Fantastic Cotswolds film locations: The ultimate guide (with map)

With its grand manor houses, country estates, quaint villages and historic towns, the Cotswolds has unsurprisingly become a popular spot for location scouts, appearing in big-name films ranging from Harry Potter to Bridget Jones’ Diary, James Bond to Pride and Prejudice. So if you’re looking to visit the locations that inspired your favourite movies and TV shows, our Cotswolds film locations guide reveals all – with a custom map to help you create your own film road trip.

Cotswolds film locations map

The map below shows some of the filming locations around the Cotswolds which have been used in movies and TV shows, with descriptions below to show where they were featured.

Snowshill

Pretty Snowshill had its taste of fame in the film Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), featuring Renee Zellwegger as the unlucky-in-love singleton. The village was the home of Bridget’s parents – and the location of the notorious annual turkey curry buffet. Though as filming took place in July, Snowshill had to be covered in fake snow and Christmas lights to make it look suitably festive.

Snowshill is 3 miles south of Broadway. You can also combine a visit to Snowshill with Stanton and Stanway on a lovely 6-mile Cotswold Way circular walk.

Blockley

Cosy crime BBC TV series Father Brown is based on the books by GK Chesterton about a crime-solving Roman Catholic priest in the 1950s, and frequently uses locations around the Cotswolds. At the heart of the series is the fictional village of Kembleford, which is filmed in Blockley. Various Blockley locations appear regularly, with the village’s Church of St Peter and St Paul as Father Brown’s St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, and the vicarage as his presbytery.

Blockley is 3 miles south of Chipping Campden.

Stanway House

Jacobean Stanway House is famous for its 300-foot fountain, but its original features have also made it a popular location for period dramas. It was used in The Libertine (2004), with Johnny Depp playing debauched poet the Earl of Rochester, and the 2004 adaptation of classic novel Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon. Stanway House has also appeared in TV shows including Father Brown and its spin-off Sister Boniface Mysteries, Wolf Hall and The Wyvern Mystery.

Stanway House is 6 miles south of Broadway (GL54 5PQ). It’s open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in June, July and August.

The Broadway Tower

Fairytale folly the Broadway Tower – nicknamed the highest little castle in the Cotswolds – dates from the late 18th century and is the second-highest point in the Cotswolds. On screen, it featured in Andie MacDowell rom-com Crush (2001), as a Scottish castle in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and as a clock tower in obscure 1980s’ telepathic twins show The Gemini Factor.

The Broadway Tower is 3 miles south of Broadway (WR12 7LB). It’s open year-round.

Sudeley Castle

Sudeley Castle was built in 1442, and is the only private castle in England with a queen buried in its grounds. Henry VIII’s last wife Katherine Parr is buried in St Mary’s Chapel – which appeared in an episode of Father Brown. The castle was also used in TV series including the 1996 adaptation of Emma with Kate Beckinsale, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (2008) and The White Princess (2017).

Sudeley Castle is on the edge of Winchcombe (GL54 5LP). It’s open from March to November.

Lower Slaughter

Lower Slaughter’s unspoilt views – with no building work since 1906 – make it a perfect location for period films. It was used as a location for 2020’s Emma, based on Jane Austen’s classic book. Lower Slaughter appears as Emma’s home town Highbury, with a market on the village green, the village hall used as a haberdashery and a house near the Old Mill becoming The Crown Inn pub.

Lower Slaughter is 1.5 miles (or a scenic 45-minute walk) north of Bourton-on-the-Water.

Bourton-on-the-Water

Bourton-on-the-Water might be famous for its beautiful riverside scenery, but it’s a less glamorous location which gives it its spot on our Cotswolds film locations list. In the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan took part in a icy high-speed car chase in his Aston Martin which was filmed in a Bourton car park, as well as on the ex-RAF aircraft runway at Upper Rissington.

Bourton-on-the-Water is 4 miles south of Stow-on-the-Wold.

Bibury

Along with Castle Combe, Bibury featured as the village of Wall in the magical fantasy film Stardust (2007), based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and starring big names like Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert de Niro and Claire Danes. Bibury’s fairytale architecture fit perfectly with the story, with Sienna Miller’s character living in one of the former weavers’ cottages along Arlington Row.

Bibury is 8 miles east of Cirencester. Arlington Row is owned by the National Trust – and two of the cottages are available to rent for holidays.

Cheltenham

The Regency spa town of Cheltenham has appeared in many films and TV series over the years, passing itself off as anything from Nazi Germany to London during the Napoleonic Wars. The town was the setting for two classic sitcoms in the 1970s – Butterflies and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin – and also provided locations for Ronnie Barker’s 1980s TV series Clarence.

Malcolm McDowell film If… (1968) was filmed at Cheltenham College, where director Lindsay Anderson was a former pupil. Though the film’s not-too-flattering depiction of boarding school life meant the college asked not to be credited! The Queen’s Hotel became the Hotel Das Konigen in 1940s Leipzig for TV series Jenny’s War (1985), which starred a young Hugh Grant.

