Kingsman: The Golden Circle | 2017

Discover where sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle was filmed around London, including the 'Huntsman' store in Savile Row, posh St James's; Camberley in Surrey; Birmingham city centre; Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire; Althorp House in Northamptonshire; and Valle d'Aosta in Italy.

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In front of Huntsman, 11 Savile Row, London W1, established as the front for the Kingsman organisation, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is confronted by Kingsman reject Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft) who, it turns out was not killed at the end of the first film.

He has, however, sided with the bad guys who've equipped him with a computerised bionic arm. Eggsy is bundled into a cab and, during the ensuing fight, the vehicle careers out of control.

As seems to be happening frequently, the action sequence was filmed away from the capital. The speeding cab races along Colmore Row and Victoria Square in the centre of Birmingham in the West Midlands.

But when the driver gets a blade in the neck and the cab crashes into bollards, we're back in the heart of London, on Waterloo Place at Pall Mall, outside the Athenaeum Club.

Boxed in, Eggsy takes over the wheel putting the cab into super duper Bond-car mode, moving sideways before zooming off.

He crashes through the gates of Hyde Park Corner into Hyde Park ending up alongside the Serpentine Cafe, where Merlin (Mark Strong) instructs him to drive into the lake itself.

Fortunately, the organisation has seen fit to equip the Serpentine with a secure underwater chamber for just such an occurrence, so Eggsy is able to escape through the sewers. He pops up, though slightly soiled, in front of the mews house on Stanhope Mews South near Gloucester Road that belonged to Harry in the first film.

There's a brief shot of his old housing estate in South Hampstead, where he asks mate Barndon to look after his dog while he heads off to meet the parents of his girlfriend Princess Tilde (Hanna Alström). Her folks happen to be the King and Queen of Sweden.

The establishing shot of their palatial home is Schwerin Castle, not in Sweden but Germany. The 19th-century Schloss sits on an island in Lake Schwerin in the city of Schwerin, about 70 miles east of Hamburg in northern Germany. It houses the regional parliament, and it's not hard to see why the castle has been dubbed the "Neuschwanstein of the North".

The castle's dining room and other interiors were filmed in Althorp House, six miles northwest of Northampton on the A428 in Northamptonshire. Since 1508, Althorp has been the family seat of the Spencer family and is now probably most famous as being the last resting place of Princess Diana,.

Althorp is also seen, this time both exterior and interior, as the fictitious 'Morton Manor Hotel', where Tilde presents Eggsy with a new puppy before he slips off to 'Glastonbury'.

It's claimed that this is the first time Althorp has been used as a film location, but it was actually featured in 1984's Another Country – which also starred Colin Firth.

With Richmond Valentine having been disposed of, there's a new villain in the form of Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore) head of the 'Golden Circle', the world's biggest drug cartel.

She runs her organisation from 'Poppyland', a crazy Fifties-themed hideout built among supposedly undiscovered ruins in 'Cambodia'. The fantasy lair was a huge set built on the lot at Longcross Studio, a former aircraft plant north of Chobham in Surrey, about 25 miles west of London.

With two stars of The Big Lebowski in the cast, I suppose the inclusion of a bowling alley was inevitable. Poppy's lanes, where Charlie is presented with his upgraded "Arm-ageddon", is Tenpin Camberley (dressed to fit the vine-covered ruins theme) in The Atrium shopping centre, Lower Charles Street, Camberley, Surrey, about nine miles west of the studio.

Similarly dressed is the interior of the Eventim Apollo, better known as the old Hammersmith Apollo on Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith W6, which was transformed into Poppy's amphitheatre, where Elton John is being held prisoner.

The Golden Circle launches a savage blitz on the Kingsman organisation, taking out the Huntsman shop, Eggsy's flat and the Kingsman HQ – which is Wrotham Park, on Barnet Road north of Barnet in Hertfordshire, as seen in the first film.

With many of the Kingsman personnel wiped out, Merlin puts into practice the 'Doomsday Protocol' at the backup Kingsman premises.

Even posher than Savile Row, this turns out to be Berry Bros and Rudd Wine Merchant, 3 St James's Street, W1, a stone's throw from St James's Palace. It's also just a couple of doors away from Lock & Co, the hat store where Samuel L Jackson got his Ascot topper in Kingsman: The Secret Service.

You might also recognise Berry Bros and Rudd as the office robbed by Estella (Emma Stone) and her crew in Disney's 2021 origin story Cruella.

The brick arched cellar really is that of Berry Bros and Rudd, though the secret safe where Merlin and Eggsy discover a bottle of 'Statesman Whiskey' was added for the film.

This bottle leads them to the "Statesman Bourbon" distillery in "Louisville, Kentucky" which is another digitally-enhanced studio set built in the UK.

They meet Agent Tequila (Channing Tatum) who reveals that Charlie was not the only one to survive the first film. Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is being kept here, though his wonky memory (from the head wound sustained in the previous film) needs to be restored so he can join them to counter Poppy's worldwide extortion scheme.

She's been adding a chemical to her products which induces first a 'blue rash' and ultimately death – and is now demanding a ransom for the antidote.

The stadium in which the caged 'infected' are held is Cardiff's Principality Stadium (formerly Millennium Stadium) the National Stadium of Wales in Cardiff, with a bit of digital manipulation. The stadium appears again (as 'Wembley Stadium') in 28 Weeks Later and 2001 Hindi smash Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham....

The Kingsmen overhear a phone called made to Charlie by his girlfriend from the phone box in Parliament Square, which reveals where the antidote is being manufactured.

Eggsy and Harry, along with Agents Tequila and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), head off to Italy and the Golden Circle's Bond-villain-style secret mountain-top laboratory.

I guess the secret hideout isn't as well-concealed as it might be for anyone with access to Google Earth. It stands out pretty dramatically against the dazzling whiteness of the slopes of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe.

It's reached by the Skyway Monte Bianco cable car near Courmayeur, an Alpine resort in Aosta Valley, northwest Italy on the French border.

Taking over three years to construct and costing 110 million euros, the cable car had only recently opened, in 2015. If you want to visit, the nearest airport is Turin Airport, about 90 miles southeast.

The base station for the cable car is in the village of La Palud, north of Courmayeur. The Skyway rises to a mid-way station at Pavillon Du Mont-Fréty, where there's a restaurant, conference centre and a botanical garden.

From here a second cable car, offering stupendous views at it slowly revolves, continues on to reach Pointe Helbronner. It's this upper section of the Skyway that's used in the film, with Pointe Helbronner standing in for the Golden Circle laboratory.

When the cable car flies loose, disaster is averted only when it's slowed down by a parachute emblazoned with the stars'n'stripes – in a sly nod to the Union Flag parachute in The Spy Who Loved Me.

The villain's scheme routed, Eggsy finally marries Tilde in the Chapel at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Old Royal Naval College, King William Walk, London SE10. Fortunately, the service is not conducted by Rowan Atkinson who famously made his "holy goat" gaffe here in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

The Old Royal Naval College itself is a screen veteran, recently standing in for ‘Paris’ in Les Misérables, as well as being seen in the likes of The Madness Of King George, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Cruella, The Duchess, Young Victoria, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella and many other productions.

In a postscript, Tequila – now properly suited – arrives at the new Kingsman tailor store alongside Berry Bros & Rudd on St James's Street with the Royal palace in the background.

And the new 'Kingsman' shop is 4 St James's Street, a part of Berry Bros & Rudd premises.

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