The Locations Of 'A Warning To The Curious'
Completion Date:
June 28, 2017
Production Time:
2 Weeks
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This is a personally shot video tour of the locations used in the British 1972 BBC TV drama A Warning To The Curious, based on the M. R. James book of the same name. It's probably my favourite of the BBC Ghost Story For Christmas TV series.
Around January of 2017, I happened upon the K-Punk Blog site detailing the author’s visit to identify & photograph a number of the locations used in filming A Warning To The Curious, all around the North Norfolk coast. I also filled in a couple of further locations from Adam Scovell's BFI Blog. As my Girlfriend asked me to choose where we go this time, we took a four-day mini-break to North Norfolk in June 2017, so I could film footage at all the shooting locations. Not for any specific reason, just because I wanted to. We stayed in a B&B in Sherringham which was roughly in the centre of the cluster of the production locations used; spread across a forty mile stretch of coastline, and drove around the locations over two of the four days. Here are the locations I visited, listed in the order they are shown in my edited footage.
Waxham Beach, east of the village of Waxham
Sections of this beach appeared in 'Whistle And I'll Come To You'
Sherringham Station on the North Norfolk Railway
Doubled as Seaburgh Railway Station
Shipwright's Pub on East Quay Street in Wells-Next-The-Sea
Used as the inn in Seaburgh as shown on screen, now a private residence
Happisburgh Lighthouse in Happisburgh
Used as the lighthouse in Seaburgh as shown on screen
St Mary The Virgin Church in Happisburgh
Used as the church in Seaburgh as shown on screen
Weybourne Station on the North Norfolk Railway
Doubled as Thruxton Railway Station
Holkham Beach north-west of Wells-Next-The-Sea
Used as the beach and forest area where the crown is buried
The locations were pretty much as I had expected them to be based on my research beforehand. On visiting Holkham Beach, I parked in the Holkham Beach car park, which is a ways west of the nearest village of Wells-Next-The-Sea. There were two peninsulas of forest either side of the car park stretching out onto the beach. I assumed that the one on the right, nearest Wells-Next-The-Sea was used in the film, but I decided to go towards the left-hand forest first as the author of the K-Punk Blog site did not see any likely screen-matching hills (from which Paxton dug up the crown) in the right-hand forest. About half a mile round the beach/tree-line, the make-up of the forest changes to fairly flat ground, younger trees and looks nothing like that seen on screen. I backtracked and went to the right-hand forest. I lugged my camera equipment around two miles round that treeline instead, and couldn't spot any likely looking hills either. I could have gone further, right the way round to Wells-Next-The-Sea causeway, but time was getting short and I was totally knackered. That said, the film was shot nearly 50 years ago, so all it would take is for the tree-line to have moved a short distance forward or back, or erosion to change the layout a little, and suddenly that hill could never be identified.
Most of the locations were pretty quiet when I did my shooting, with the exception of Weybourne railway station which was semi-busy. I shot most of the footage of Sherringham railway station at around 6am, before it opened. I hopped the fence and started filming, then approached the first person I saw a few minutes later to ask permission, and they said that was fine. Sherringham station gets pretty packed during the day, much more so than Weybourne. Filming trains either arriving or leaving Sherringham station via the road bridge overlooking the station can be tricky. There is only one pavement; on the side which looks down onto the station. To film footage from the other side of the bridge looking out into the distance, you basically have to stand tight in to the edge of the road up against the bridge wall, and it's a fairly busy narrow road. Luckily I had no problems.
For the most part, the shooting went off without a hitch. The weather ranged from sunny with cloudy blue skies, to suitably heavy dull cloud. While recording wild track audio at Happisburgh church, there was thunder & lighting, and then while driving on to Waxham Beach, the rain hammered down for a short period. Most of the audio I recorded, both with my camera and microphone, was all but unusable due to the windy conditions. Everything you hear in my footage is dubbed on in post-production. From the noise of the sea, the birds, even the steam trains and the wind, they're all stock sound effects. Other than that, visually perfect weather for filming. My Zoom H1 microphone did become a casualty when I left it on top of my car after filming Shipwright's Pub in Wells-Next-The-Sea. I drove off forgetting about it. It still works even though it clattered across the road at a fair speed, but the little plastic on-off switch is now missing, presumed lost forever. I can still turn it on with a paper-clip, however.
