Bridget Jones's Baby | 2016
Discover where Bridget Jones's Baby (2015) was filmed around London, in Borough, the West End and Shad Thames; as well as Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire.
After the disappointing sequel Edge Of Reason, Sharon Maguire returns to the director's chair and ...Baby is back on form.
It's 2015 and trains now speed across the (then new) Borough Viaduct, past the window of Bridget's flat above the Globe pub on Bedale Street in Borough.
A bigger shock comes with the loss of Daniel Cleaver. Forget the cheeky aerial shot. Cleaver may have been popular with the Eastern European teenage model community but his memorial doesn't merit St Paul's Cathedral.
The striking black and gold church interior, where Bridget remembers how many women he touched, is St Clement Danes Church in the Strand. Yes, "in", not "on". The church stands on an island in the middle of the road.
Designed in 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren, the church suffered a direct hit from an incendiary bomb during the Blitz in 1941 and was reduced by fire to no more than a shell.
The church was totally restored in 1958 and is now dedicated to the Royal Air Force.
The 'Hard News' TV studio where Bridget, turning 43, is determined to avoid the cull of "older" employees is Regus Studios, One Kingdom Street in Paddington Basin, part of the not-too-well-known complex seen extensively in Jason Bourne.
When Bridget is lured away by friend Shazza for a "spa weekend", this turns out to be a muddy music festival where, it's hoped, the eternal singleton will "get laid".
And that exactly what happens with handsome and wealthy US entrepreneur Jack (Patrick Dempsey) when Bridget stumbles drunkenly into his luxury yurt.
The festival was staged in Windsor Great Park, craftily intercut with a real Ed Sheeran gig at Croke Park, Jones Road, the famous Gaelic games stadium in Dublin.
Bridget is soon on to the christening of a friend's baby at which, awkwardly, Bridget and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) share duty as godparents. Old embers flicker to life and Bridget ends up tumbling into bed with Mark.
The christening celebration is held at Cornbury Park House, Cornbury Park, Charlbury, Chipping Norton. Once a royal deer hunting estate, mentioned in the Domesday Book, Cornbury Park is about 5,000 acres of farmland and woods, which includes part of the Wychwood Forest, and was the original venue for the Cornbury Music Festival and later the Wilderness Festival.
Inevitably, with two partners back to back, and the use of past-sell-by-date condoms, Bridget discovers she's pregnant – not knowing which of the two is the father.
She has a chat with her very understanding Dad (Jim Broadbent) in Greenwich Park overlooking the familiar (on-screen) Old Royal Naval College.
She meets up with Mark on Middle Temple Lane, in the quiet old-world legal enclave south of The Strand, where his chambers turn out to be in Middle Temple itself.
Temple's grounds are open to the public on weekdays, and have provided a beautifully photogenic backdrop for plenty of films including Mary Poppins Returns, The Da Vinci Code and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
The sweeping lines of the complex where Bridget attends pre-natal classes, posing as a surrogate for dads Jack and Mark, are those of the London Aquatics Centre, built for the 2012 Games at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London E20.
When Bridget's waters break, there's no immediate transport, and when a demo blocks vehicle traffic it's left to Mark to carry her physically. This involves, for visual rather than logical reasons, crossing Albert Bridge in Chelsea. So many cinematic journeys through London involve crossing this bridge, which admittedly looks wonderful when illuminated at night.
The hospital entrance to which she is delivered, to give birth to a son, is University College Hospital, on Huntley Street at University Street in Bloomsbury, WC1.
One year later, Bridget marries the man who turns out to be the biological father at St Lawrence Church in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
If you visit, you can't help noticing the giant golden ball topping the church's tower. Despite being only eight feet in diameter, the hollow sphere contains seating for six people. Legend has it that Sir Francis Dashwood held meetings of the Hellfire Club inside it (presumably on the occasions when West Wycombe Caves had been double booked).
This location means that the reception is held in the grounds of West Wycombe House, once the Dashwood family's estate and a screen regular seen in Disney's Cruella, Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, Fast And Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, X-Men: First Class, Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart and others.
