Wuthering Heights | 2026
- Locations |
- North Yorkshire;
- South Yorkshire;
- West Yorkshire;
- Kent
- DIRECTOR |
- Emerald Fennell
The radical new version of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights uses the real moors of North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, while surprisingly also including a little glimpse of Kent, too.
In Emerald Fennell's "fantastical fever dream", the Yorkshire Moors are almost relegated to the sidelines, as the film focuses more on the gorgeous anachronistic sets built at Warner Bros’ studio at Leavesden in Hertfordshire.
But the genuine North Yorkshire Moors of Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, do provide the misty exteriors.
There are a few specific spots to look out for. If you fancied recreating the scene in which Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) unceremoniously plonks Cathy (Margot Robbie) onto a tree branch and leaves her there, well I have bad news. As you might have guessed, the picturesque tree with its convenient horizontal branch was a movie prop. In fact, for the sake of safety it had a steel frame. You can visit the spot however, which is Booze Moor, north of the little hamlet of Booze (no, I'm not kidding) not far from Langthwaite, in Arkengarthdale.
The name has nothing to do with pubs – it's a corruptioon of the Old English 'Bowehous' – meaning 'house by the curve'.
The jutting rock where Cathy mopes after Heathcliff disappears is Healaugh Crag, also known as Crag Willas, a jutting rock formation of large boulders in a remote area favoured by climbers, about five miles northwest from the village of Reeth.
Cathy in her windswept bridal dress heading towards her marriage to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) was filmed near Bouldershaw Lane in Swaledale.
It's over to West Yorkshire to find the standing rocks to which Cathy retreats for a spot of self-pleasuring after spying on the servants' little S&M session (not sure if this was in Emily Brontë's original story). This is Bridestones Moor, a community-owned nature reserve overlooking the Calder Valley, just north of the town of Todmorden.
'Wuthering Heights' itself, the odd, dark estate of dissolute Mr Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), is a mix of studio sets and a real location. Interiors and close shots of the estate in its prime are a set, but wider views and the ruined buildings seen later are the Old Gang Mill, below Healaugh Crag, a few miles west of Reeth. The collection of now-ruined buildings was one of several old lead smelting mills in the area. Built in 1846, it once processed lead ore from local mines, and is now preserved as a Grade II-listed monument.
A bit of a surprise – the ruined wall neatly framing a picturesque open doorway in which Heathcliff appears is, as you can see in the photo above, the real Mill and not a bit of dressing added for the film.
Another location so extraordinary I assumed it was a set built for the film also turns out to be genuine. It's the tall, stone pyramid pierced by a walkway in which the young Cathy and Heathcliff shelter from the rain and to which they frequently return. It's real and you can see this in South Yorkshire.
It's a folly called the Needle’s Eye which you'll find on the Fitzwilliam Wentworth Estate, 27 Clayfield Lane, Wentworth, between Rotherham and Barnsley.
A wonderful legend claims that the Earl of Malton had it built as a bet to prove that a rich man could pass through the eye of a needle. He won the bet by driving a coach and horses through it.
It's no surprise to realise that 'Thrushcross Grange', the Linton's estate, was entirely studio-built, even the garden.
Away from Yorkshire completely, the opening scene of the public hanging was filmed in the Inner Courtyard of Knole House, Knole Lane, Sevenoaks in Kent. One of England’s largest Tudor houses, it’s meant to be a calendar house – supposedly containing 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances and seven courtyards. If you want to dispute that, feel free to count them yourself.
Knole has also appeared in 2007's The Other Boleyn Girl, with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, as well as Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and John Landis’s 2010 film, Burke and Hare.
Economically, the front of Knole is briefly seen in a different guise as the marriage venue when Heathcliff, spitefully and cruelly, marries Edgar's besotted sister Isabella (Alison Oliver).
