Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed Series 8 of the TV show Shetland.

Next week, on March 21, is the 25th anniversary of Shakespeare in Love winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1999.

I’m sure that you’ve all seen the movie, so I won’t review it, but I will say that it stands up well for re-watching. Although I knew the gist of the plot, there were many details that I didn’t remember about the story and how it was told.

Since we enjoyed my film location posts for Jane Austen January, I decided to see what I could learn about the film locations for Shakespeare in Love.

The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations provided the best list of film locations for Shakespeare in Love that I found.

The Rose Theater in the movie has a passing resemblance to the reconstructed Globe Theater south of the Thames. Shakespeare’s Globe opened in 1997 but wasn’t used in this film. The real Rose Theater was excavated beginning in 1989 and opened to the public in 1999. The Rose Theater in the movie, however, was a film set. According to the Wikipedia article on the Rose Theater, the film set was donated to the British Shakespeare Company to set up as an actual theater, but it seems the project was never developed.

Middle Temple, City of London. The performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona, where we first see Viola, was staged in the Great Hall of Middle Temple — part of the complex of court and legal buildings in London. Tours are available if booked in advance, but they’re pretty pricey unless you can find a group of 10 or more to attend and split the cost.

Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire. Viola’s house is played by the gorgeous Broughton Castle. For the balcony scenes, a temporary wooden balcony was added to the castle. This castle has been in the Fiennes family for centuries. Actor Ralph Fiennes is a distant cousin of the current Baron Saye and Sele who still manages Broughton Castle. Most of the current exterior was built in the 1550s. The house, garden, and tearoom are open to the public on Wednesdays, Sundays, and Bank Holiday Mondays in the warmer months.

Broughton Castle. By David Stowell, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. Viola’s engagement to Lord Wessex is approved by Queen Elizabeth at an event in Greenwich. But the building we see is, in fact, the south-facing view of Hatfield House with its distinctive garden. Hatfield House was built by Robert Cecil on the grounds of what is now known as the Old Palace, where Elizabeth I spent much of her childhood. Hatfield House will open to the public for the summer on May 23.

By Allan Engelhard Hatfield House CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, London. The church where Will goes to pray for forgiveness, believing himself responsible for the death of Kit Marlow, is Great St. Bart’s. Since this church celebrated its 900th anniversary last year, Shakespeare really could have visited this site, although the building itself has undergone various destructions and reconstructions. Readers of British literature will recognize the name from the neighboring St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. St. Bart’s continues to be a fully functioning church, open to visitors and worshipers.

Have you been to any of these places? We were in the area of Middle Temple during our trip to England in 2014 but didn’t go inside any buildings.