Filming
What has been filmed

Syon in Film

For over 50 years Syon House & Gardens and the Great Conservatory have featured in an array of films and television programmes. The unique historic buildings and interiors, landscaped gardens and parkland have been used to set the scene for productions including: John Boorman’s 1965 Having a Wild Weekend, The Best House in London 1969, and David Cassidy’s early music video Daydreamer in 1973.

Period dramas are of course a natural fit for Syon House, and many have been filmed here such as 1994 The Madness of King George, Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma 1996, Robert Altman’s Gosford Park 2001. TV Series including Harlots, Belgravia and recently Bridgerton have also used Syon's beautiful 18th century interiors to capture that authentic historic feel.

But modern-day productions fit too, such as Kiefer Sutherland 24: Live Another Day, BBC’s Silent Witness, Endeavour and Transformers: The Last Knight, filmed in Syon’s Long Gallery, and the BBC’s Killing Eve Season 2 filmed on location at Syon House is the latest modern viewing of the Neo-Classical Robert Adam rooms.

It's not just the house that gets to star in films and TV, but also our Great Conservatory which was used in Disney's The Nutcracker and The Four Realms, and Come Away, but also All The Old Knives, Downton Abbey, Bridgerton and Vanity Fair.

Filming at a heritage site can come with many challenges and rewards. Accommodating a Disney film crew of 300 for 10 days during Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2014, was a brilliant yet slightly daunting experience for Syon staff. The long hours protecting precious objects and art, managing the dynamic changes during the filming process and the presence of a large unit base could feel a little overwhelming. But seeing the same Long Gallery that Tudor Queen Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey once walked down, used today to film Alice, makes it all worthwhile. Each time there’s filming, the house comes alive again. If the historic walls and characters of Syon’s history could speak, I wonder what they’d say?