And while I'm on the subject...

Downton Abbey is not the first show to use the Cotswolds as a filming location. I thought I'd share an article I found online that you might find interesting. I will confess that it is TMI for the average reader, but if you just do a quick scan down the list you'll recognize the names of other movies or programs that have been filmed here and perhaps even remember a few scenes from some of them.

It’s not surprising that the Cotswolds has ‘stood in’ for real and fantasy locations in cinema films such as James Bond’s Die Another Day, Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Remains of the Day and the hugely successful Harry Potter adventures. 

On the T.V. small screen too, the Cotswolds regularly provides the backdrop: recent TV productions have included the BBC’s Our Mutual Friend and The Other Bolyn Girl.

The following list includes many of the film production shoots in and around the Cotswolds region:-

• Gloucester Cathedral has been used in most of the Harry Potter films as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardary, the setting for most of Harry's adventures.


• Harry Potter and Philospher's Stone (November 2001) - Harry and his friends experience many exciting and dangerous adventures in this first Harry Potter film, based on the book by Gloucestershire born J.K. Rowling.  Location: Gloucester Cathedral.


• Gloucester Docks - location for feature film Amazing Grace (2007) starring Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Gambon and Rufus Sewell. Also the setting for 1970s TV series The Onedin Line.


• The Libertine (August 2004) - Set in the 1670s, Johnny Depp plays a debauched 17th century poet, the womanising Earl of Rochester. Location: Stanway House, near Winchcombe.


• Butterflies (1970s) - The long-running TV comedy series set in Cheltenham. Starred: Wendy Craig, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Geoffrey Palmer. Location: Hatherley Park, Montpellier and a house in Bournside Road was home to the fictional family.


• Owlpen Manor, near Uley - used as various locations for the BBC's period drama 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'.


• Oxford - Many of the Harry Potters Hogwart's school scenes were filmed at Oxford University's Christ Church College. In several of the films, Oxford provided Hogwart's staircase notably in the first film where Professor McGonagall greets the schoolchildren upon their arrival. Oxford also provided the Great Hall on which Hogwart's dining room was modelled and the Library which provided the scenes for Hogwart's infirmary and Ron’s dancing lesson with Professor McGonagall.


• Stanton Village - Episode of Granada Television's 'Sherlock Holmes' series starring the late Jeremy Brett - Last Vampyre.


• The Remains of the Day (1993) - Stephens, the perfect English butler entirely engrossed in his service to the aristocracy, reviews his personal life in which he neglected his dying father and denied his feelings for an attractive young housekeeper. Starred: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson. Location: Badminton House and Dyrham Park near Chippenham.


• Bridget Jones's Diary (2000) was the highly successful film starring Renee Zellweger as a 30-something singleton living in London on a quest to find Mr Right. It was shot on location in Notting Hill, Shepperton Studios and in the picturesque village of Snowshill in Gloucestershire.


• These Foolish Things (October 2004) - Writer and director, Julia Taylor-Stanley and producer Paul Sarony brought this newly written film to Cheltenham.  Set in the 1940s, the film is a love story based around a traditional theatre and tells the story of an actresses' rise to fame.


• Vanity Fair ( May 2004) - This sumptuous production is the latest film version of the classic novel Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray.  It tells the tale of Becky Sharp, who is born into the lower classes. She rises through the echelons of London society in the 1820's with the help of her wit, guile and sexuality. Starred: Reese Witherspoon, Jim Broadbent, Gabriel Byrne, Bob Hoskins, Rhys Ifans, Eileen Atkins and Geraldine McEwan. Location: Stanway House near Winchcombe, Bath and surrounding area.


• The Wyvern Mysteries (1999) - Based on a 19th Century writer JS Le Fanu, about a young girl brought up by the man responsible for her fathers death. She falls in love with his eldest son. Starred: Derek Jacobi, Jack Davenport. Location: Northleach, Stanway House and Guiting Power.