Cheltenham’s train station, Montpellier and racecouse are among the locations in spy thriller The Whistle Blower (1986) with Michael Caine. And the Town Hall and Pittville Pump Room both appeared in the TV version of Vanity Fair (1998) and Father Brown. Another series using the Pump Room was House of Eliott (1991), a BBC show about two dressmaking sisters in the 1920s.

Gloucester

Gloucester’s biggest claim to fame as a film location is the cathedral’s starring role in Harry Potter films The Philosopher’s Stone (2001), The Chamber of Secrets (2002) and The Half-Blood Prince (2009), where the cloisters and corridors were used for various Hogwarts scenes.

The cathedral also featured in the 2022 comedy film Catherine Called Birdy, The Spanish Princess (2020), Mary Queen of Scots (2018) and episodes of Sherlock, Wolf Hall and Doctor Who.

Other Gloucester filming locations include the Docks, which became the Port of Madras in Vanity Fair (1998) and London’s dockyards in the 18th and 19th centuries in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) and Amazing Grace (2006). And Gloucester’s now-closed prison also appeared in crime thriller The Informer (2019) and ITV series The Pembrokeshire Murders (2021).

Painswick

Painswick appeared on screen as the village of Pagford in 2015 TV series The Casual Vacancy, based on the book by JK Rowling. The Town Hall became Pagford Library, and a building on the corner of Victoria Street and St Mary’s Street was turned into lingerie shop Samantha’s Boudoir, prompting a few complaints to the Parish Council! Nearby Bisley also featured in the series.

Painswick is 4 miles north of Stroud and 10 miles southwest of Cheltenham.

Miserden

The book Cider With Rosie tells the story of author Laurie Lee’s childhood growing up in the village of Slad in the Cotswolds. The 2015 TV adaptation of the book with Timothy Spall was filmed a few miles away in Miserden, and used locations around the village including the 16th-century Carpenters Arms pub – who appropriately enough have won awards for their selection of ciders.

Miserden is 7 miles northeast of Stroud and 10 miles south of Cheltenham.

Woodchester Mansion

Victorian Gothic Woodchester Mansion was mysteriously abandoned midway through construction, leaving a spooky shell that’s an ideal Cotswolds film location. It featured in series two of The Crown as Prince Phillip’s boarding school Gordonstoun. It was also Dracula’s castle in the 2006 BBC TV series, and attracted spook-hunters from Ghost Hunters International and Hauntings.

Woodchester Mansion is 6 miles southwest of Stroud (GL10 3TS). It’s open on Friday–Sunday from April to November.

Owlpen Manor

Owlpen Manor is a Tudor manor house with formal gardens set in a picturesque valley surrounded by woodland. It was the main location for Oscar-winning period drama Phantom Thread (2017), Daniel Day-Lewis’ last film before he retired. And it also appeared on the small screen as a location for TV series Tess of the d’Urbervilles (2008) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2003).

Owlpen Manor is 3 miles east of Dursley, close to Uley (GL11 5BZ). It’s open for occasional public tours through the Historic Houses organisation.

Northleach

Northleach is another location used in The Casual Vacancy, but it’s best known for the BBC mockumentary This Country (2017–2020). The show about life in a fictional Cotswold village was created by and stars siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper as the Mucklowes. Northleach’s The Sherbourne Arms and the bus shelter in the Market Place have regular starring roles.

Northleach is 15 miles east of Cheltenham and 9 miles west of Burford.

Blenheim Palace

Ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill, Blenheim Palace’s lavish interiors and gardens are a frequent backdrop for films and TV series. The palace has a ‘Lights, Camera, Action’ trail you can follow with locations from blockbusters Napoleon (2023), Spectre (2015), Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2017) and Gulliver’s Travels (2010).

Blenheim Palace also regularly features in Netflix show Bridgerton and its spinoff Queen Charlotte (2023). And the Great Court and Great Hall were also used in The Diplomat (2024).

Blenheim Palace is located on the edge of Woodstock (OX20 1PS). It’s open year-round.

Bampton

The Oxfordshire village of Bampton is better known to viewers of Julian Fellowes’ hit drama Downton Abbey as the Yorkshire village of Downton. Bampton features heavily in both the TV series and films, with locations including St Mary’s Church, where Lady Mary married Matthew Crawley, Churchgate House as Isobel Crawley’s house and the old grammar school as Downton Hospital.

Bampton is just south of the Cotswolds AONB boundary, 4.5 miles from Witney.

Diddly Squat Farm

Diddly Squat Farm near Chipping Norton is the location for the Amazon documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, showcasing TV personality Jeremy Clarkson’s foray into farming. The farm is now home to a popular farm shop. And if you’re hungry for more Clarkson, you can also visit his pub The Farmer’s Dog near Burford and the Hawkstone Brewery outside Bourton-on-the-Water.

