Where Did They Film Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light?

In summer 2014, a star-studded cast gathered in some of Britain’s most treasured stately homes to film what would become a whopping success. Based on Hillary Mantel’s historical novels Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up The Bodies (2012), the BBC’s adaptation of Wolf Hall captivated audiences across the globe when it first aired in 2015, reintroducing the story of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of Henry VIII. Next up, The Mirror and the Light: a sequel series picking up where the last left off, adapting Mantel’s final novel of the same name.

Tudor garb and regal settings are the order of the day, grounding the whole series in verisimilitude. But where was Wolf Hall filmed? And what are the new settings added to the roster for The Mirror and the Light?

Thomas Cromwell (MARK RYLANCE) & Jane Seymour (KATE PHILLIPS) behind the scenes on episode 1 of Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. (BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs)

Where Was Wolf Hall Filmed?

Wolf Hall is filmed in historical houses across the UK, many maintained by the National Trust and thus open to the public, including Montacute House, Barrington Court, Lacock Abbey, Chastleton House, Horton Court and Great Chalfield Manor and Garden. ‘Many of the locations where Henry and his Court lived their lives no longer exist,’ director and executive producer Peter Kosminsky shares. ‘The challenge for us was to create spaces in buildings that were authentic in look and feel, that could help us evoke the sense of what life must have been like.’

A new addition for The Mirror and the Light, however, is Hampton Court Palace: King Henry VIII’s favourite residence during his lifetime. Kosminsky calls filming here ‘one big advantage’, describing ‘the wonderful reception of the historians and curators at Hampton Court Palace who welcomed us [the whole production] for the first time.’

‘The highlight for me, without a doubt, was the fact that we were permitted to film in the Great Hall at Hampton Court,’ Kosminsky says. ‘As far as I know, we are the first drama ever to be allowed to film in that room. Just to be able to walk our cast across that space which we knew Henry, Jane Seymour, and Thomas Cromwell had walked through in their time 500 years before was an extraordinary experience. The tapestries on the walls are said to be, after the Crown Jewels, the most valuable thing that England owns.’

But it’s not all opulence. ‘There was one [filming location] in particular which really struck me: the location we used for Hunsdon House, which had broken windows where jackdaws had flown through the chimneys,’ shares Lilit Lesser who joins The Mirror and the Light as Lady Mary. ‘It was dressed to be very rundown… You could feel the melancholy in the place. These fantastic torn tapestries that really fed this feeling of what, to Mary, felt like imprisonment and being forgotten in these shadowy halls.’

Filming in such historic locations does, however, come with challenges – and not just to protect the storied surroundings. ‘The whole series was shot on location and because we were shooting through a couple of seasons, there were times when the weather was freezing,’ executive producer Colin Callender shares. ‘So while the crew were chilled to the bone, the actors were all wrapped up in big fur coats or the sort of warm clothes that people would have worn at the time. There was no central heating, no carpets, it was all brickwork. So not only do you get the glorious visuals of the real Tudor world because we shot everything on location, but the feel of the locations, the light, the weather, the sound of footsteps on the stone floors, help create this very authentic mood that permeates the whole series.’

Lady Margaret Pole (HARRIET WALTER) in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. (BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs)

Wolf Hall Filming Locations

Back in 2014, Wolf Hall was originally intended to film in Belgium, ironically because it was thought to be cheaper and followed in the footsteps of recent BBC dramas like The White Queen (2013), set 70 years before the action of Wolf Hall. In the end, director Peter Kominsky knew it would not work – not least due to how disingenuous it would be to film in Europe when Mantel’s novels were overwhelmingly praised for their authenticity. ‘Shooting in these sort of European castles that look like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales – very tall steep tiled roofs – just don’t look like Tudor England at all,’ Kominsky said at the time.

Thanks to new tax breaks introduced by George Osborne in April 2013, filming for Wolf Hall got underway across the UK in summer 2014. ‘What we’re so lucky with in this country is that there are so many places you can go to that just breathe the time you’re playing, so you don’t have to construct much, it’s all there for your imagination,’ shares Harriet Walter, who plays Lady Margaret Pole. ‘There’s something very inspirational about knowing that this is where certain people stood that you might be playing, or a King visited this building. That’s all very helpful as an actor because you just need everything that your imagination can feed on.’

Filming locations in the original series included Berkeley Castle, Gloucester Cathedral, Horton Court, Penshurst Place, Broughton Castle, Chastleton House, Barrington Court, Cothay Manor, Montacute House, St Donat’s Castle, Great Chalfield Manor and Lacock Abbey – many of which reappear in the much-anticipated season 2. But new for The Mirror and the Light is…

Hampton Court Palace. (James Park-Watt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Hampton Court Palace, London

A new filming location for The Mirror and the Light is Hampton Court Palace, which provides an authentic Tudor backdrop for the series. Construction on the red- and pink-brick marvel commenced in 1514, with the structure proposed for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII’s chief minister. But as Wolsey fell from favour, the Palace was transferred to the King himself. It soon became his favourite place to be – and he quickly had it expanded to accommodate his cabal of courtiers.

‘To play Thomas Cromwell in the Great Hall at Hampton Court where he lived and worked is very spooky,’ Mark Rylance shares. ‘You get a shiver up your spine walking in the places where they walked and lived. It’s interesting to see this fantastic palace of power, and now it’s empty and all the politicians are in Westminster or at 9 Downing Street. How all that power fades, how it all just dissolves and reappears in other forms. These remarkable buildings are in many ways a bigger star of the programme than we are.

‘A delightful part of the job is these curious places,’ Rylance adds. ‘When I hit hard times I will do a Cromwell tour for American tourists coming to England – that will keep me going in my old age!’

Thomas Cromwell (MARK RYLANCE) in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. (BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs)

WATCH

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light begins at 9pm on Sunday 10 November on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

In the US, The Mirror and the Light will launch on 23 March 2025 on PBS.