As Seen on Screen

THE GREAT WEST WAY is quintessentially English, so it’s no surprise that many of its cities, villages and castles have appeared on screen. While the BBC have made good use of Lacock village, Bath and Bristol have both starred in global hits and the castles of Highclere and Windsor are familiar to millions. We hope you enjoy our pick of the best locations to visit.

With Downton Abbey The Movie being released on 13 September 2019 (North America on 20 September) there’s no better time to visit Highclere Castle, in Hampshire, perhaps better known as Downton Abbey - the family home of the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. Visitors can step inside the Great Hall - backdrop to much of Mary and Matthew’s romance - and the Dining Room - scene of many a family drama and plenty of acerbic comments from the Dowager Countess. Production for the movie also took place in the picturesque villages of Lacock, Wiltshire and Brampton in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds.

Start your action adventure tour in Bristol, where this gorgeous central square was featured in Sherlock Holmes: The Abominable Bride, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. A balcony here was used for Emilia Ricoletti’s shoot-out before she died; later the square morphed into the exterior of the Diogenes Club.

Reese Witherspoon spent some time in Bath filming the 2004 film Vanity Fair. The movie was adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray’s nineteenth century novel of the same name and used the city’s beautiful Georgian architecture to full effect. Scenes were shot in Beauford Square behind the Theatre Royal, in the grand boulevard of Great Pulteney Street and at the sweeping Royal Crescent, a glorious semicircle of 30 golden-hued stone terraced houses.

This chocolate box Wiltshire village is most famous on screen for its appearance in Spielberg’s War Horse, when its main street was transformed into a Devon village whose men were heading off to war. The village’s fourteenth century market cross was bedecked in banners encouraging the locals to enlist.

Most famously, Corsham provided a backdrop for the filming of the drama series Poldark. This pretty market town in west Wiltshire is also seen in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Larkrise to Candleford and The Remains of the Day.

A self-guided Midsomer trail through Marlow and the Hambleden valley is new for 2019. Covering 17 miles, this exciting trail starts and ends in Marlow, taking you through the villages of Frieth, Lane End, Bolter End, Fingest and the Hambleden valley where you will find yourself immersed in scenes from Midsomer Murders!

There are no phone lines or telegraph poles in this National Trust village, making it perfect for historical TV series such as the BBC classics Cranford - when it stood in for Knutsford in Cheshire - and Pride and Prejudice, when it appeared as Meryton. The main street here has also been used in Downton Abbey and Lacock Abbey was the location of several scenes in the Harry Potter films.

Not all Great West Way sites to have appeared on screen have done so in fiction. Windsor Castle was seen on millions of TV screens around the world in 2018 when it hosted the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, now officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.