Cotswold film and TV locations

The Cotswold film and TV locations you can visit are Lacock (Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Downton Abbey), Gloucester Cathedral (the Hogwarts cloisters), Bampton and Cogges (Downton Abbey), Blockley and Winchcombe (Father Brown), Chavenage House (Poldark), Snowshill (Bridget Jones's Diary), Lower Slaughter (reportedly Emma), Castle Combe (War Horse), Slad (Cider with Rosie) and Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat farm at Chadlington. Each is below, with what you can see today and how to visit. Our two-day drive to the Cotswold film locations links the confirmed ones by car.

How we chose: a location is on this page only when the production, the owner of the place or reliable reporting says the cameras were there. The National Trust publishes a list for Lacock, Gloucester Cathedral states its own, Chavenage lists six productions, Poldark among them, on its website, and Bampton's community archive documented Downton being made in its streets. Anything that rests on a fan forum, a tour operator or a travel blog is in the last section, marked as unconfirmed. Honey-coloured stone, villages with little modern clutter and grand houses within two hours of London explain why the list is long.

Clarkson's Farm: Diddly Squat and the Farmer's Dog

Clarkson's Farm, the Amazon series, is made at Diddly Squat Farm at Chadlington, between Chipping Norton and Charlbury, on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds. The farm shop on the Chipping Norton Road is the only part of the farm open to visitors; the fields, the barns and Kaleb's tractor are not. The queue is often long, and residents of Chadlington have objected to the traffic it brings, as ITV reported in 2023, so go midweek and early.

The shop's own pages give its hours as Tuesday to Sunday, 9.30am to 4.30pm, and it closed for the winter of 2025 to 2026, reopening on 25 March 2026, so check diddlysquatfarmshop.com (opens in a new tab) before you drive out. There is no booking. Clarkson's pub, the Farmer's Dog, opened on 23 August 2024 at Asthall Barrow on the A40 above Asthall, east of Burford, and the Diddly Squat farm shop has a branch on the site. The pub is a working pub, so you do not need a reason beyond a pint, but it fills at weekends. The Three Horseshoes at Asthall, in the village below, is the quieter pub with rooms a mile away.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Clarkson's Farm and Diddly Squat.

Downton Abbey: Bampton, Cogges and Swinbrook

The village of Downton is Bampton, in west Oxfordshire, a few miles south of Witney, and it is the best Downton Abbey location to walk round. Bampton's community archive has documented the filming since the first series in 2009, and it publishes the Downton Mile, a walk of about a mile past the places that appeared. Its map marks St Mary's church as Downton's church, the seventeenth-century Old Grammar School, which reopened after restoration in May 2022, as the cottage hospital, and Mrs Crawley's house. The houses are lived in, so look from the street.

The great house itself is not in the Cotswolds. Highclere Castle, which played the abbey, is in Hampshire, south of Newbury, and opens on its own dates. Closer to home, Cogges Manor Farm on the edge of Witney confirms on its own website that Downton Abbey filmed there, in its manor house and working Victorian range: it is the farm the series called Yew Tree Farm, the Drewes' home, where Lady Edith's daughter Marigold was placed. Cogges has St Mary's church next door. From 2 November 2026 the farm opens daily from 9.30am to 1pm only and the manor house is closed, reopening for Christmas from 5 to 23 December, so check before you go.

The Swan Inn at Swinbrook, on the Windrush east of Burford, is widely reported as the pub where Lady Sybil and the chauffeur Branson stopped on their way to elope in series two; the inn's own pages do not say so, though its website carries a 2014 Glamour review that does, so treat it as reported rather than confirmed. It is worth the trip for itself: four of the Mitford sisters are buried at St Mary's, and the walk from Swinbrook to Fulbrook and Widford starts at the pub. In Lacock, the National Trust records a 1920s livestock show set up on Church Street for series six in February 2015, and a royal parade through the village for the first film in September 2018.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Downton Abbey in the Cotswolds.

Harry Potter: Lacock Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral

Lacock Abbey stood in for parts of Hogwarts in two of the Harry Potter films, the National Trust says, and Lacock appears in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, filmed in 2017. The Trust's Harry Potter page names them as the first two, with the cloisters used as corridors and classrooms. What you can see is the medieval cloister and the rooms off it, which is where the abbey's Hogwarts scenes were set. The abbey rooms close from 1 November to 1 March for the winter clean, so a Potter visit is a summer visit; the grounds, the cloisters and the Fox Talbot Museum stay open.

