Wild Cherry: All The Filming Locations To Know, According To An Exec Producer

Launching on BBC One and iPlayer this weekend is Nicôle Lecky’s first new series since her BAFTA-award winning Mood – and it’s been on our watchlist ever since we heard about it. Delving into the knotty lives of mothers and daughters, Wild Cherry whisks us off to the fictional town of Richford Lake, ‘where things appear perfect for super-mum Juliet (Eve Best) and business mogul Lorna (Carmen Ejogo)’, teases executive producer Elizabeth Kilgarriff, who has previously worked across splashy dramas like The Jetty and Wilderness. ‘But when their teens Grace (Imogen Faires) and Allegra (Amelia May) are accused of a shocking scandal at their exclusive private school, toxic secrets and lies ripple throughout the community.’

This is the premise of the six-part drama, which counts Sophie Winkleman, Nathaniel Martello-White and Lecky herself among its supporting cast. And with its zeitgeisty subject matter, we expect Wild Cherry to be somewhat of an agenda setter. As Elizabeth puts it: ‘Wild Cherry is a show about navigating privilege, power and social media in a world where danger and betrayal are never far from the surface – even in a perfect town.’

And the veneer of that town is immediately alluring: wide leafy streets, top-of-the-range cars, spacious houses with soaring ceilings and immaculately designed interiors. Of course, all purposeful – and all ‘an incredibly important part of the visual and tonal distinctiveness of the show,’ Elizabeth says. ‘From the start, we wanted to make sure that the Wild Cherry world of privilege felt authentic and cinematic, achieving the “quiet luxury” of this level of wealth, without the locations or design ever feeling fake or overly ostentatious.’ The answer? Filming in real homes across the real locations you can find in the real towns that inspired the fictional Richford Lake. Here’s what you need to know.

Where Was Wild Cherry Filmed?

‘Although the show is set in the fictional town of Richford Lake, it was absolutely essential that it felt like a real place, with a clear sense of how the houses are connected to each other – both inside and outside the private estate – and within the wider town,’ Elizabeth says.

‘We decided early on that we would film in the real deal,’ Elizabeth adds. By that she means ‘incredible houses’ and ‘towns with private estates’ which the team found in Surrey, the leafy county on the south west fringe of London brimming with vast green space, cute villages and sprawling private enclaves – the same county Nicôle Lecky had in mind when she first penned the drama. The result is an expression of wealth in various distinct forms, including Juliet’s grand, old money home; Lorna’s smaller, more modern home; and Gigi’s modernist mansion.

Allegra Lonsdale (AMELIA MAY) & Grace Gibbons (IMOGEN FAIRES) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird/Natalie Seery)

‘Each of the houses in Wild Cherry was carefully picked to reflect the personality and life of our lead characters,’ Elizabeth says. ‘We didn’t want this privileged world to be full of identikit, generic big houses, but for each location to almost be considered as a character in itself.’

Naturally, filming in real properties is a challenge, and ‘comes with its own level of stress in terms of protecting priceless marble counter tops and monogrammed hand-made carpets’, Elizabeth quips. But the goal was to make ‘almost everything you see in the show feel expensive – because it is’, the exec tells me. And with a mixture of original interiors and some zhuzhing for the screen, that goal was certainly achieved.

Grace Gibbons (IMOGEN FAIRES) & Allegra Lonsdale (AMELIA MAY) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

‘The locations were all dressed by our design team, but we intentionally chose houses where the interiors were already beautifully decorated in ways that reflected our characters and meant that they already had layers of realness that work so well on camera,’ Elizabeth explains. ‘The only house that we had to “undress” was our TikTok house location where we filmed a major party scene in episode one!’

That said, some tweaks were essential to ensure ‘each house reflected the personalities of the key characters in the show’, Elizabeth says, ‘with our brilliant production designer and her team working hard to create interiors that felt distinctive and authentic to each of our leads.’

Juliet Lonsdale (EVE BEST) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Juliet’s House

‘Juliet is the Queen Bee of the mothers and therefore her house needed to feel established, old money and the grandest home on the estate,’ Elizabeth says. ‘It was hard to find the perfect location so Juliet’s house is actually a composite of different houses, but it is the genius of our director and editor that you would never know that!’

Lorna Gibbons (CARMEN EJOGO) & Steven Gibbons (NATHANIEL MARTELLO-WHITE) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Lorna’s House

‘Lorna is self-made and doesn’t live within the gated community, so her house is slightly smaller and more modern, but is equally as aspirational and impressive in its design and interiors,’ Elizabeth explains.

Freddie Gladstone (JOHN MARQUEZ) & Gigi (NICÔLE LECKY) in Wild Cherry. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

Gigi’s House

‘Gigi’s house was probably my favourite location,’ Elizabeth says. ‘It’s a beautiful international modernist style mansion built in the 1930s and it was exciting to see inside and imagine what it might be like to live there. There are so many extraordinary details – not least the dance floor that lowers to create a swimming pool (that the audience will get to see in action in episode two).’

Lorna Gibbons (CARMEN EJOGO) & Juliet Lonsdale (EVE BEST) in Wild Cherry, coming soon to BBC One and iPlayer. (© BBC/Firebird Pictures/Natalie Seery)

As Elizabeth said, all of these properties are private houses, meaning you cannot visit. And before you start scouring RightMove for the Surrey enclave that plays the part of Richford Lake in Wild Cherry, we should point out that the houses are not actually all inside one gated community. ‘Although it is important for the practicality of filming schedules that locations are within a certain radius, the reality is that the perfect houses were often miles apart in different towns and areas,’ Elizabeth says. This meant ‘the roads and woods we chose also became an essential part of the connective tissue to ground our fictional world’.

With the first two episodes airing back-to-back this Saturday on BBC One, ‘we hope the audience enjoys seeing behind the curtains of some of the most beautiful houses and locations in the country’, Elizabeth says. ‘The show is a twisty-turny mystery thriller that deals with some complex themes, but should also be an absolute treat for the senses.’

Wild Cherry premieres at 9pm on Saturday 15 November 2025 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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