TV & Film Locations

Fabulous scenery looks good on camera, and in Cumbria we have plenty of it to go around. The Lake District has been a natural set for a host of films, including Miss Potter (2006), starring Renee Zellweger in the title role. Locations included Loughrigg and Grasmere as well as Yew Tree Farm in Coniston, which was conveniently owned by Potter herself. Her most famous creation, Peter Rabbit, was made into a film in 2018 starring James Corden, Daisy Ridley and Margot Robbie, and parts of it were filmed around Ambleside and Windermere.
 
1980s cult classic Withnail and I is largely set in and around Penrith, but most of the filming was done at Shap and Bampton, in the northeastern corner of Lake District National Park. Arthur Ransome’s much-loved Swallows and Amazons is centred on the Lake District and has been brought to the screen twice – in 1974 and 2016 – with parts of the original shot around Windermere and the remake around Coniston and Derwentwater.
 
But the Lake District is also a popular setting for films not necessarily connected to the area, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which saw Derwentwater and the surrounding countryside stand in for the planet of Takodana – two X-Wing fighters ‘fly’ across the lake from Walla Crag in one of the film’s most spectacular scenes.
 
Middle Fell Bridge in the Langdale Valley made an appearance in the classic film Brief Encounter (1945), while Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) was also partly shot in the valley, at Blea Tarn and Cathedral Cave. Finally, the Lake District was chosen as Cillian Murphy’s escape in 28 Days Later – he leaves a virus-torn London and makes his way to Ennerdale, which appears as a blissful retreat from the zombie apocalypse!