Gloucester Cathedral, about 40 miles north of Lacock by road, is the other Hogwarts in the region. Its own visitor pages say the medieval cloister, with its fan vaulting, appears as parts of Hogwarts in three of the films. Entry is by donation, with £5 suggested for an adult, and it opens Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm and on Sunday between services; check the calendar, because it closes for events. Well-behaved dogs on a short lead can come in from Monday to Saturday. Gloucester is a cathedral city on the Severn, outside the Cotswolds National Landscape, about 7 miles by road from Painswick, and pairs well with a day on the Cotswold Edge.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Harry Potter in the Cotswolds.

Pride and Prejudice and the rest of Lacock on screen

Lacock was Meryton in the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth, and that is why the village is on so many coach itineraries. The National Trust's list for the village goes on: Cranford (2007 to 2010), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), The Hollow Crown (2012 and 2014, with a tennis match in the cloister garth), Wolf Hall, in which the abbey played the Seymours' house, Galavant, Dr Thorne and His Dark Materials (2019). Almost nothing in Lacock is later than the eighteenth century, which is the reason.

How to visit: Lacock is a lived-in village of about 1,100 people, almost all of it owned by the Trust, and there is no parking on its streets. Use the Hither Way car park, £5 a day for non-members, or come by the X34 bus from Chippenham, which earns a free hot drink at the Stables Café. Our guide to Lacock covers the four streets, the tithe barn and the lock-up, and the George and the Red Lion feed you. Lacock sits a few miles outside the National Landscape boundary, in Wiltshire, which matters only if you are being strict.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Pride and Prejudice at Lacock.

Father Brown: Blockley, Winchcombe and the north Cotswolds

The BBC's Father Brown has been on screen since 2013, filmed in the north Cotswolds, and its village of Kembleford is Blockley, near Moreton-in-Marsh. The church of St Peter and St Paul is Father Brown's St Mary's and the old vicarage beside it his presbytery; Countryfile magazine confirms it, and the village has grown used to the crew. Blockley is a working village in a steep valley of former silk mills, with no car park, so park with care and walk. The Great Western Arms, a Hook Norton Brewery pub, is the place to sit afterwards, and the walk over to Batsford Park starts from Bell Lane.

Countryfile's list of the other locations takes in Guiting Power's green, Upper Slaughter, Winchcombe railway station on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway and Stanway House. The station is the easiest to see: it is a working heritage station with trains on most days from spring to autumn and festive trains in December, and the platform is the one on screen. Sudeley Castle and Snowshill are often added to the list, but we found them only on IMDb, which anyone can edit, so they are in the unconfirmed section below.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Father Brown in the Cotswolds.

Bridget Jones's Diary at Snowshill

St Barnabas church and the cottages around it at Snowshill were filmed for Bridget Jones's Diary in 2000. The source is Tewkesbury Borough Council's conservation area appraisal for the village, which records the filming, so this one stands up. Snowshill is a hamlet of about 160 people high above Broadway, and almost everyone who comes is heading for Snowshill Manor, Charles Wade's house of collections, which the National Trust has owned since 1951.

Park in the Trust's free car park for the manor and walk the 450m into the village; the church is on the green. The short loop round Snowshill and Snowswood starts from the Pipers Grove car park just north of the village, and in late June and July Cotswold Lavender, about a mile away, is in flower.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Bridget Jones at Snowshill.

Emma at Lower Slaughter

The 2020 film of Emma, with Anya Taylor-Joy, is reported to have used Lower Slaughter for the exteriors of Highbury, the Old Mill among them. The location appears in travel coverage from the film's release in 2020, but we have not seen a statement from the production or the village, so treat it as reported. The village needs no dressing: the River Eye runs beside the one street under low stone bridges, and the mill, closed to visitors since its sale in 2023, stands at the top of the street.

There is no public car park in either Slaughter. Park at Rissington Road in Bourton-on-the-Water, free before 10am, and walk in, or take the 2-mile there-and-back from Lower to Upper Slaughter along the river to the ford.

