Famous Five 90s Series

[Boatbuilder]

It's filmed in Port Isaac, Chrissie - just a few miles up the coast from Padstow.
Doc Martin's Surgery is even marked on Google maps.

Thank you, John!
I've never been to Port Isaac.
It's amazing what Google Maps mentions now on their maps (and also what they skip like the little fishing village Erbalungha (sp?) on Corsica's Northeast coast which I've just searched in vain this morning for a friend who's on her way to Corsica).

If you zoom in far enough you will find it, Chrissie. The link below shows it on the Google UK maps. There are so many tiny places that if they showed them all at all zoom levels they would all overlap and make the maps unreadable.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Erb ... d9.4745493" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Chrissie777]

Wow!!!
You found ERbalunga indeed. That's really great.
Thank you!

BTW I'm zooming in on Google Maps all the time enlarging the map and then changing to satellite view (right now I'm trying to find the Calanque near Marseille where "Fabio Montale" (2001, Alain Delon) was filmed which is still an unsolved riddle at this point), but Erbalunga still didn't show up on my US Google Map for Corsica even though I know the vague location on the Northeast coast.
No matter how much I enlarged Google Map Corsica, almost no village names showed up. Very strange.
All I remembered is that it's located between Bastia and Centuri Port in the north of the isle. Very picturesque.

[Boatbuilder]

That's strange, Chrissie. I have just tried the Google.com version and it shows up. I assume that is the URL you are using: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.7739243 ... 551,15.99z" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here is Calanque near Marseille on the same .com website: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Parc+ ... d5.4313231" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[timv]

The filming of Five On A Hike Together for this series was done at Woodchester Mansion and Park near Stroud, Gloucs - an unfinished 1860s Gothic country house that has a reputation for being haunted, appropriately for a FF mystery. This is some miles NE of the HTV studios in Bristol where the second series was based, and the wooded deep Cotswold valleys can be seen in the shots. It's a few miles from the village and valley of Slad where the writer Laurie Lee grew up, which I have been to; 'Cider With Rosie' is one of my favourite books and I was thrilled to see LL's home and school. Very picturesque, but a nightmare to get to when snow or ice is on the roads!

The view of the house as the children arrive there at 12 mins, 25 secs into the YouTube download of Hike Together can be compared to a photo of the mansion taken from the same angle on the 'www.geograph.org.uk' website, at square S08001/ photo 5179364 by Philip Halling - the gables, roofs, windows etc are identical so this is clearly it.
The interior of the building is at square S08001/ photo 116861 by David Exworth, cf shot of the children in the same passageway at 12 mins 34 secs in to the film.

'Gloomy Water', aka the Middle Pond at Woodchester Mansion's park, is at square SO8201/ photo 931925 by Brian Robert Marshall and ibid , photo 6311107 by Philip Hallong; cf film at 17 mins 34 secs into the episode of the children at the lake.

The 1978 version at Sowley Pond is perhaps more exciting, with the villains' boat capsizing in the middle of the lake: did 'Health and Safety' fears stop this in 1995? In the more recent version, we also just have George wading across the lake to find 'Saucy Jane' in the bushes not any diving!

[number 6]

The 1978 version at Sowley Pond is perhaps more exciting, with the villains' boat capsizing in the middle of the lake: did 'Health and Safety' fears stop this in 1995? In the more recent version, we also just have George wading across the lake to find 'Saucy Jane' in the bushes not any diving!

Great stuff, Tim. Very interesting to know where some of the locations are. Good work once again. I've not yet started to re-watch the 90's series, so I can't yet be of any help to you regarding identifying locations. Yes, I think you're right regarding Health and Safety being more strict than in the 78 series, and is no doubt the reason why George is only wading across the lake in the later version.

[Moonraker]

Thank you, John!
I've never been to Port Isaac.
It's amazing what Google Maps mentions now on their maps....

I wonder if they mention Kirrin Island!

[Boatbuilder]

There is a Kirrin Cottage where you can stay for £546 per week, not far away from Port Isaac, in Padstow.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Kir ... -4.9384714" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.cornishhorizons.co.uk/north ... in-cottage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And one in Bedfordshire: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Kir ... -0.5124678" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Alternatively there is a Kirrin Island that's not an island - in New Zealand.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Kir ... 72.3671492" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Moonraker]

There is a Kirrin Cottage where you can stay for £546 per week, not far away from Port Isaac, in Padstow.

Yes, I have stood outside it! There is also a Kirin Brewery, albeit it with a slightly different spelling!

[timv]

In the 1995 version of Five Have a Mystery to Solve, there is a good shot of 'Whispering Island' when the Five are looking at it from a nearby clifftop at 4 mins, 36 secs into the episode.

Then compare it with the photos at 'www.geograph.org.uk' , square 5647: photo 4401573 by Roger Cornfoot, 'Inner Stone and Broad Strand' and photo 4069545, 'Outer Stone, near Berrynarbor, Devon' by Edmund Shaw.

This shows that the scene was shot at Broad Strand beach, just East of Watermouth Castle on the N Devon coast a few miles from Ilfracombe. This website doesn't have any photos of the beach looking inwards to the cliffs to see if this is also the cove where the Five land their boat ( 6 mins, 25 secs in) and it drifts out to sea (7 min, 25 secs); the best views of this cove are a 'panning' shot at 9 mins, 30-33 secs from right to left across the beach.But from the look of the beach , sandstone cliffs, and general scenery it seems to be somewhere around the Ilfracombe / Watermouth Bay region; I'll see what photos I can find. This bit of N Devon coast also features in Five Fall Into Adventure, though I suspect the sand-dune beach scenes were done at Braunton further W where there are no cliffs.