Diddly Squat Farm Shop is 2 miles south of Chipping Norton.

Berkeley Castle

Twelfth-century fortress Berkeley Castle is packed with history (including the cell where King Edward II was murdered), making it a favourite for TV period dramas Poldark (2017), The White Princess (2017), Wolf Hall (2015 and 2024) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2003). It also featured in Johnny English Strikes Again (2018), the third James Bond spoof starring Rowan Atkinson.

Berkeley Castle is 6 miles west of Dursley (GL13 9PJ). It’s open on Sunday–Wednesday from April to October.

Chavenage House

Chavenage House is a grand Cotswold stone Elizabethan manor house near Tetbury that’s almost unchanged for over 400 years. It’s one of the most popular Cotswold film locations, appearing in a string of TV series. It most famously featured as Trenwith, ancestral home of the Poldark family in 18th-century Cornwall, in the BBC’s 2015–2019 remake of Poldark starring Aidan Turner.

Chavenage has also been used as a filming location for historical TV series Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Wolf Hall, Lark Rise to Candleford, Agatha Christie mystery The Pale Horse and 2020’s Emma. But most recently Aidan Turner has been back at Chavenage House for the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s blockbuster romp Rivals, where it appears as the O’Hara family home.

Chavenage House is 2 miles north of Tetbury in Beverston (GL8 8XP). It’s currently only open to the public for prebooked group tours.

Tetbury

Nearby Tetbury also features in Rivals – which will soon be back on screen for a second series. It became the village of Cotchester in the fictional county of Rutshire, with shop frontages given a 1980s makeover with retro signs. St Mary’s Church was used for a wedding scene, and Berkeley House at 16 The Chipping is the grand house US TV producer Cameron Cook lives in.

Tetbury is 12 miles southwest of Cirencester.

Badminton House

Badminton House, home of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, will also soon be back on our screens for series two of Netflix’s The Gentlemen, where it appears as Halstead Manor.

It was also recently seen as Chimneys in the 2025 Netflix adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery and as Simon and Daphne’s house in series one of Bridgerton. You can also see Badminton House in post-apocalyptic thriller 28 Days Later (2002), Merchant Ivory film The Remains of the Day (1993) and as an RAF base in WWII weepie Pearl Harbor (2001).

Badminton House is 10 miles south of Tetbury (GL9 1DB). The gardens are open to the public three times a year (in April, June and September).

Dyrham Park

Spectacular 17th-century stately home Dyrham Park is surrounded by gardens and 270 acres of ancient parkland. It appeared as Alconleigh in the 2021 BBC adaptation of local author Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, starring Lily James and Andrew Scott. It was also a location for The Remains of the Day (1993) and TV series Sanditon (2019) and Sense and Sensibility (2008).

Dyrham Park is 8 miles north of Bath (SN14 8HY). It’s open year-round.

Castle Combe

With no street lights, telegraph poles or TV aerials, it’s easy to pretend the charming village of Castle Combe is from a past era. It first featured as the town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in Rex Harrison musical Dr Dolittle (1967), with the river turned into a sea front. Sir Ranulph Fiennes tried to sabotage filming as locals were worried a dam the crew had built would ruin the village.

Castle Combe was also used in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse (2011), Stardust (2007) and horror film The Wolfman (2010). And more recently it became the village of Upshott in season two of Apple TV spy series Slow Horses, with River Cartwright staying in the White Hart pub.

Castle Combe is 6 miles northwest of Chippenham.

Lacock

The Wiltshire village of Lacock is owned by the National Trust, who’ve helped preserve its historic streets and 13th-century abbey. Lacock Abbey appeared in three Harry Potter films plus the spin-off Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2017). It also became Oxford University for The Pursuit of Love (2021) and was used in Wolf Hall (2015) and The Hollow Crown (2012).

Lacock village had a starring role in the first Downton Abbey movie (2018) when the King and Queen came to visit the village of Downton, featuring a parade of 350 extras. It also became the fictional town of Meryton in the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth.

Lacock is just east of the Cotswolds AONB boundary, 4 miles south of Chippenham (SN15 2LG). The village, abbey and Fox Talbot museum of photography are open year-round.

Bath

Beautiful Regency Bath has been used as a location for many films and TV series. They include multiple film adaptations of former resident Jane Austen’s book Persuasion plus other period pieces like The Duchess (2008) and Vanity Fair (2004). The city also became 19th-century Paris for Les Misérables (2012), with Russell Crowe’s Javert jumping from Pulteney Bridge.

Bath is a regular location for Netflix series Bridgerton, with the Holburne Museum becoming Lady Danbury’s residence, the museum at No 1 Royal Crescent the Featheringtons’ London home and the Abbey Deli the Modiste’s dress shop. And the 2023 films The Unremarkable Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spinoff Wonka were also filmed in the city.

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