DCI Vera Stanhope makes a return to our television screens in January in the successful ITV crime drama Vera.
The down to earth detective, played by Brenda Blethyn, has put Northumberland and Newcastle on the map since the show launched in 2011. Fans travel from around the world to visit the scenic locations which feature in the popular drama. Only last week I was chatting to a group of six Vera enthusiasts in our local pub – The Derwent Arms. They had travelled all the way from Denmark to see where the crime drama is filmed. Companies, mainly based in Newcastle, have sprung up offering guided coach tours of film spots in the city and the Northumberland coast but Vera fans staying at Hepple Hill Cottage have a head start on the location hunters. If you are staying at Hepple Hill you won’t have to travel very far at all to visit film locations. Several episodes were filmed right here in the village.
In the episode The Moth Catcher (episode 3, series 6 ) Vera visits Harehope Hall, a farmhouse on the side of the B6278 just out of the village on the way to Stanhope. It is here in the farmyard she makes a breakthrough in her investigation into the death of a young hit and run victim. A poignant scene from the same episode was filmed at a small cottage on the fell at the back of Hepple Hill. The camera seems to linger on the stunning landscape – the same views which can be seen from Hepple Hill’s kitchen window!
A short travel over the fell and past Harehope Hall will take you to Stanhope in Weardale. It has always struck me as a happy coincidence that Vera shares a surname with the place I live. Vera has been filmed on this moorland road (the B6278) several times and once our own farm at Pease Myers was nearly in shot! Our neighbour’s home at Stewart Shield Farm, Stanhope took centre stage in one episode. The film crew moved in for several weeks and took over the farmhouse kitchen. Great views were filmed but yet again our farm was just out of shot.
This stunning Vera location is close to Hepple Hill Cottage
the weardale railway
The Weardale Railway, also in Stanhope, was transformed into a busy commuter station in ‘On Harbour Street’ (episode 1, season 4). Vera’s sergeant Joe Ashworth’s daughter witnesses the apparent stabbing of a pensioner on the train and the pensioner’s seemingly quiet life turns out to be nothing of the sort. The platform where the scene was filmed is easy to find. The station is at Bondisle Way, Stanhope, DL13 2YS.
Other locations nearby which have featured in Vera include the Langdon Beck Hotel in Teesdale which now does very good food; Hexham (which features in this 13th season) and Corbridge. For city scenes and the Northumberland coast it might be worth looking at what the tour companies have to offer. I plan to take my mother on a trip and will be trying the Newcastle Tour Company (www.newcastletourcompany.com)
Let me know which Vera locations you have seen.
