LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT FAMOUS FILM AND TV LOCATIONS FEATURED IN NEW BOOK THE NOTORIOUS GUIDE TO BRITAIN
Past Times
FANCY a fun and informative trip around the highways (not forgetting the low ways) and byways of Great Britain?
The Notorious Guide To Britain by Paul Donnelley is a fascinating tour of the weird and wonderful and includes a visit to some of the locations of classic British films and television.
FAWLTY TOWERS Hotel Gleneagles, Asheldon Road, Torquay, Devon
It was in 1971 while staying at this 41-bedroom hotel with the rest of the Monty Python team that John Cleese discovered the prototypes of Basil and Sybil Fawlty: Donald Sinclair and his wife Beatrice.
Mr Sinclair apparently berated Terry Gilliam for using his knife and fork incorrectly, and Eric Idle returned to the hotel to find his bag had been hidden behind a distant wall in the garden.
Mr Sinclair told him they thought it might be a bomb. Idle asked, “Why would anyone want to bomb your hotel?” to which the hotelier responded, “We’ve had a lot of staff problems lately.”
The other Pythons moved to the Imperial Hotel but Cleese stayed on. He once described Sinclair as “the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met”.
Michael Palin recalled that Donald Sinclair “seemed to view us as a colossal inconvenience”.
OPEN ALL HOURS 15 Lister Avenue, Balby, Doncaster, South Yorkshire
The shop owned by the tight-fisted, stuttering shopkeeper Albert E Arkwright was actually a beauty parlour named Beautique, made up to look like a general store.
The series starred Ronnie Barker and David Jason as his put-upon nephew Granville and ran from Friday, February 20, 1976 until Sunday October 6, 1985. It was spawned from the 1973 Barker comedy anthology Seven Of One, which also gave birth to Porridge.
TO THE MANOR BORN West Lodge, Cricket St Thomas, Chard, Somerset
West (or Westport) Lodge was used for exterior shots of The Old Lodge in Grantleigh, near Marlbury in Somerset, where Audrey fforbes-Hamilton (Penelope Keith) moves to after being forced to vacate Grantleigh Manor in the BBC sitcom created by Peter Spence, whose father-in-law was the owner of the real building at the time.
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Castle Howard, York
The 18th century Baroque mansion set in 100,000 acres near York was the setting for the 1981 television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel.
Castle Howard has been the home of the Howard family since it was built in 1709.
It took more than 20 years for the roof to be repaired after a fire in 1940. The Garden Hall was rebuilt shortly after filming began.
DOCTOR WHO 76 Totter’s Lane, Shoreditch, London
It was to a junkyard at this address that two teachers from Coal Hill School in London, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell), follow Susan Foreman (Carole Anne Ford), one of their pupils, and hear her speaking from inside what appears to be a police phone box.
They push the doors open and find themselves inside the TARDIS, the Doctor’s time machine, in the first episode of the sci-fi series, An Unearthly Child.
Susan was the granddaughter of the Doctor (William Hartnell), who would return to the junkyard several times in future adventures.
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG Smock Windmill, Codmore Road, Buckinghamshire
England’s oldest smock mill, with wooden machinery dating from around 1650, appeared as the home of inventor Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) in the comedy film (premiered December 16, 1968), cowritten by Ken Hughes and Roald Dahl and based on Chitty-ChittyBang-Bang: The Magical Car, a novel by Ian Fleming.
Lionel Jefferies plays Dick Van Dyke’s father in the film, despite being six months younger than the American.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS City Varieties Music Hall, Swan Street, Leeds
For 30 years from 1953 until
December 31, 1983 Leonard Sachs presided verbosely over this BBC variety show for all but the first two episodes.
A Grade II listed building, the music hall was built in 1865 as an adjunct to the White Swan Inn and was originally named Thornton’s New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge after its founder, local publican Charles Thornton.
It then became Stansfield’s Varieties before becoming the City Palace of Varieties.
CARRY ON SERGEANT St Mary & All Saints Church, 10-12 Wycombe End, Windsor End, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
The first Carry On film began shooting on Monday, March 24, 1958.
Carry On Sergeant was based on R.F. Delderfield’s script The Bull Boys about ballet dancers who were conscripted for National Service.
Producer Peter Rogers
saw potential in the idea and gave it to Norman Hudis (1922-2016) to fashion into a workable property.
The film stars Bob Monkhouse as Charlie Sage, who is called up on his wedding day to Shirley Eaton (Jill Sage). Their wedding was filmed at St Mary & All Saints Church.
BRIEF ENCOUNTER Carnforth Station, Carnforth, Lancashire
David Lean directed Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in this romantic drama written by Noël Coward based on his play Still Life (1936).
The film was actually shot at Carnforth Station, five miles north of Lancaster, because of its comparative safety from German bombs – it was shot in January 1945 and premiered in London on November 13, 1945. The station is still in use.
The Notorious Guide To Britain by Paul Donnelley is published by Mardle Books, £12.99