Famous UK film locations

To offer people UK travel inspiration, we’ve been building a gallery of famous film locations.

Film people are expert at finding great locations for the obvious reasons.  I remember watching Val Kilmer acting a scene from ‘The Saint’ outside the Bodleian Library in Oxford in the 1990s.  The BBC shot a scene from a Charles Dickens’ novel in a house we used to live in within the village of Hambleden, Berkshire a couple of years later.  Then there was Johnny Depp in a forest by Henley-on-Thames and Spielberg’s ‘Band of Brothers’ in roughly the same area.  Recently, we took the little people for a picnic on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere in the Pewsey Vale, Wiltshire when half a dozen US WW2 vehicles pulled up with twenty or so actors in full army kit.  No idea what they were doing but we left when they said they needed to fire guns.

Watching them work was pretty dull to be honest.  There is an astonishing amount of standing around and the line ‘then we must celebrate’ from the Dickens’ adaptation will stay in my mind forever becasue they shot the short scene about twenty times in a row.  Nice people did stop the shoot so we could feed our dog though.

Back to the locations, if you could add any UK film locations or @picturetheuk on Twitter that would be appreciated.

St Ives, Cornwall

We’ve photographed St Ives, Cornwall and the surrounding area three times so far in 2009.  We plan to go back for Summer and Autumn too. 

It’s an exceptional place.  Twice, we’ve parked at the top of the town (expensive but ticket lasts all day) and walked down a well marked path to the harbour and beach.  Behind the harbour, the path leads to the chapel  at the top of  St Ives Island  from where the views across Porthmeor Beach and back towards the harbour are superb.  You can pick out the white building of Tate St Ives behind Porthmeor Beach very easily.

It’s really worth exploring the general area, too.  St Ives Bay to the east and north styles itself as one of the most beautiful bays in the world.  The beaches are packed with surfers and to the north, around Godrevy Point and Island, there are spectacular cliffs and sandy coves full of seals.

To the south of St Ives, along more exceptional coastline, you’ll find the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site and further still the white sand at Sennen Cove Beach.  Then it’s Lands End.

We’re building a database of attractions around St Ives so please explore the area here or even contribute to the project.  We geo-locate attractions, hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, petrol stations etc on a map too.

Any suggestions as to other content we should add, pls post below or @picturetheuk on Twitter.

England’s Top Towns

We noticed a VisitEngland report on the top ‘towns’ in England.  The list was generated from visitor stats and is pretty much in line with what one would expect.  First up, London and then Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Blackpool, York, Scarborough, Newcastle upon Tyne and, finally, Liverpool.  Would have expected Bath to be in there too but hey-ho.

However,  if you park the stats to one side, there are dozens of other candidates for the title of ‘Top Town’.  We’ve collected some candidates across the UK  here (towns, literally) and here (cities).

We’d love other suggestions too.  As ever, pls post this blog or @picturetheuk on Twitter.

Where’s the UK’s Tuscany?

A few weeks ago, a Parisian asked if the UK had an equivalent to Tuscany.  Rolling hills, lush countryside, pretty villages, great food etc.  The UK equivalent had to be a wealthy area, too.  I suggested the Chilterns AONB and then asked others on Twitter:

roryjmaxwell@picturetheuk The Cotswolds?

JonathanFoyle@picturetheuk Yes, Suffolk is the UK’s Tuscany (good food, historic buildings)and Bavaria would be the Wye Valley for me.

Now I’m thinking the Cotswolds AONB is probably the best equivalent but if you have others suggestions pls add below or @picturetheuk on Twitter.  Cheers.

The UK’s ‘prettiest village’

Was uploading some images for a Wiltshire village called Castle Combe and noticed that it styled itself as ‘the prettiest village in England’.

