Revealed: Yorkshire is the UK's most popular filming location

Yorkshire is now the most popular British county for film and TV shoots.
Castle HowardCastle Howard
Castle Howard

A total of 559 productions have now been shot in West and North Yorkshire, making their combined total higher than Kent’s, where 401 films and TV shows have been filmed.

Research by Go Compare also highlighted the locations in each county that appear most frequently on film. Harewood House, Bramham Park, York Minster and Castle Howard are period drama staples, while the preserved heritage stations at Keighley and Pickering often appear in railway scenes, and are handy for filming train movements away from busy main lines.

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Click on the link above to see which films were shot at the most popular locations.

Screen Yorkshire, which scouts suitable locations for production companies, has played a major role in securing shoots for the region, whether producers require historic buildings, gothic landscapes or modern cities.

They are currently involved in the filming of Official Secrets, a spy thriller starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes which has utilised locations as diverse as the British Library in Boston Spa, Otley police station, Roundhay Park boathouse and Chapel Allerton Tennis and Squash Club.

BBC gangster drama Peaky Blinders is another high-profile show that uses local sets - despite being set in 1920s Birmingham, which lost many of its period buildings to re-development. Leeds Town Hall, City Varieties, the Braimes Pressings factory and a church in Headingley all make an appearance, while locations in Bradford include Peel Park and Undercliffe Cemetery. For rural scenes, Bolton Abbey and Newby Hall were used, and Victorian mills such as Salts Mill in Saltaire appear.

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Even blockbuster movies such as the Harry Potter franchise have used Yorkshire locations - Pickering Station and Malham Cove both appear in the films.

The huge variety and diversity of buildings and countryside in Yorkshire is a major factor in its rise as ‘Britain’s Hollywood’, as well as its good transport links, relatively cheap accommodation for cast and crew, and access to a large and diverse population who can appear as extras.