Where is 'The Secret Garden' 2020 filmed?

How do you try to top the 1993 cinematic adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic The Secret Garden? 

Answer: You film in not just one but multiple gardens all across Britain.

Two of 2020's The Secret Garden filming locations were properties maintained by the National Trust, Britain's top heritage conservation group. These were the Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, which also featured in the 1993 version, and Bodnant Garden in Conwy. 

Dating back to the 12th century, Fountains Abbey has among the most well preserved remnants of a Cistercian monastery in Britain. The Secret Garden team installed some temporary pools in the ruins of the East Guest House within the abbey estate for the children to frolic in. 

Photo via Alastair Moore

Bodnant Garden is where fans can find the majestic tunnel of laburnums that greet Mary Lennox (Dixie Egerickx) in the film. This 55-metre-long tunnel, also known as the Laburnum Arch, flowers every May.

Credit: fallonrw

Not contented with these two awesome sites, the filmmakers went, as producer Rosie Alison recalled, "all over the place" to depict The Secret Garden. 

Encompassing a National Nature Reserve—including 450 acres of parkland—Duncombe Park is another fittingly verdant setting for the fictional garden. Built in the 18th century, the estate in the North York Moors is home to grass terraces and heritage trees, a tunnel of which features in the film. 

A former kitchen garden of Duncombe Park, the Helmsley Walled Garden in North Yorkshire, also appears in the film. Built in 1759 beneath the imposing Helmsley Castle, the garden offers five acres of foliage, including produce harvested for a café nearby, and is lined with charming gravel paths. 

The team also shot scenes in Cornwall, where the Trebah Garden gave the film some much-needed tropical flora. 

Credit: Daderot

The Grade I gardens at the Iford Manor in Wiltshire, designed by landscape architect Harold Peto, were also selected for their lush vegetation, springing here and there amid Italianate colonnades and cloisters. 

Photo via Neosnaps

What's a secret garden without a wall? The walled garden at the Woodhall Estate in Hertfordshire gave the garden a semblance of gated mystery on film.

The walled garden at Woodhall Estate. Photo via Jhweley

By filming in not just one garden, the filmmakers truly took one of Frances' tenets by heart: "If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."