By contrast , the shot of 'Red Tower's hideout' at 15 mins 33 secs into Five Fall Into Adventure is clearly one of Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, as you can see from any number of Google and tourist photos of it. A bit big for any vlllain to own except in a Bond film! But the opening shot in the episode, of the master-villain arriving at his lair and striding up to his castle's gatehouse , does not fit Bamburgh and looks like somewhere inland with white not brown stone - so I wonder if the series just used a stock Tyne Tees TV owned image of the castle and shot most of the episode elsewhere...

[Tony Summerfield]

A quick contribution from me - Tremannon Farm in Five Go Down to the Sea was actually in the Cotswolds. It was Fernley Farm, Ozleworth, near Wotton-Under-Edge.

[timv]

Thanks for that one, Tony! I suspect that assorted shots of the Five in anonymous countryside are in fact somewhere around the Cotswolds, near Bristol, unless they're in wooded valleys around Bath on the N side of the Mendips or in NW Somerset around Dunster and Bossington/ Minehead ; Exmoor would be more open. Most of the local houses shown are brownish or grey stone, more Cotswolds than Exmoor (where we would have more white walls and thatched roofs). The 'woods on Whispering Island' in Mystery To Solve ditto, given that the island off Broad Strand which was used as WI is too small for any woods to be there.

The castle in Wonderful Time is also a mystery; I've done enough books on castles to know most of the SW England and Welsh Marches castles and it's not one of the main ones, and there are very few in the Cotswolds or Devon. The open countryside with views to a distant line of hills in Billycock Hill are similarly difficult to place, though I would guess E Exmoor with the Quantocks or near the Mendips.

The shot of the Five and Jo on a clifftop eating ice-cream at 3 mins, 17 secs into Fall Into Adventure looks like the Lynmouth to Ilfracombe area to me; I used to live on the opposite, S Wales coast of the Bristol Channel and the line of cliffs looks familiar.

As with the 1978 series, sitcom stars forumites may have seen pop up in unexpected places. The actor playing Mr Gringle in Billycock Hill is Trevor Peacock, aka Jim Trott in 'The Vicar of Dibley'; the woman who runs the bed and breakfast at Blue Pond Farm in Hike Together is Judy Cornwell, aka Hyacinth's sister Daisy in 'Keeping Up Appearances' (BBC 1990-6) and Hyacinth's husband Richard, ie Clive Swift, is villain Geoffrey Pottersham in Wonderful Time!

[Anita Bensoussane]

According to the opening post by Ness in the 'TV locations for the Famous Five series' thread, the castle and grounds in Five Have a Wonderful Time are Caldicott Castle and grounds in Monmouthshire. Ness's post also mentions locations from Five Fall Into Adventure :

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/for ... =22&t=2173" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[timv]

Thanks for this, Anita. Caldicot is just over the Severn Bridge from Bristol so convenient for trips from a base at the HTV studios; Matfen is somewhere I would never have thought of looking as it is in a remote area of Northumberland near Hexham, ditto Bothal in Co. Durham. Matfen is also frequently used in the Northumberland scenes of Lorna Hill's 1950s-70s ballet books , the 'Sadlers Wells' series.

[timv]

The likeliest site used for 'Professor Hayling's house' in the adaptation of Five Are Together Again in 1995 appears to be Lydney Court, an 'Arts and Crafts' late C19th manor house overlooking the village of Lydney on the W side of the upper Severn estuary, a few miles from Gloucester - and a short drive up the riverside from the W end of the Severn bridge for the crew and cast heading from HTV in Bristol. (This is on the fringes of the Forest of Dean, with its famous reintroduced wild boars and TV presenter Kate Humble's organic farm.) JRR Tolkien once helped the local archaeological 'dig' at the nearby ancient Romano-British pagan temple site , built in the C4th AD.

Lydney Park's gardens are open to the public so you can see various photos of them and the house on the internet;I have been past it by train but never been inside. I am not quite sure about the location, as the shots of the house (eg Tinker welcoming the Five on their bikes outside the front door at I min 5 secs into the YouTube download and Mr Wooh demonstrating his magic tricks on the lawn at 6 mins 42-45 secs in) are not quite identical to the modern photos of it. But there is a similar tower in the right place and a similar line of windows, and alterations may have been made since 1995. The terrace, steps and lawns are similar.

The best clue to the location, which gave me the idea that it is close to the River Severn and its wide valley, is the views from the house and its outside terrace over the nearby valley. At 3 mins, 34 secs and 45 secs in you have the circus arriving in the field next to the house, with the children watching from the terrace and a view to a wide valley behind the circus. At 7 mins, 42 secs in to 8 mins in, Mr Tapper talks to the children on the lawn with the same view behind him. You can see shots of water in the valley - more likely an estuary than a lake, and if so the Severn is the only candidate around Bristol.This would be the winding upper reaches of the Severn close to Gloucester.

It is not conclusive yet, but I will keep checking - and there are not many similar houses on the ridges overlooking the Severn, with a view to the river. The 'Oriental garden' with its pagoda and bridge remains a mystery, unless this was at a country house where someone has redesigned it since. Forumites may recognise 'Mr Wooh' as Brian Murphy, aka 'George Roper' the seedy landlord from the ITV sitcoms 'Man About the House' and 'George and Mildred'. This adaptation is quite close to the book except for no Kirrin Island and no Prof Hayling - and Tinker is older and less irritating than in the written version!

[sayantani]

Just been watching the 90s Five Run Away..a good rendition though brief in duration. What is the real filming location of Kirrin Island?
I wish the 90s series had been more detailed..the period settings were excellent but the series is marred by too much of shortening of the original stories.