Written by Tom Deehan on Jan 24, 2017. Posted in On Location / Production News

London and Buckinghamshire serve as the backdrop for BBC drama, Apple Tree Yard

Apple Tree Yard, the new BBC drama about an extramarital affair that soon spirals out of control, was shot largely in London and partially in Buckinghamshire. The four part series is produced by Kudos, the company behind Broadchurch and Humans.

With some of the key scenes taking place in the houses of Parliament, Supervising Location Manager Jo Randall searched for a convincing double. Interior shots of parliament were filmed a function room at St. Mary’s College and at Guildhall.

Parliament’s exterior was sourced outside King’s College’s Maughan Library, while scenes were shot around Westminster and at Southwark Bridge with the help of the City of London, Westminster Film Office and FilmFixer.

FilmFixer also recently assisted production on Woody Harrelson’s live feature, Lost in London.

An additional location was Fitzrovia Chapel, of which Jo explains was: “a beautiful gold and mosaic chapel that used to be part of Middlesex Hospital, which was demolished and a new modernised office and flat environment has been built around it. We found it on JJ Locations.”

The series has been adapted from Louise Doughty’s novel of the same name, and stars Emily Watson alongside Ben Chaplin.

Due to the book’s London setting, the production team opted to maintain consistency with the source material. The BBC’s recent period dramas on the other hand have preferred locations in the North of England.

Rillington Place doubled Glasgow for an early 20^th century London while The Witness for the Prosecution found its cheat in Liverpool.

High-end dramas such as these can receive a 25% tax rebate if a minimum of GBP1 million is spent per broadcast hour, whilst filming in the UK. The tax incentive has allowed the UK to thrive as a production hub for television programming as well as feature films.