Over those two days, I got 107 shots totalling around 80mins of 1080p footage using my Sony NEX-VG10 camcorder with 35mm-lense-adaptor and a 28mm Canon old-style manual SLR lens. I did take a range of lenses, but just found the 28mm lens with its wide angle and deep depth of field, to be the quickest and most useful. I did try to properly compose a number of the shots but for the most part I opted for coverage over quality. There are a few shots in there with moiré patterns, which I'd normally catch on my 7" LCD monitor, but I simply lacked the time to properly compose and double-check each shot. Nothing there is too distracting. Once I got back home to London, I immediately started editing with Adobe Première, taking three days to craft the final 14m 15s version. I matted the 1080p 16:9 source footage into 2.35:1 widescreen. I've always preferred the look of 2.35:1, and have tended towards that in the majority of my productions to date. I used the Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks plug-in to change the colour grading to something much cooler, and a Gorilla Grain 16mm film overlay to add the grain. I made the opening and closing titles to roughly resemble those used in the original, in keeping with the 70s BBC production look of the film. While researching the musical score tracks used, I happened upon a ringostrack.com page with a complete A Warning To The Curious OST listing. The tracks listed are as follows;
György Ligeti - Atmospheres György Ligeti - Concerto For Cello And Orchestra Edgard Varèse - Density 21.5 Bruno Maderna - Hyperion III György Ligeti/Hans Werner Henze - String Quartet No.2
I sourced all five classical tracks, and used the BFI DVD version of A Warning To The Curious on a Première timeline to sync-up, edit & assemble my own score, which I could then overlay my footage. On a side note, one of the tracks listed; Bruno Maderna - Hyperion III, does not seem to have been used. I edited my score from start to finish, and found I'd used all the other tracks except this one.
I'm pretty happy with the final result, and as far as I know, it's the only locations footage currently out there. Sure it could have looked better if I'd taken an extra day or two, taken the time to properly think though, compose & double-check each shot. That said, my original aim was simply to have a short edited sequence of shots from each location in isolation. Nothing too artistic; rather clean & clinical. I'd like to think my finished sequence is something more than that. Adding the original musical score certainly helped to tighten the editing up and add pacing & sequence development. I'm not intending to do anything further with this project beyond this YouTube upload, and a few Blu-ray copies for friends. If anyone is interested in getting a Blu-Ray disc of this footage, or if any media production companies are interested in licensing my footage for use in their own media projects, then please get in contact via email. The BFI six-disc Ghost Stories For Christmas box-set is currently only available on DVD, and a future Blu-ray release of these classic gems would be fantastic. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.
Waxham Beach, east of the village of Waxham
Sections of this beach appeared in 'Whistle And I'll Come To You'
Sherringham Station on the North Norfolk Railway
Doubled as Seaburgh Railway Station
Shipwright's Pub on East Quay Street in Wells-Next-The-Sea
Used as the inn in Seaburgh as shown on screen, now a private residence
Happisburgh Lighthouse in Happisburgh
Used as the lighthouse in Seaburgh as shown on screen
St Mary The Virgin Church in Happisburgh
Used as the church in Seaburgh as shown on screen
Weybourne Station on the North Norfolk Railway
Doubled as Thruxton Railway Station
Holkham Beach north-west of Wells-Next-The-Sea
Used as the beach and forest area where the crown is buried
The locations were pretty much as I had expected them to be based on my research beforehand. On visiting Holkham Beach, I parked in the Holkham Beach car park, which is a ways west of the nearest village of Wells-Next-The-Sea. There were two peninsulas of forest either side of the car park stretching out onto the beach. I assumed that the one on the right, nearest Wells-Next-The-Sea was used in the film, but I decided to go towards the left-hand forest first as the author of the K-Punk Blog site did not see any likely screen-matching hills (from which Paxton dug up the crown) in the right-hand forest. About half a mile round the beach/tree-line, the make-up of the forest changes to fairly flat ground, younger trees and looks nothing like that seen on screen. I backtracked and went to the right-hand forest. I lugged my camera equipment around two miles round that treeline instead, and couldn't spot any likely looking hills either. I could have gone further, right the way round to Wells-Next-The-Sea causeway, but time was getting short and I was totally knackered. That said, the film was shot nearly 50 years ago, so all it would take is for the tree-line to have moved a short distance forward or back, or erosion to change the layout a little, and suddenly that hill could never be identified.
