Paddington 2 | 2017

The unexpectedly good sequel Paddington 2 returns to North London's Primrose Hill of course, but there are plenty of new – and some surprising – locations, including Notting Hill, Clerkenwell, Little Venice, Camden, both Hatfield House and Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire, as well as the Lake District and North Yorkshire.

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The 'Peruvian' prologue uses shots of the spectacular Iguaçu Falls (Iguazu Falls), at the junction of the Parana and the Iguaçu River on the border of Brazil and Argentina, close to Paraguay.

Previously seen onscreen in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ryan Coogler's 2018 Black Panther and The Mission, the falls can be reached from towns either side of the river, from Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, and from Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil. They’re also accessible from Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.

The nearest international airports are Cataratas del Iguazú International Airport (Argentina) or Foz do Iguaçu International Airport (Brazil).

In the UK, Paddington has settled in to become one of the beloved residents of 'Windsor Gardens' which, once again, is Chalcot Crescent in Primrose Hill, North London, where the Browns live at number 30.

The London of Paddington is a gently nostalgic fantasy city where there are still bright red, freshly-cleaned phone boxes on every street corner and newspapers sold from that charmingly old-fashioned street kiosk (which disappointingly doesn't exist in real life).

The adventures are triggered by pompous fading actor Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) who lives in the rather grander house overlooking that lovely (but non-existent) news kiosk.

His home is 1 Chalcot Square, with just a little digital tinkering. In real life, the house has a couple of oddly blocked-out windows, and the extra top floor is removed digitally to fit the film's aesthetic.

Mr Brown (Hugh Bonneville) is having something of a mid-life crisis when he's overlooked for promotion at his place of work, which is in The Shard, the UK’s tallest building, at 32 London Bridge Street, SE1.

Paddington is proving helpful to the locals, accompanying Mr Barnes (Robbie Gee) who's studying to become a postman on his dustcart rounds. The pastel-painted street and railway bridge (though not the lovely old train crossing it) are real. This is Hartland Road in Chalk Farm NW1, with the tower of Holy Trinity Church in the background, which was seen on screen way back in 1947 as the 'East End' in Robert Hamer's excellent downbeat drama It Always Rains On Sunday.

On a visit to Gruber's Antique Shop, once again Alice's Antiques, 86 Portobello Road in Notting Hill, W11, Paddington discovers the wonderful illustrated pop-up book of London landmarks which he decides will be an ideal birthday present for Aunt Lucy.

To pay for the expensive book, Paddington takes on a job helping out at 'Giuseppe's Grooming Salon', where he manages to give Mr Biggleswade (Tom Conti) a memorable haircut.

The barbershop is a bit of trickery. It's a building a few doors down Portobello Road from Alice's, on the corner of Denbigh Terrace, but is digitally given a whole new ground floor and front entrance. Presumably, that was easier for the single exterior shot than renting a whole different location as dressing it as a gents' hair salon.

It’s hard to keep up with locations becoming so deceptively tricksy.

At a visit to Kozlova's Steam Fair, Paddington lets slip about the book to Buchanan, the only person aware of its secret. The fair was filmed in the grounds of the Knebworth House, which also supplied the overgrown 'Regent's Park' for 28 Weeks Later. The house itself isn’t seen in this film but it’s a screen regular, probably most famous as 'Wayne Manor' in Tim Burton's Batman.

Knowing that the book contains clues to the fabled Kozlova treasure, Buchanan determines to steal it from Gruber's.

After the robbery, with Paddington in pursuit, he flees from Gruber's along the Grand Union Canal towpath at Camden Lock in the heart of the famous, and bust, market.

In no time at all, the pair are chasing alongside the canal as it runs through Little Venice, the smart West London residential area where it meets the Regents Canal. The many houseboats moored on the canals here have earned it the name Little Venice, reputedly coined by poet Robert Browning, who lived in the area. The small island covered in willow trees, which Paddington has to negotiate, is called Browning's Island.