• Forgotten (1999) - TV adaptation of a modern English village psychological thriller about a woman's obsession in finding the man who killed her child 20 years earlier. Starred: Amanda Burton, Paul McGann, Christopher Villiers, Gwyneth Strong. Location: Cotswolds.


• Vanity Fair (1998) - One of Britain's classic 19th century novels. A tale of two ladies' romantic trials and tribulations, set during the Nepoleonic Wars. Much of the action centred in and around Cheltenham. Starred: Philip Glenister, Nathaniel Parker, Natasha Little. Location: Pittville Pump Room, Oxford Street, Priory Terrace (as London's fashionable Fulham), Cheltenham Town Hall (for the Grand Ball in Brussels) & Gloucester Docks (as the Port of Madras).


• Clandestine Marriage (1998) - Adapted from the stage play set in the late 18th Century, it centres on two families and marriages between them. Starred: Joan Collins, Nigel Hawthorne, Timothy Spall. Location: Stanway House, near Winchcombe.


• Cider with Rosie (1998) - The TV adaptation of Laurie Lee's novel telling the story of his life in Slad. life in an Edwardian courture house with love, jealousy and the trials of the private lives of the owners, Beatrice and Evangeline. Starred: Juliet Stevenson. Location: Slad Valley, Cotswolds.


• Pride and Prejudice (1995) - An adaptation of Jane Austen's compelling love story of a daring young woman with feminist ideas ahead of her time and the rich young bachelor who falls for her. Starred: Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, Julia Sawalha. Location: Cheltenham Town Hall, Oxford Parade.


• The Buccaneers (1994) - Drama serial based on Edith Wharton's unfinished novel about an anarchic group of adventuring, free-spirited young women who, snubbed by New York's elite, take aristocratic Victorian England by storm. Location: Stanway House, near Winchcombe.


• The Whistle Blower (1993) - A GCHQ spy thriller made for television. Starred: Michael Caine, Nigel Havers. Location: Cheltenham Railway Station, Lansdown Place and areas around GCHQ.
  
  
• The House of Elliot (1991-94) - The story of life in an Edwardian couture house with love, jealousy and the trials of the private lives of the owners, Beatrice & Evangeline. Starred: Stella Gonet, Louise Lombard. Location: Pittville Pump Rooms.
  
  
• Emma - TV dramatisation adapted from Jane Austen's famous novel. Starred: Kate Beckinsale, Prunella Scales. Location: Sudeley Castle and Stanway House near Broadway.
• Clarence (1980s) - Ronnie Barker's final TV series before he retired - the adventures of a short-sighted removal man. Starred: Ronnie Barker. Location: Lansdown Crescent, Cheltenham.
  
  
• If (1968) - In this allegorical story, a revolution lead by pupil Mick Travers takes place at an old established English private school. Starred: Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, Rupert Webster, Arthur Lowe, Mona Washbourne. Location: Cheltenham College and Packhorse Cafe, Tewkesbury Road, four miles outside Cheltenham (no longer exists).
  
  
• Die Another Day (2002) - Part of the Ice Chase scenes were filmed in the car park at Bourton-on-the-Water and on the ex-RAF aircraft runway at Upper Rissington. At one point Bond in his Aston Martin was chased across the car park in a Jaguar sports coupe; the car park was covered in artificial snow.
  
  
• Pride and Predujice (2005) - The scenes at Longbourn were filmed at Luckington Court, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. It isn't generally open to the public except the gardens. Meryton is actually a nearby town in Wiltshire called Lacock. This is a village almost entirely owned by the National Trust and preserved as a medieval village. Consequently it has featured in a number of film and TV dramas.
  
  
• Downton Abbey (2010) - Most of the exterior shots of this television drama series were filmed at the Oxfordshire village of Bampton. The series is set in 1912 and stars actress Dame Maggie Smith and actor Hugh Bonneville and is about the aristocratic Crawley Family. The shows creator is Julian Fellowes.
  
