Most Filmed Places in the South East: Counties & Towns

Step outside the M25 and you quickly realise that the South and South East of England is effectively one giant backlot.

Two Medirek response vehicles with blue lights on at a remote site after dark — Location work often means remote sites, night shoots and long days.

Filming in England's 2023 Regional Filming Hubs report puts the East and South East hub at more than three million square feet of stage and build space. Between Pinewood, Shepperton, Longcross, Shinfield, Bray, Maidstone and Farnborough International, there is a lot of stage capacity within reach of the M25.

Of course, very few productions stay locked inside a studio for an entire shoot. Line producers and location managers want exterior locations within an easy hour or so of the M25, so they are not burning budget on overnight hotels or long travel days. Because of that, county film offices and local councils across southern England spend all year processing road closures, parking bay suspensions and heritage site permits.

Look at the published rankings and film office records and a clear pattern emerges. Kuoni's 2022 analysis of film locations put Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Berkshire and Oxfordshire in the top six UK counties after Greater London, with Kent, East Sussex and Hampshire also in the top ten. Here is a closer look at where crews actually spend their time, the permits keeping local councils busy, and the locations that keep popping up on screen.

Surrey: studio spillover and blockbuster forests

Surrey came fourth among UK counties in Kuoni's ranking of film locations, and it is easy to see why. You have Shepperton Studios and Longcross Studios right on the doorstep, with direct links down the A3 and M25. The Surrey Film Office, run by Surrey County Council, handles permits for filming on the county's highways and council property, and its locations database gets a serious workout.

Farnham is home to one of Britain's best-known woodland filming locations. Just south of the town, Forestry England's Bourne Wood has hosted exterior builds and battle scenes for Gladiator, Children of Men, Avengers: Age of Ultron and House of the Dragon. A few miles away sits Hankley Common, around 1,400 acres of heathland, where the Skyfall Lodge was partly built for Skyfall and where crews have shot sequences for Napoleon and Wicked.

Over towards Shepperton and Chertsey, productions based at Shepperton and Longcross regularly head out into the surrounding Thames-side towns, commons and parks for second-unit and water days. Meanwhile, Guildford and its neighbouring villages stay busy. Loseley Park just outside the town has appeared in The Crown, the BBC's Emma and The Gentlemen, while Dunsfold Park famously stood in for Miami International Airport in Casino Royale. Even the quiet village of Shere has become a regular fixture since The Holiday and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason put its cottages and church on screen.

Kent: two decades of heavy location traffic

Kent sees steady location traffic, with unit bases parked up everywhere from the Medway towns to the White Cliffs. Marking its 20th anniversary in 2026, the Kent Film Office, the film office for Kent and Medway, says filming has brought more than £85 million of inward investment into the county since it was founded. Curated Cottages' UK Coastal Screen Index 2026 also ranked Kent among the top three coastal regions in the UK, with 32 confirmed productions between 2006 and 2026.

Chatham does a huge amount of the heavy lifting. The Historic Dockyard Chatham gives directors 80 acres of cobbled streets, Georgian and Victorian buildings and historic warships that regularly double for period London. It has been a long-running location for Call the Midwife, alongside Bridgerton, Les Misérables and Sherlock Holmes.

Further east, Margate took centre stage in Sam Mendes's Empire of Light, with Dreamland standing in for the film's seaside cinema. Down on the coast at Dover, the castle, port and chalk cliffs continue to draw period and action units; the 2026 production Animol filmed at The Citadel in Dover. Inland, Maidstone is Kent's county town and home to Maidstone Studios' television stages, while Penshurst Place and Hever Castle near Sevenoaks and Edenbridge keep drawing Tudor and period dramas, from Anne of the Thousand Days to The Other Boleyn Girl and Wolf Hall.

Buckinghamshire: the Chilterns and Pinewood's back garden

Sitting just behind Hertfordshire and Greater London in Kuoni's UK county ranking, Buckinghamshire has the obvious advantage of Iver, home to Pinewood Studios. When a major feature is based at Pinewood, location scouts naturally look at the lanes, country parks and woodland nearby for quick exterior days, and Buckinghamshire Council's country parks list credits from Harry Potter and Casino Royale to Eternals.

