Top 5 Awesome Bond Locations just outside London
Think of how many click bait articles about James Bond there’s been since Spectre. I think even at some stage even I was tipped to play the fictional British Secret agent. (Ok so I started that rumour, but that’s all by-the-by). After all the exacerbated hyperbole, it was recently announced that the next person to play James Bond, was the old person who played James Bond. How stunningly anticlimactic.
But one thing that remains resolute are the James Bond locations. Even if they get burnt to the ground, (like M's house in Henley from On her Majesty's Secret Service) there is still the ground itself that can be worshipped. Or the door to the ground. Or the ground leading to the door.
Here are some well-known and some lesser-known James Bond Locations around London.
Wraysbury Lake - A View to a Kill
The film gets a couple of sniffy reviews, (not from me I might add) but this lake is a gem of a location. The lake is private - you'll need permission to get in and there is a security gate that you won't be able to negotiate no matter how determined you are.
The location is famous for the scene where Zorin and May Day pushes a 1962 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II with a dead Tibbett and an unconscious Bond inside. It's lost the gravel upon entrance but other than that the slope into the lake is just how you'd imagine it. There is a sign by the slope entrance recognising the location and the lake itself is just idyllic.
Postcode: TW19 5EP
Pinewood Studios - The 007 Stage
It's worth a visit even if you can't get in. The studio sign itself just brings tingles and if you poke your head over the railings you can see the John Barry Theatre which does all the screenings for various Bond meet-ups. You might want to keep your distance of about 20 yards or else a perfectly affable security guard will tell you in no uncertain terms to get back, or risk having your photos deleted forever!
Postcode: SL0 0NH
Stoke Park - Goldfinger
Just four miles away from Pinewood Studios, the 5-star Spa and golfing resort played host to two James Bond movies, Goldfinger (1964) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). The famous 17th and 18th hole where Bond and Goldfinger duelled it out for the purse of a gold bar are located behind the complex. If you're not a member (annual fee of £3,570 plus a joining fee of £2,500) then it takes a certain amount of tenacious sneakiness to reach. Really it's just a walk around a footpath, but you stand a better chance of penetrating the non-existent security if you stick to the Stoke Park dress code. Which means no tucking in trousers to socks or anything else camp or conspicuous.
Postcode: SL2 4PG
Stoke Poges Church - For your Eyes Only
Whilst you're in this neck of the woods it would be criminal not to check the Stoges Church, the location for the pre-title sequence in For your Eyes Only. Roger Moore is visiting the grave of his beloved Tracy before he gets called away on a fateful mission. The church is quaint and a quick walk around the back gives you a gorgeous panoramic vista of Stoke Park.
Postcode: SL2 4NZ
Stonor Park - The Living Daylights
Lastly Stonor Park, which has been home to the Stonor family for 850 years. It also doubled as the Bladen safe house in The Living Daylights. Acres of sublime inscrutable countryside surround this wonderfully kept stately home. Just a few hundred yards down the road you'll also find the wall where the poor milkman got strangled by Necros.
As someone within the tour party quipped, 'Why was a milkman delivering milk to a dairy farm? No wonder people say Bond is far-fetched'. Well quite.
