Blog - News

July 26, 2024

By Guest Author

The borough of Waverley in Surrey is a unique offering within South East England’s production landscape. Just one hour from central London and 25 miles from the Shepperton Studio, Waverley has welcomed some of film and TV’s most ambitious productions, including Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon and Wicked to name a few!

Waverley has four major towns: Godalming, Haslemere, Cranleigh and Farnham. With beautiful villages and picturesque countryside in between them, a wide range of filming locations are available to productions – including historic buildings, office space, countryside, historic and modern parks, car parks and lakes. With so much filming opportunity in Waverley, there is a network of contacts who are on hand to support filming – whether it be police, highways, or key location owners. View a handy guide to filming in Waverley here.

Join us as we explore just a few of Waverley’s many filming gems and take a look at the phenomenal productions that have chosen to film there.

Location Spotlight: Farnham Park

Managed by Waverley Borough Council, Farnham Park is a 320-acre medieval deer park which has retained much of its 17th century parkland character. It offers avenues, hidden dells, historic house, hills, valleys, open grassland, ponds, streams, ancient trees, golf club, play areas and an impressive one-kilometre tree lined avenue.

The tree avenue at Farnham Park

Location Spotlight: Frensham Great Pond

Frensham Great Pond and Common covers roughly 1,000 acres of attractive countryside and is owned by the National Trust. Most of the land is managed by Waverley Borough Council.

The common is made up of a large area of heathland, together woodland, and two large ponds, known as Frensham Great and Little Ponds, which were built in the Middle Ages to provide fish for the Bishop of Winchester’s estate.

The site is a SSSI and an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and includes dry heath, wet heath, open water, reedbeds, alder carr and woodland.

Frensham Great Pond is managed by Waverley Borough Council and is able to accommodate both filming and unit base parking.  Not only is it a beautiful backdrop, but also it’s registered bathing water and also features a man-made sandy beach.

Frensham Great Pond

Filmed in Waverley

Want to find out what’s been filming in Waverley over recent years? The borough’s myriad of popular locations has attracted some of film and TV’s biggest players:

  • Netflix’s The Sandman (2022) – National Trust’s and WBC Frensham Little Pond & Common
  • Apple TV’s Napoleon (2023) – Bourne Wood
  • The upcoming Universal Pictures’ Wicked (2024) – Hankley Common
  • HBO’s House of the Dragon Season 2 (2024) – Bourne Wood
The Sandman © Liam Daniel/Netflix 2022
  • Amazon drama The Devil’s Hour Season 3 – Old Valley Farm
  • Disney+’s Renegade Nell (2024) – Bourne Wood and Frensham Common
  • Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 (2024) – Frensham Common
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 © Amazon Studios
  • Netflix’s Heartstopper Season 2 (2024)- University for the Creative Arts (UCA), Farnham
  • Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) – Bourne Wood
  • Amazon’s Heads of State – Bramley Training Area 
Heartstopper Season 2 at UCA © Netflix

For filming enquiries in Waverley Borough, please contact Film Waverley at filmwaverley@waverley.gov.uk or call +44 (0)1483 523322.   For filming in the wider county of Surrey, please contact Surrey Film Office.  For more information on filming in the South East, please get in touch with Joely Ellis, our Production Liaison Manager for the East and South East joely.ellis@creativeengland.co.uk.