Cider with Rosie: Slad and the Laurie Lee valley

Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie is set in Slad, the valley village between Stroud and Painswick where he grew up, and the BBC's 2015 film of it, with Samantha Morton and Timothy Spall, was shot in the Slad valley itself, with some of the younger parts played by local children. The earlier 1998 ITV film, with Juliet Stevenson, is reported to have used Sapperton, near Cirencester, for its outdoor scenes; we have that only from secondary sources, so it is listed as unconfirmed below.

What you can see is the valley. Lee is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity, and the Woolpack across the road was his pub. The Laurie Lee Wildlife Way, a 5-mile loop from Bulls Cross with ten posts carrying his poems, links Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust's reserves in the valley, Frith Wood and Swift's Hill among them. Our story on famous people with Cotswold connections has more on Lee.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Laurie Lee and Slad.

Poldark at Chavenage House

Chavenage House, an Elizabethan manor near Tetbury, played Trenwith, the Poldark family home, in the BBC's Poldark, and the house says so on its own website. It is still a family home and opens only by appointment: pre-booked groups of 21 or more at £12 a head (2026), individuals joining a booked group at £12 plus a £5 booking charge, or a private tour at a base rate of £250. The house has steps and uneven floors and no wheelchair access, and it says filming commitments limit the dates. Ring the office before you plan a day around it.

Chavenage is also named, in press and travel coverage, for Lark Rise to Candleford, the BBC's Wolf Hall and the opening of Emma (2020). The house's own films page lists the first of these among its six productions but not the other two, so those sit in the unconfirmed section. Our guide to Cotswold houses and castles covers the houses you can visit without an appointment.

Every confirmed location, what you can see today and how to visit are in our story on Poldark at Chavenage.

Castle Combe and Biddestone

Castle Combe has been on screen since Doctor Dolittle was filmed in its one street in 1966, as a Movietone newsreel of that August shows (the film came out in 1967). Steven Spielberg's War Horse was filmed there in September 2010, and The Wolfman, released in 2010, used the village too. The village is tiny, about 50 people in the centre, and Wiltshire Council asks visitors to use the pay and display car park at the top of the hill on Dunns Lane and walk down past the market cross to the bridge over the By Brook. Nearby Biddestone, with its green and pond, played Carsely in Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, filmed in 2014. The circuit from Ford to Castle Combe along the By Brook is the walk to pair with either.

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Myths and half-truths

A claim about a film location is only as good as who makes it, and the test we use is the production company's or the location owner's own statement, or reporting by a newspaper or broadcaster at the time. Several well-worn Cotswold claims fail it. They may be true; we have not been able to show that they are.

Bridgerton has no Cotswold village location that we can find. Its town is Bath, which lies outside the Cotswolds, and press coverage places its country-house scenes at Badminton House in Gloucestershire and, for Queen Charlotte, at Blenheim Palace as Buckingham House. Neither estate confirms this on its visitor pages, so we list it as reported. Slow Horses is said to have filmed a village or a high street in the Cotswolds, with Tetbury named in one tourist-board itinerary; nothing from the production supports it. Stardust (2007) is credited by blogs with Castle Combe as the village of Wall and with Arlington Row at Bibury as a cottage; we found no primary source for either.

Closer to home: the National Trust names the first two Harry Potter films for Lacock Abbey but not which rooms each used; Father Brown at Sudeley Castle, Snowshill and Chastleton rests on IMDb and tour operators; the 1998 Cider with Rosie at Sapperton rests on secondary sources; and the Swan at Swinbrook's Downton scene is reported by tourism sites and a 2014 Glamour review, not by the inn itself. Highclere Castle, which played Downton Abbey itself, is in Hampshire and not a Cotswold location at all, whatever the coach tours say.

Visiting film locations

Most of these places are lived-in villages and working churches. The houses on Bampton's Church View, the cottages at Snowshill and the street in Castle Combe are homes, and the churches at Blockley, Snowshill and Swinbrook are parishes with services. Park only where it is allowed, which in Castle Combe and Lacock means the car park at the edge, keep gardens and doorsteps out of your photographs, and do not fly a drone over a village; Castle Combe's residents have put up signs asking. The productions themselves rarely leave anything behind, so what you see is the place as it is, which was the point of filming there.

The busiest of these villages, Castle Combe, Lacock and Lower Slaughter, are at their best before 10am or after 5pm, and our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds pairs each with a quieter neighbour. Film locations change hands and change their rules, and new productions arrive every year, so if you know of a confirmed location we have missed, tell us and we will check it.