  
• Lacock village is a popular film and television location including the BBC Cranford Chronicles and Warner Bros. Harry Potter. Parts of 'The Other Boleyn' were filmed at Lacock Abbey and Anthony Hopkins is starring in the film 'The Wolfman - 2009'.
  
  
• Castle Combe village (not far from Lacock) is another location popular with film crews. Part of The Wolfman shot here and the TV series Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989): 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd TV Episode'. Other films include Doctor Dolittle (1967) and Stardust (2007).
  STEVEN SPIELBERG has filmed (September 2010) the movie adaptation of theatre hit War Horse in Castle Combe.
  
• Oxford city is frequently used as a filming location for both TV and Cinema. Very well known for the Inspector Morse TV series. Cinema films include Harry Potter, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Oxford Murders (2008) and The Madness of King George (1994).
  
  
• Bath city is an inspirational location for film producers, actors and authors, Bath is home to some big name productions. Vanity Fair, Persuasion, Dracula and The Duchess have attracted stars such as, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Amitabh Bachchan and Kiera Knightley to Bath.
  
  
• Corsham, Wiltshire - The town of Corsham, and in particular, Corsham Court, was used as a location for the film Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
  
  
• Chavenage House, Tetbury - Chavenage has been used as a film/TV location on many occasions:
  The Four Seasons (2008/09) – (Tom Conti, Michael York, Frank Finlay, Juliet Mills)
  For the love of Barbara (2008) - (Anne Reid, David Warner)
  Tess of the D’Ubervilles (2008) - (Gemma Arterton, Eddie Redmayne)
  Nick Crane’s Britannia (2008)
  Bonekickers (2008) – (Julie Graham, Adrian Lester, Hugh Bonneville)
  Lark Rise to Candleford (2007) (Julia Sawalha, Olivia Hallinan, Ben Miles, Olivia Grant)
  Dracula – (Marc Warren, David Suchet, Dan Stevens)
  Stately Sleepover
  Stately Suppers (James Martin, Alistair Appleton)
  The Curious House Guest (2005) – (Jeremy Musson)
  Adventure Inc. (2002) – (Simon MacCorkindale)
  Relic Hunter III (2001) – (Tia Carrera)
  The Ghost of Greville Lodge (2000) (George Cole, Prunella Scales)
  Berkeley Square (1998) – (Victoria Smurfit)
  Cider with Rosie (1998) – (Juliet Stevenson)
  Casualty (1997) – (Jason Connery)
  CBBC’s Christmas Pantomine
  House of Elliot (1993)  - (Louise Lombard, Stella Gonet)
  Grace and Favour (1992/3) (Wendy Richard, John Inman, Frank Thornton)
  Noel Edmund’s House Party (Tony Blackburn’s Gotcha)
  Poirot- The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1990) (David Suchet, Hugh Fraser)
  The Barchester Chronicles (1982) (Nigel Hawthorne)
  The Bagthorpe Saga (1981) (Edward Hardwicke, Dandy Nichols, Angela Thorne)
  Children of the New Forest (1977) (Richard Gibson, John Carson)
  BBC Play for Today ‘London Assurance’ (1976) (Anthony Andrews, Charles Grey,
  Judy Cornwell, Jan Francis, Nigel Stock)
  Barry Lyndon (1975) (Ryan O’Neal – Director - Stanley Kubrick).


• Broadway Tower - (The Highest little castle in the Cotswolds) is one of England’s outstanding viewpoints and, at 1024 feet (312m) above sea level, it is the second highest point on the Cotswold Escarpment.
  
  The Tower has had a lot of film exposure in things such as Sherlock Holmes, The Gemini Factor, Interceptor, Crush with Andie McDowell and many others.


• Cheltenham - made-for-TV movie "Diana: Her True Story" which was released in 1993 contains a scene showing a ball in Buckingham Palace Ballroom. That scene was shot in the Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham.