Filming has begun in Dunkirk for a new movie by Christopher Nolan telling the story of the British retreat in 1940 as the Germans advanced. matt leclere visits and finds out more

Three-quarters of a century ago Dunkirk was centre stage in the theatre of war – now the area has been turned into a movie set.

It is home to filming for a new film by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception) on Operation Dynamo – the evacuations of the 330,000 British and Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

Filming for Dunkirk, starring Tom Hardy, began at the end of May in the very week 76 years after the evacuations and the full scale retreat of the British Expeditionary Force from mainland Europe.

It is an astonishing transformation from a typical French port, with its sweeping promenade stretching round to the Belgian border for more than 5km, to a set taking you back to the 1940s.

Cafes, bars and restaurants on the promenade usually full of people enjoying a beer, coffee or an ice cream have been turned into a high street of 1940s France.

Then take the rows of old French military vehicles parked outside and the transformation is complete.

Walk down a couple more streets of the closed film set with its sandbag walls, sentry posts, cars and motorcycles and all of a sudden the scene becomes very real and you forget it’s 2016.

Dunkirk remained the last bastion of Nazi occupation in France – finally being forced into surrender on May 9, 1945, once the Allies had finally broken deep into Germany and were banging on the door of the Reichstag in Berlin.

No part of this corner of northeast France was untouched by the Germans in the Second World War.

That much is evident walking around the town, with a mixture of architecture ranging from the medieval to the 1950s and 1960s rebuilds right up to the present day.

Some of the most poignant reminders are not the masses of rebuilt houses and shops but the older houses still battered by bullet holes – some the size of cricket balls.

It is a part of the country always thought to be under threat of invasion right back into the Middle Ages – evident in so many locations.

The small town of Gravelines just about a 10 minute drive from the ferry terminal at Dunkirk is a wonderfully unique place.

It is the only fortified town in France to be entirely surrounded by water.

The fortifications were completed in the 17th century and the walls now form a beautiful walkway around the town and visitors can hire boats to glide leisurely around on the water.

Hitler ordered his troops to hold up short of Dunkirk at Gravelines, which allowed the Allies to organise the evacuation of their troops. Had he ordered them to carry on advancing, the evacuations might not have seen quite so many men successfully get out of France to fight another day.

Away from war, driving through the area and surrounding countryside is beautiful, the beaches long and sandy.

Very much a working part of France, there are also some little known gems like the small Thiriez brewery in the village of Esquelbecq, showing how craft beers and micro breweries are seeing a renaissance.

Dunkirk is due for cinema release in July 2017