Head north-west into the Chilterns around High Wycombe and you hit one of the most filmed estates in southern England. West Wycombe Park has appeared in everything from The Crown to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Further along the ridge near Pitstone and Ivinghoe, Pitstone Quarry's stark chalk landscape became the wasteland known as the Void in Marvel's Deadpool & Wolverine.

Oxfordshire: premium streets and famous spires

Oxfordshire also made the top six in Kuoni's county ranking, and anyone who has ever tried to arrange a unit base in Oxford city centre knows how tightly managed the permits are. Oxfordshire County Council charges a higher daily rate for filming on a list of premium streets in central Oxford, including Broad Street, Turl Street and Merton Street.

University colleges and libraries do most of the starring. Christ Church's staircase and cloisters and the Bodleian's Divinity School appear in the Harry Potter films, Radcliffe Square and the Bodleian's quads feature in Wonka, and colleges including Brasenose and Magdalen appear in Saltburn, alongside decades of Inspector Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. Just up the road in Woodstock, Blenheim Palace regularly stands in for royal palaces, with credits including Napoleon, The Young Victoria and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Berkshire: the M4 studio corridor

Berkshire has quietly become a powerhouse for film crews thanks to studio growth at Shinfield Studios, Arborfield Studios and Bray Film Studios. That growth along the M4 feeds straight into location requests in Reading and Windsor, with the Berkshire Film Office acting as a hub for filming requests across the county's six councils.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead runs its own film unit for the borough, while filming in Windsor Great Park is arranged with The Crown Estate. The parkland has hosted major productions, including Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday. Meanwhile, Reading and the surrounding Wokingham area provide modern streetscapes, business parks and easy motorway access for commercial and television crews working out of Shinfield.

Sussex: seafronts, chalk cliffs and steam trains

Both East and West Sussex see steady location traffic, coordinated largely through the Sussex Film Office, which helps crews with permits, road closures and coastal permissions. Sussex also placed among the top five regions in the UK Coastal Screen Index 2026, with 30 confirmed productions.

Brighton and Hove is a favourite coastal filming city. Between the Palace Pier, the Royal Pavilion and rows of Regency terraces, the city has hosted My Policeman, Quadrophenia and ITV's detective series Grace. Drive east towards Eastbourne and Seaford and you reach the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, a favourite for sweeping coastal shots, seen in Atonement and Wicked.

Over in West Sussex, the town of Arundel stood in for 1920s Littlehampton in Wicked Little Letters, while the Bluebell Railway near East Grinstead is regularly used whenever a period production such as Downton Abbey or The Theory of Everything needs authentic steam trains and period platforms.

Hampshire: cathedrals and aviation stages

Rounding out the corridor is Hampshire, which blends historic city centres with stage and hall space in the north of the county.

In Winchester, the city council handles filming across the district. Winchester Cathedral has doubled for the Vatican in The Da Vinci Code and for Westminster Abbey in The Crown. Further north, Farnborough International Studios has hosted productions including Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Belfast, and the military training land around Aldershot has appeared in James Bond films including Die Another Day. Near the Berkshire border, Highclere Castle remains globally recognisable as the real-life Downton Abbey.

Keeping crews safe on location

Shooting away from a controlled studio floor always brings extra logistical headaches. Working on exposed chalk cliffs at Beachy Head, deep inside forestry tracks at Bourne Wood, or during night shoots and road closures in Oxford and Chatham needs proper planning before a single camera rolls. Councils, landowners and heritage sites commonly ask for a risk assessment before they give permission, and some, such as The Historic Dockyard Chatham, ask for full risk assessments and method statements covering stunts and special effects.

From our base in Alfold, Surrey, Medirek supports production teams across every one of these counties. We match staffing to each production's risk, with qualifications ranging from FREC 3, FREC 4, ECA and RTACC through to HCPC-registered paramedics and nurses, and doctors where the risk calls for it. We have 4×4-capable response vehicles for off-road locations, and we arrange ambulance cover and conveyance where the risk assessment calls for it. Our staff work under production NDAs, and we endeavour to help all productions, including last-minute requests where possible.

Medical and safety cover in these areas

Sources and further reading

Production titles are mentioned to describe the locations and remain the property of their owners. Mentioning a production or location does not mean Medirek worked on it.

Where the Cameras Keep Rolling: The Most Filmed Towns and Counties in the South and South East