s classic Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins.
Image - Dyrham Park
Chavenage House & Poldark Filming Locations
Likewise, Chavenage House, a stunningly well-preserved Elizabethan country house has played a significant role in many other period dramas including Larkrise to Candleford and, the BBC’s recent adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse. But perhaps most famously recognised in the british Poldark series as Trenwith House (the home of George Warleggan), which appears in every episode.
Great Chalfield Manor Filming Locations
Great Chalfield Manor, is a particular gem though, and only 15-20 minutes east of Bath. A tucked away 15th-century fortified manor house, this historic house was extensively restored in the 19th century and is now open to the public. Both the house and gardens are well worth a visit, whilst fans of Wolf Hall, The Other Boleyn Girl and Tess of the D’Urbervilles will love recalling their favourite scenes in each room as they wander through its exquisite, time-frozen rooms.
Image - Great Chalfield Manor
In Summary
Bath and the surrounding region are clearly a paradise for film and TV fans wanting to follow in the footsteps of their favourite characters and actors and get inside the scenes that they love and revere. For those wanting to immerse themselves in these filming locations, our Walking Tour of Bath is the perfect opportunity to discover the city’s iconic spots and history whilst also exploring authentic English landscapes.
Whilst Bath itself is a great place to relive some of your favourite scenes, the nearby countryside and settlements offer more than just the chance to connect with film and TV shows, but also to connect with the England you’ve always imagined. If that sounds like something you’d like to do, our ‘Avebury, Lacock & Ancient England’ tour has the best breadth of filming locations for those who’d like to go a little deeper, on one of our year-round (shared and private) pre-designed Signature tours.
Avebury, Lacock & Ancient England
Venture along the Great West Way to encounter Europe’s greatest stone circle and England’s best-preserved mediaeval village, enjoying treasured surprises off the beaten track along the way.
As a flexible alternative, we offer custom tours ideal for those interested in filming locations specifically in the local region. Get in touch with us at In & Beyond Bath, and we’d love to make it happen, as well as provide you with insights and experiences that will go beyond anything you can imagine. Learn more about our custom tours and book here.
P.S. If you’re looking for film and TV locations in the Bath region, with extensive knowledge of the area like few others, and extensive experience in working in film and TV ourselves, we’d be happy to help you source the perfect locations for your production - visit this page to learn more and get in touch with the team.
