Wood Norton Hall - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Location
Please note this article reveals important details about the plot of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Many of the locations chosen for the filming of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy still exist to this day but the location featured in this article unfortunately only survives in part. Despite that, it has still been possible to piece together Bill Haydon’s final movements during his incarceration at 'Sarratt'.
Sarratt of course is the location of the agent training school and interrogation centre which is mentioned in a number of the Smiley novels. The BBC wisely chose Wood Norton Hall and the surrounding grounds to shoot these important scenes.
Wood Norton Hall is a Grade II listed Victorian stately home near Evesham, Worcestershire. It was used by the BBC during World War II as a station for listening to enemy radio broadcasts and it became the site of the BBC's engineering training college which grew up in its grounds. During the Cold War it was also designated as a broadcasting centre in the event of a nuclear attack.
Wood Norton Hall had already been used by the BBC as a location in Dr Who for the debut stories of both the third and fourth Doctors (Spearhead from Space and Robot respectively).
The tall fences and World War II huts dotted throughout the grounds perfectly suggest to the viewer that this could indeed be an agent training and debriefing facility.
So let’s start with the establishing shot of the location as it appears on screen. The hall is seen in the background and there is a long green hut in front of it. As the door of the hut opens we see Haydon emerge looking rather unsteady on his feet and in the company of two guards.
We are fortunate that so may BBC staff members who attended these facilities over the years have shared photos and other memorabilia online. Two very important finds enable us to view the site as it looked in the late 70s and early 80s.
The aerial photo below from the 1970s helps us to pinpoint the likely location of the green hut. Considering the angle of the image in the series and the fact that we can only see one hut in the foreground means we can be fairly confident about this location.
You’ll find both this map and the aerial photo together with a lot more information about Wood Norton Hall on this old BBC Engineering website.
It is likely that this next shot of Haydon and the guards was taken on one of the paths from the green hut down towards the hall.
This next shot shows Haydon returning to his room - note the chimney in the centre of the screen.
We can see that chimney again on the left hand side in the photo below which was taken by Russell Barnes in 1983.
This suggests that Haydon and the guards were walking down the far side of the huts in Russell’s photo. Russell identifies this as ‘D’ dorm. You’ll find an album of Wood Norton photos taken by Russell here.
Before returning to our map there is one other crucial piece of evidence that nails down this location precisely. The high definition print of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes to our aid with a small piece of information. As Smiley opens the door in the scene below we can just make out the words ‘sick bay’ on the left hand door.
If we return to our map we can see exactly where ‘Residence D’ and the sick bay are. I’ve clearly marked the path used in both the scene with Haydon and the guards and the scene with Haydon with Smiley.
Russell also published the photo below of his ‘D’ dorm room.
And it’s a very close match to the type of room Haydon was staying in, right down to the similar curtain material and the style of radiator underneath the window. I think we can safely say the interior scenes were also filmed somewhere in this block.
There is a further scene of Haydon and Smiley walking in the grounds. It’s a tracking shot with a fence between the camera and the actors and the green huts are in the background.
Smiley and Haydon walk alongside two long green huts and pause to continue talking when they reach the end of the second hut. As they walk off together to the left of the screen the white ‘D’ dorms are visible in the background.
Looking again at our map I think we can be fairly confident that this tracking shot started alongside the technical stores (marked as 26 on the map) and continued past the unmarked hut from which Haydon first appears with the guards. (You can see the door he originally came out of on the left hand side of the image above.)
There is one more important location to identify - the site of Prideaux and Haydon’s final meeting.
Shot at night with the lights of Wood Norton Hall in the background we can be fairly confident of the location, which is indicated on the map below.
As Chris has mentioned in his excellent series of articles about the Paris locations of Smiley’s People, the camera lens can foreshorten objects in the background and make them appear closer than they actually are. For that reason I’m still a little cautious about the exact location of the bench but I think it must have been in this general area.
Unsurprisingly all of the huts that appear in the series have long since been demolished. The photo below is from Google Earth and shows the site as it appears today.
A conference and event venue has been built on the site of the green huts and the Richmond Villages Wood Norton Care Home now sits where ‘D’ dorm once stood. There are traces of the old site that remain - I rather fancy we can still see what's left of the outdoor swimming pool on the right hand side.
There are so many dramatic highlights for me in the scenes that were shot here:
- The professional compliment Haydon pays Smiley by telling him that Karla thought if there was a threat it would come from him.
- The delight Haydon takes in explaining why the affair with Ann was necessary and what it accomplished. (It's clear that his 'join the queue' remark was intended to hurt.)
- The anger Smiley holds simmering beneath the surface as he listens to Haydon describe the reasons he betrayed his country and why he had the affair with Ann.
- I still react with shock and disgust when I hear Haydon ask for the balance of his salary!
- I like Haydon’s attempt to hold on to Smiley’s pen - perhaps he too wanted something of Smiley's to keep.
- Only Smiley would open a door in anger and close it politely behind him.
- The final scenes between Prideaux and Haydon are wonderfully judged. We’ve never seen these two men together on screen but we don't doubt for a moment that they are more than life-long friends and that this is a fateful meeting. There is no visible anger from Prideaux, just an overwhelming sadness in his voice.
Wood Norton Hall was a well chosen location and the perfect backdrop for some of the most powerful scenes in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
We’d be delighted to hear from any BBC employees who have recollections about the filming or have any further details that might be of interest to fans of the series. Please do drop us a line at guinnessissmiley@icloud.com
If you are interested in visiting the location you can stay at The Wood Norton (formerly Wood Norton Hall).
Still images from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (c) BBC
Postscript (2nd September 2022)
There is one more connected scene that we really should examine in this article as it was filmed nearby in Evesham. One of the guards is seen leaving the sick bay to drop off Haydon's dry cleaning. The additional scene was filmed in Evesham Market Square. It is all done in one 360 degree shot. The camera starts on the guard as he leaves the dry cleaners then follows his car as it pulls away. The camera continues to pan around until we see Prideaux watching the car leave and then we follow him as he walks into the dry cleaners.
The image below was taken from a panoramic view of the location today.
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