It’s pretty, extremely pretty but then there are Dunster in Somerset or Bibury in Gloucestershire or Beddgelert in Gwynedd or Elgol on Skye.  If you bump into this post as the years roll on, can you pls add yours or @picturetheuk on Twitter with your suggestions or contact me with whatever bit of technology we’re all using at that point.  Thanks.  (ps, if you Tweet etc I’ll copy and paste in comments below).

We’re also creating a gallery of inspirational UK villages here if interested.

Photographing Shropshire

Tweeted a question the other day (under name @picturetheuk): ’so where’s best to start photographing Shropshire then? Will be heading up the M5 soon and would love some recommendations ‘

Received some great recommendations via Twitter which are listed below.   If you have others, we’re all ears.   And if you have any photos, we’d love to publish them too.  If you have suggestions pls tweet to share or write them up here.

tannwick@picturetheuk Will retweet for others, but I would go for the Stiperstones – then over to the Long Mynd. Ellesemere good also….

tannwick@picturetheuk ….Titterstone Clee near Ludlow also has some good areas – quite industrial, as is Snailbeach lead mine.

HoptonHouseBnB@tannwick @picturetheuk Excuse the interrupt Clun Valley, Clee & Ludlow from Whitcliffe Common, Hopton Castle, Clun Castle

HoptonHouseBnB@tannwick Actually the last time I couldn’t stop wowing was when we drove up to Springhill Farm on Offas Dyke past Clun

HoptonHouseBnB@tannwick Have to say that driving to & from Ludlow this evening was absolutely breathtaking. Clee on the way there & on the way back…

tannwick@picturetheuk Moreton Corbett Castle outside Shawbury is good also (have to give my local fave?) together with Grinshill & The Wrekin

tannwickRT @picturetheuk @cameraboy56: @tannwick Try the Ironbridge area some good shots to be had around there..< Very true!

Inspiration

Here’s a tweet from an travel entreprenuer: ‘Love potential of inspiration search. Fave stat: Top 15 cities still = 57% of travel’.  (Twitter @hugoburge).  It ends ‘Dull!’.  Yep.

As more photography rolls in to PictureTheUK and as we travel the UK discovering new places, it’s become an almost daily occurence to think, ‘wow, didn’t know that existed’ or ‘wow, that looks like an interesting place’ or ‘wow, why didn’t anyone tell us about that’. 

‘Wow’ is a constant, genuine reaction.

So there’s the gap, inspiring people to visit these new places, to make the act of discovery a pleasure, to show how easy it is to get at these ‘wow’ experiences.

Collaboration

We’ve been running an experiment over the last month or so.  In short, we began the process of ‘opening up’ the site to see if and why people would contribute to the picturethuk project.  The results have been pretty amazing. 

It seems that people want to contribute or collaborate for all sorts of different reasons.  There are those – like me (a co-founder of the site) who just get very excited about landscapes/buildings/local people/local knowledge and want to add to a site that gathers such information.  Then there are those who collaborate to get something back.  It might be a link or direct or indirect promotion of their business (a holiday cottage) or trade (a photographer).  And then there are those who collaborate because it’s their job to do so. 

We’re quite close to launching a more comprehensive community section so it’s going to be interesting to see how this process of collaboration evolves.

Tourism strategy for 2012

If you’re interested in UK tourism, this document is invaluable.  It’s the UK government’s tourism strategy leading up to the 2012 Olympics and it’s packed with useful stats and info.

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/tourism/3446.aspx

UK Tourist Attractions on ‘picturetheuk’

picturetheuk’s first stage of development started in March 2008 and lasted about six months.  In September, we started the process of ‘opening up’ the site such that tourist attractions, hoteliers, enthusiasts etc could start contributing material to the site. 

It takes time to get these things going but the effort is paying off.  We’re now receivng a great deal of high quality material form attractions, businesses and users. 

The more material we add, the more traffic we receive from long tail searches (naturally, about 85% of it is Google traffic).  Interestingly, this week, I’ve noticed loads of referrals coming for hotels, inns, B&Bs etc as a result of work completed in September.

Happy days.