Inside Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials With The Filming Locations Manager

The queen of crime is back on the small screen, with Mia McKenna Bruce taking on the role of our new heroine, the young amateur sleuth Lady Eileen ‘Bundle’ Brent. And does she have a case to crack: after a lavish country house party, a practical joke appears to have gone horribly, murderously wrong – but Bundle is on the case. Across three episodes, her investigation takes her from the country to the town, meeting gamblers, cops and even a shot stranger with a secret message.

Also starring Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials is based on one of the author’s lesser known tales, and ‘before working on the series, I wasn’t familiar with The Seven Dials Mystery, although I had read many of Agatha Christie’s other novels,’ Dee Gregson tells us. She was the filming locations manager on the series, having previously worked on the likes of The Flat Share and Sanditon. ‘What immediately struck me was how different Bundle is as a protagonist compared to Miss Marple or Poirot. She’s young, irreverent, witty and glamorous, and that energy really drives the story.’

Mia McKenna Bruce in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

‘There’s also a strong post-war atmosphere – a feeling of recovery and relief following the end of the First World War, but still infused with grief for those who were lost,’ Dee adds. ‘The younger generation are quite satirical, far less inclined to offer the unquestioning respect that older generations might expect, which gives the story a freshness and bite.’

As Dee puts it, ‘The narrative feels faster-paced and more modern than many of Christie’s better-known works, with car chases, movement between multiple locations, and a sense of momentum rather than a single, contained setting.’ And with so many settings come lots of dazzling filming locations, which Dee picked out with a team. Here are all of the Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials filming locations know.

Helena Bonham-Carter & Mia McKenna Bruce in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

Where Was Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Filmed?

Made up of just three episodes, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials was filmed in Tetbury and Badminton in Gloucestershire, as well as Somerset’s regency spa town Bath. Despite some action taking place in the titular London neighbourhood, you won’t see the capital on screen – instead, period properties across the south west stand in.

‘We spent a significant amount of time at Badminton, and a similar amount at Westonbirt School [near Tetbury],’ Dee tells C&TH. ‘Although it felt as though we spent a great deal of time planning for Bath city centre, the actual filming there took place over just two days – the preparation far outweighed the shoot time.’

A number of historic buildings across the south west of England were used to bring Christie’s 1929 tale to life on screen, including private houses, an independent school and the offices of English Heritage. But some scenes were the opposite of stationary and required some extra planning. ‘The railway sequences were another major focus,’ Dee explains. ‘These required extensive recces, and the West Somerset Railway were incredibly helpful, taking us up and down the line many times. As the longest privately owned railway in the country, it offered a wide variety of sections to choose from for the moving scenes. We ultimately selected areas of unspoilt countryside that best supported the 1920s setting, including the beach at Blue Anchor Bay [in West Somerset].’

Mia McKenna Bruce in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

Chimneys – Badminton House

‘For Chimneys, we were looking for a substantial country house with extensive grounds – a real “big old pile”,’ Dee says. ‘It needed to feel grand, but also practical and lived-in. The brief required outbuildings, as Bundle and her mother are staying in the Garden House while the main house is rented out, as well as gardens suitable for a range of scenes. There had to be a ballroom, as episode 1 opens with a huge party scene.’

The answer? Badminton House, the palladian Gloucestershire country house and famed birthplace of the namesake racquet sport and more recently home to the annual Badminton Horse Trials. To this day it remains a private house, and seat of the Duke of Beaufort.

Despite its grandeur, the property is certainly not immaculate – which works perfectly for Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials because ‘the family are effectively penniless and having to find inventive ways to make money, so the house needed to reflect that reality,’ Dee explains. ‘Badminton is very much a lived-in, well-loved family home, with a long history of entertaining, and that character was invaluable.

‘Certain existing features – such as torn silk wallpaper in the ballroom – supported the storytelling beautifully,’ Dee adds. ‘We also introduced additional details, like a leaking pipe with water dripping into one of the corridors, to subtly reinforce the sense of decline. Badminton was chosen very quickly, following our first visit with the director and production designer.’

Martin Freeman in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

Wyvern Abbey – Westonbirt School

‘Wyvern Abbey needed to feel distinctly different from Chimneys,’ Dee says. ‘Westonbirt School fulfilled this perfectly. It has highly ornate, richly decorated state rooms which the director and production designer immediately responded to. We also needed exterior space for scenes in the grounds, and a field with a view of the building for a pheasant shoot. Adjacent to the site was a meadow of long grass being grown for hay, offering a beautiful view of the building in the distance – an ideal combination of scale, setting and atmosphere.’

Westonbirt School is a private school in Gloucestershire, founded in the 1920s though the historic Grade I listed property Westonbirt House dates back further, completed in 1870.

Compared to Chimneys, ‘Wyvern needed to feel more ominous, particularly for the night scenes when the friends are creeping around knowing there may be a murderer on the loose,’ Dee says. ‘We filmed at the school at night, which presented challenges – for example, blacking out windows wasn’t possible due to the Great Hall’s fragile glass roof. As a result, the building was kept very dark, lit mainly with firelight and period electric lamps, which created a wonderfully atmospheric – if slightly soporific – environment on night shoots.’

Westonbirt School stands out as one of Dee’s favourite filming locations while shooting Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials, though ‘it’s hard to choose just one’. ‘Westonbirt School stands out because we had such a positive relationship with the staff there – we were always made to feel incredibly welcome (and particular thanks to David Runciman),’ she says.

Mia McKenna Bruce & Corey Mylchreest in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

Bath

As Dee says, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials was also filmed in Bath, across various locations in the regency city. ‘Great Pulteney Street was probably the most satisfying [location] in terms of scale and challenge,’ Dee says. ‘Production approached it almost like a military operation – maps on tables, everyone gathered around, each setup broken down into precise time slots. Actually, I don’t think anyone expected it to run as smoothly as it did, and we even managed to pick up additional shots because everything went so well.’

But there’s a touch of movie magic involved, too. As Dee explains: ‘Quite late in the process, we were asked to find a site near Great Pulteney Street to accommodate a large scanning rig for the day of our shoot – roughly the size of two shipping containers. This was used to scan the action vehicles and supporting artists, allowing them to be replicated digitally in post-production. It meant that, although the scenes appear extremely busy on screen, much of that scale was achieved through visual effects layered onto what we physically filmed on the day.’

Mia McKenna Bruce & Nabhaan Rizwan in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

The Seven Dials Club – Bristol

‘The Seven Dials Club was described as being entered from an alleyway, in an older building, with several floors for different scenes on each floor,’ Dee explains.

‘A period building in Queen Square [in Bristol] dating from the early 18th century worked for sections of the Seven Dials Club, as well as offering great rooms for other scenes in character’s apartments,’ Dee says. ‘It had been the headquarters of English Heritage and was very well preserved.’

Mia McKenna Bruce in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. (© Netflix)

All three episodes of Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials are streaming now on Netflix.

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