Bridget Jones at Snowshill: the village of her parents

Snowshill, a hilltop village of about 160 people above Broadway, was the village of Bridget's parents in Bridget Jones's Diary, the film of Helen Fielding's novel released in 2001. St Barnabas church and the cottages around it were used as the location in 2000, Tewkesbury Borough Council's appraisal (opens in a new tab) of the village's conservation area records, and VisitBritain (opens in a new tab), the national tourist board, says Bridget's taxi passes the church on her way to her parents' house. That house is private, but the church, the green and the view are free to see.

This is a short page because the evidence is short. We have used only the council's appraisal and VisitBritain's guide to the film's locations; we found no statement from the production company, and the parish publishes nothing on the filming. Everything else said about Snowshill and the films is in the section on myths.

What was filmed in Snowshill

The council's appraisal, drawn up after a survey of the village in 2011, says that in 2000 St Barnabas and the surrounding cottages were used as the location for Bridget Jones's Diary, as an English village backdrop, and that people have visited because of it ever since. Its summary of what makes Snowshill special lists the church first and notes that it has featured in the Bridget Jones films.

VisitBritain fills in the scene. Bridget takes a taxi past St Barnabas and walks past Snowshill Manor Farmhouse towards her parents' house, which stands in the village and is a private home, not open to visitors. Parts of the surrounding village, it says, may be recognised from the film. It is the countryside Bridget escapes to from London, and on screen it is winter.

What you can see today

St Barnabas was built in 1864 on the site of the old chapel, in coursed stone with a three-stage west tower and a clock, and keeps a font of the fifteenth century. Its windows remember the Marshalls, who farmed the manor as tenants through the nineteenth century. It stands above the small green opposite the Snowshill Arms, a pub of the seventeenth century, and the whole village takes a quarter of an hour to walk round.

No opening times are published for the church, and services are occasional, but the outside and the churchyard can be seen at any time. The houses round it are homes, and the parents' house is one of them: look from the road, and do not walk up the drives.

Snowshill Manor and the lavender

Almost everyone who comes to Snowshill is heading for Snowshill Manor, Charles Wade's house of collected craftsmanship, from bicycles to armour, which he gave to the National Trust in 1951. When we checked on 24 October 2026 the manor opened from 11.30am to 4.30pm and the garden from 11am to 5.30pm, with earlier times from 25 October and into November, when last entry to the manor is 1.30pm. The Trust's 2026 calendar runs to 29 November, and the house then has a closed season over the winter. An adult pays £18 until 1 November 2026 and £13 from 2 November, and members go free; times vary by date, so check the Trust's calendar before you go.

Cotswold Lavender, 45 acres of fields on the edge of the village, opens for a few weeks from mid-June to early August, daily from 10am to 5pm; in 2026 it opened from 11 June to 5 August, with the best of the flowers in late June and July. Outside those weeks Snowshill is one of the quietest villages on the edge, and a better bet than Broadway on a summer Saturday.

Getting there and parking

No bus serves Snowshill. It is 2.5 miles by road from Broadway, up the lane that leaves the village as Church Street, and the nearest stations are Moreton-in-Marsh, 7 miles away, and Evesham, 8 miles. Buses reach Broadway: the Pulhams 606 from Cheltenham, Monday to Saturday; N N Cresswell's R4 from Evesham station on weekdays; and Stagecoach's 1, a couple of times a day. From there it is a taxi or a steep walk.

Park at the Pipers Grove car park on the Broadway road just north of the village, which is free, has about 25 spaces and can fill. The National Trust's free car park for the manor, about 450m from the house, is for the manor's visitors. Do not park in the village lanes, which are narrow and lived in.

Walks from the village

The Snowshill and Snowswood loop, 2.1 miles (3.4km) from Pipers Grove, drops into the valley by Snowswood and comes back into the village past the church, about an hour and a quarter. For a day, the walk from Stanton up to Snowshill and along the edge is 6.6 miles, and the circuit from Broadway to Broadway Tower climbs to James Wyatt's folly and comes back down the Cotswold Way.

The Cotswolds Info newsletter

Events, new places and the best of the season, about once a month. Unsubscribe at any time.

Leave this field blank

Your name

Your email address

Yes, send me the Cotswolds Info newsletter

Sign me up

Myths and half-truths

The whole film was made in the Cotswolds. VisitBritain says the film was made mainly in London, with some scenes in Gloucestershire. Snowshill is the countryside, and the city is London.

The village is in every Bridget Jones film. VisitBritain says Bridget visits her parents here in all the films, and the council's appraisal speaks of the films in the plural, but the only filming the appraisal dates is the first, in 2000. The sequels used other places: VisitBritain gives St James' Church at Shere in Surrey for the vow renewal in The Edge of Reason, and Hampstead and Richmond for Mad About the Boy.

The snow was real. Travel pieces say the crew dressed the village with fake snow because it was filmed in summer. It is a good story and may well be true, but we have not found the production or the council saying so.

Snowshill Manor is in the film. Nobody responsible says so. The council names the church and the cottages, and VisitBritain names the farmhouse Bridget walks past, not the National Trust's manor.