Most of the locations were pretty quiet when I did my shooting, with the exception of Weybourne railway station which was semi-busy. I shot most of the footage of Sherringham railway station at around 6am, before it opened. I hopped the fence and started filming, then approached the first person I saw a few minutes later to ask permission, and they said that was fine. Sherringham station gets pretty packed during the day, much more so than Weybourne. Filming trains either arriving or leaving Sherringham station via the road bridge overlooking the station can be tricky. There is only one pavement; on the side which looks down onto the station. To film footage from the other side of the bridge looking out into the distance, you basically have to stand tight in to the edge of the road up against the bridge wall, and it's a fairly busy narrow road. Luckily I had no problems.
For the most part, the shooting went off without a hitch. The weather ranged from sunny with cloudy blue skies, to suitably heavy dull cloud. While recording wild track audio at Happisburgh church, there was thunder & lighting, and then while driving on to Waxham Beach, the rain hammered down for a short period. Most of the audio I recorded, both with my camera and microphone, was all but unusable due to the windy conditions. Everything you hear in my footage is dubbed on in post-production. From the noise of the sea, the birds, even the steam trains and the wind, they're all stock sound effects. Other than that, visually perfect weather for filming. My Zoom H1 microphone did become a casualty when I left it on top of my car after filming Shipwright's Pub in Wells-Next-The-Sea. I drove off forgetting about it. It still works even though it clattered across the road at a fair speed, but the little plastic on-off switch is now missing, presumed lost forever. I can still turn it on with a paper-clip, however.
Over those two days, I got 107 shots totalling around 80mins of 1080p footage using my Sony NEX-VG10 camcorder with 35mm-lense-adaptor and a 28mm Canon old-style manual SLR lens. I did take a range of lenses, but just found the 28mm lens with its wide angle and deep depth of field, to be the quickest and most useful. I did try to properly compose a number of the shots but for the most part I opted for coverage over quality. There are a few shots in there with moiré patterns, which I'd normally catch on my 7" LCD monitor, but I simply lacked the time to properly compose and double-check each shot. Nothing there is too distracting. Once I got back home to London, I immediately started editing with Adobe Première, taking three days to craft the final 14m 15s version. I matted the 1080p 16:9 source footage into 2.35:1 widescreen. I've always preferred the look of 2.35:1, and have tended towards that in the majority of my productions to date. I used the Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks plug-in to change the colour grading to something much cooler, and a Gorilla Grain 16mm film overlay to add the grain. I made the opening and closing titles to roughly resemble those used in the original, in keeping with the 70s BBC production look of the film. While researching the musical score tracks used, I happened upon a ringostrack.com page with a complete A Warning To The Curious OST listing. The tracks listed are as follows;
György Ligeti - Atmospheres György Ligeti - Concerto For Cello And Orchestra Edgard Varèse - Density 21.5 Bruno Maderna - Hyperion III György Ligeti/Hans Werner Henze - String Quartet No.2
I sourced all five classical tracks, and used the BFI DVD version of A Warning To The Curious on a Première timeline to sync-up, edit & assemble my own score, which I could then overlay my footage. On a side note, one of the tracks listed; Bruno Maderna - Hyperion III, does not seem to have been used. I edited my score from start to finish, and found I'd used all the other tracks except this one.
I'm pretty happy with the final result, and as far as I know, it's the only locations footage currently out there. Sure it could have looked better if I'd taken an extra day or two, taken the time to properly think though, compose & double-check each shot. That said, my original aim was simply to have a short edited sequence of shots from each location in isolation. Nothing too artistic; rather clean & clinical. I'd like to think my finished sequence is something more than that. Adding the original musical score certainly helped to tighten the editing up and add pacing & sequence development. I'm not intending to do anything further with this project beyond this YouTube upload, and a few Blu-ray copies for friends. If anyone is interested in getting a Blu-Ray disc of this footage, or if any media production companies are interested in licensing my footage for use in their own media projects, then please get in contact via email. The BFI six-disc Ghost Stories For Christmas box-set is currently only available on DVD, and a future Blu-ray release of these classic gems would be fantastic. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.