Finally arriving back at ‘Windsor Gardens’, the thief disappears in a puff of smoke leaving Paddington to take the blame.

Arrested for "grand theft", Paddington appears to stand trial at the Guildhall, 71 Basinghall Street, EC2 in the City of London. The 15th century Grade 1-listed building has been a town hall for several hundred years and the court actually hears cases for offences committed within the City of London.

We only see the exterior in the film. The courthouse interior, with all the portraits, is Skinners' Hall, 8 Dowgate Hill, EC4, City of London, an events venue with a courtyard and wood-panelled dining room, housed in an elegant 17th century guild house.

When the judge turns out to be Mr Biggleswade, a guilty verdict is inevitable and Paddington is bundled off to serve ten years in prison.

The prison interior is not, as has been claimed, Dublin's Kilmainham Jail (a screen regular, seen in The Italian Job among other films) but a studio set based on Kilmainham (which comes into its own during the wonderful mid-credits sequence).

The prison exterior, in long shot, is digitally added to the south bank of the Thames alongside Hammersmith Bridge.

With Paddington out of the way, Buchanan’s furtive exploration of London landmarks in the pop-up book begins with Tower Bridge.

Surprisingly, the film uses quite a lot of the real Bridge, including interior shots – although the top of the bridge where the clue is discovered was recreated in the studio.

If you're visiting, don't forget the spectacular raised walkway with glass panels in the floor, featured in Spider-Man: Far From Home, or the Bridge’s interior workings which are a marvel of Victorian engineering.

The next clue is discovered in St Paul’s Cathedral, into which Buchanan weasels his way disguised as a surprisingly attractive nun. Again this is the real location, which seems to becoming more screen-friendly than ever lately, particularly in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

When Mrs Brown (Sally Hawkins) begins to suspect that Buchanan is behind the series of break-ins, she devises a plan to investigate the actor's home. This involves the kids, Judy and Jonathan, making a clandestine sound recording in the office of Buchanan's agent (Joanna Lumley).

This is a mix of two very different locations. The exterior is The Zetter, 49-50 St John’s Square in Clerkenwell, EC1, one of a chain of exclusive boutique hotels. It's also featured in Steven Soderbergh's 2025 film Black Bag, which I've not had the chance to see yet.

The wood-panelled office itself is a room in Hatfield House, Hatfield, north of London. Another frequent location, Hatfield was used as the interior of ‘Wayne Manor’ in Tim Burton’s Batman.

The modernistic police station where the Browns report their suspicions, to no avail, is the Royal College of Physicians, 11 St Andrew’s Place, at the southeast corner of Regent's Park, NW1.

With all hope seemingly lost, Paddington reluctantly joins Knuckles (Brendan Gleeson) and two other inmates in a risky prison escape making use of a hot-air balloon, floating over the Thames before touching down in front of the Millennium Mills in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, East London. The derelict turn-of-the-20th century flour mill was also seen in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and it's where the Penguin (Colin Farrell) is interrogated in Matt Reeves’s 2022 The Batman. For many years, there have been plans to redevelop the structure as housing, but there have been problems clearing it of asbestos.

As Knuckles and crew take off in a waiting 'copter, Paddington sets off through the streets of London to clear his name, ending up at Paddington Station where the Steam Fair train is departing. This time, unlike the first film (where the entrance to Marylebone Station was used) we see the real Praed Street entrance to Paddington Station.

Since filming a the notoriously dingy and cramped entrance has been opened up to become a more pleasant piazza.

The subsequent railway chase was filmed using background plates filmed in the north of England. The steam locomotive, called the Tornado (surprisingly built in 2008), appears to speed through the Lake District in Cumbria, past Ullswater.

But the chase ends at the Nidd Gorge Viaduct on the former Leeds-Thirsk line just north of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. The viaduct closed to rail traffic in 1969 to become a cycleway, the Nidderdale Greenway.

The train driven by Jonathan Brown was real, but was filmed in the studio car park where it was mounted on a truck. The Cumbria and North Yorkshire countryside was added digitally.

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