Connie's Flat and other Oxford locations in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

POSTED BY CONTROL

While Peter Guillam is breaking into 'The Circus' in episode 3 of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, George Smiley is in Oxford looking up 'an old and invaluable friend'. Some of the scenes filmed in Oxford are in prominent locations which are pretty easy to find. The location of Connie's flat had always been a mystery though until John Rundle kindly shared his research with us.

But lets start in chronological order with the obvious first. We pick up Smiley in the Bodleian Library. He walks through this archway (below) and out into Clarendon Quad...

The Clarendon Building is now in front of him...

And we can see a wider shot of this lovely building in the photo below...

Smiley then walks through the archway in front of him and out of the front of the Clarendon Building...

We can see a lot more of the front of this building in a recent shot below...

This brings Smiley out onto Broad Street...

This more recent photo (below) is taken from the opposite direction looking back down Broad Street. In this photo some of the Emperor Heads pillars can be clearly seen on the right hand side, in front of the Clarendon Building.

Smiley's path through the Bodleian Library is indicated by the red arrow on the plan below.

Incidentally, the Bodleian library is now home to the literary archive of John le Carré.

As Smiley leaves the Clarendon Building he appears to walk to his left up Broad Street. If he is walking directly to Connie's flat he is actually going in the wrong direction - or perhaps he is taking a detour to buy Connie some booze! 

Even if he goes directly to Connie's flat, Smiley still has a 25 minute walk ahead of him. The location is obviously a private residence, so we will not publish the full address, but Connie's flat can be found in Northmoor Road.

John found this location through dogged detective work. We can see in the series that the road Smiley walks up has a curve in it. 

In a similar way to how Chris found Stella and William's house, John used Google Earth to check all the residential streets in the area with a curve in the road. And eventually he hit on Northmoor Road. This is how the house looked in the series...

And here is a photo of the house today...

Those large bay windows at the front are a direct match and even the outer doors are still painted in that distinctive red. As the property has been on the market recently we can even match one aspect of the interior. Check out the glass paneling in the door next to the front door (below left) - it matches a photo on the right taken to market the property.

Because marketing material exists, we have also been able to see a floor plan of the house. We think it is most likely that filming took place in the large Library/Dining Room on the ground floor at the front. We get a glimpse of the fireplace when Jingle gets up to leave and Smiley enters the room. We can also see the right-hand end of the bay window and curtain in the background during some of Connie's shots. On the floor plan the door of the Library/Dining Room is roughly equidistant between the two walls. All of these factors match up, so this would seem to be the likely interior filming location.

It is no secret that Alec Guinness was uncomfortable with Beryl Reid's casting but it is hard to see why. Their scenes together are among the most moving of the series. Watch Beryl Reid in those few moments before and after she says "Please kiss me George". So much is conveyed without words. I used to think Smiley slipping out quietly was rather an unkind thing to do but now I think he leaves silently so as not to intrude further on Connie's grief. 

Incidentally, there is a little bit of history connected to another property in the road. 20 Northmoor Road (below) was home to JRR Tolkien in 1930 and it was here that he wrote The Hobbit and the majority of The Lord of the Rings. (You can see the blue plaque on the front of the house in the picture below.)

I reached this point in the article thinking I'd covered every bit of Oxford that appeared on screen, but Chris reminded me there was one crucial shot I'd overlooked entirely. How could I have forgotten the scene the credits roll over at the end of each episode?! 

That, as they say, is for another day.