It's exactly a year since Watchbell Street and Church Square in Rye were closed for filming, and this Sunday night on BBC1 you can see the results. Camber Sands also feature in Miss Austen, starring Keeley Hawes.
The story explores why Jane Austen's sister Cassandra destroyed thousands of the author's letters. In episode two of the TV drama, Rye stands in for the seaside town of Sidmouth and St Mary's Church is renamed St Margaret's.
Synnøve Karlsen who plays younger Cassandra has fond memories of filming here. "We had a week in Rye which was absolutely stunning. We filmed on the sand dunes around Camber and it was absolutely freezing! I think on one of the days we were filming it was around –5 degrees celsius, and we were trying to look as comfortable as we could sitting on the beach having a ‘summer’ picnic."
The cold is something Phyllis Logan, who plays Cassandra and Jane's mother, remembers too. "We filmed on Camber Sands beach and it’s meant to be the height of summer in the series, and there we were in January – we were perished! Well, not quite perished, but it was awfully nippy. Filming in Rye was a lovely trip. We used some of the cobbled streets which were very hard to walk on in the shoes my character wore!"
Producer Stella Merz from Bonnie Productions says getting the filming locations right was vital. "In terms of location and design as well, a lot of Jane Austen adaptations are in these big, grand houses, but that’s too big a scale for the reality of the story that we are telling. Jane and her family had much more of a middle-class life, so a lot of effort has been put into finding locations that are on the right scale."
Andrew Bamji remembers the filming in Rye and has watched Miss Austen. "The interrelation of the characters is complicated, and it helps to have read the "cast list" in Gill Hornby's book before watching, but the family trip to Sidmouth throws up a question: if viewers unfamiliar with that town like what they see, and go to visit, will they not be disappointed to be unable to find the pretty town streets down which the family walks after church? Of course we in Rye know better."
You can read Col Everett's story about filming in Rye in January 2024 here.
'Miss Austen' is on BBC1 this Sunday at 9pm.
