film locations – Sophie Neville

Lucy Batty of Bank Ground Farm

We were sad to hear that Lucy Batty has passed away. She was 87. Our thoughts are with her family. She will be fondly remembered by visitors from all over the world who were made so welcome at Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water in the Lake District, which she ran as a guest house for many years. It was also used as a film location, becoming known as ‘Holly Howe’ in Richard Pilbrow’s 1974 movie, Swallows & Amazons.

Bankground Farm — Bank Ground Farm in the Lake District

I first met Mrs Batty when we filmed in her home back in 1973 and returned to stay with her in 2003 when the BBC asked Suzanna Hamilton and myself if we would appear in Countryfile, which they were filming at Bank Ground Farm with Ben Fogle. It was then that she had time to show me her photo albums. What a life she led! She was very proud of having brought up seven children on the farm, “Two of my own and five that came with my husband,” she explained. “Getting them all off to school in the mornings was such hard work that my in-laws came to help on my first day.They all wanted bread and dripping for breakfast, with sugar sprinkled on top.”

Sophie Neville with Lucy Batty at Bank Ground Farm, Westmorland in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville — ~ Sophie Neville with Lucy Batty in 1973~

“A magistrate once asked me what running a B&B entailed. ‘It’s much like looking after cattle,’ I told him. ‘You bring ‘um in, feed ‘um, see they’re bedded down, turn ’em out and muck’um out.’ He flung back his head and roared with laughter.”

She had a great sense of humour. I have a cutting from an article in The News written by Brenda Colton and published on 25th May 1973. It reads:

‘When Mrs Lucy Batty was asked if her house could be used for the setting of the film Swallows and Amazons, with guest star Virginia McKenna, she was delighted. After all, her home, Bank Ground Farm on the east side of Coniston Water, near Brantwood, was the setting chosen by Arthur Ransome for his children’s book Swallows and Amazons.

Mrs Batty thought it a good idea that the story should be filmed in an authentic location, and she felt she should be able to put up with a few cameras and film men for a while. But she just did not realise the scale of a “medium budget” film like this one, or what the production staff could do to her house. It was not the two double-decker buses coming down the path and parking on the farm that she minded, nor the numerous vans, lorries, cars and caravans. It was not even the difficulty of having 80 men and women wandering round the farmhouse carrying equipment here, there and everywhere. But when art director Simon Holland started tearing up her lino and carpet in the kitchen to get to the bare stone floor, she did get a little annoyed. Especially when he removed all the electric sockets, lights and switches, pushed all the kitchen furniture into the larder and whitewashed the newly papered walls.

“Have you seen the kitchen?” Mrs Batty said to me. “The larder is piled high with my furniture; and you would not believe the tip my lounge is in. But they are a funny lot. I asked if I could wash the beams in the kitchen for them, and they said ‘Oh no, we want them to look old.’ I have even had to hunt out a lot of old pottery from the cellar for them.

“But I have given up now. I have just left them to it.”

What she never knew was that Ian Whittaker the set dresser went on to win an Oscar for set design and received Academy Nominations on three other classic movies.

What I really did not know, until I watched the BBC documentary ‘Country Tracks’, was that Mrs Batty reached the point when she locked out the crew. She explained that when she was originally asked if we could film on her property she did not quite realise the scale of operations and only asked for – or accepted – a location fee of £75. She said that she decided that £75 was not enough, padlocked her front gate and wouldn’t let them back in until they agreed to pay her £1,000. It was a lot of money, more than double the fee I received for acting in the whole movie.

To read a little more about filming of Swallows & Amazons at Bank Ground Farm, please click here.

Sophie Neville holding the horses — Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville & Simon West with Mr Jackson at Holly Howe

For the amusing clip of Lucy Batty being interviewed by Ben Fogle about hosting the film company please click here and fast forward.

For Bank Ground Farm’s website please click here

I am sure many people reading this have their own memories of Mrs Batty who was such a great character. Please do add them to the Comments box below. I feel it would be a tribute to all the hard work and love she put into making Bank Ground available over the decades for so many to enjoy.

Stephen Grendon, Simon West, Virginia McKenna, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville, trying not to look as tall as she was in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville — The farmhouse as Holly Howe in 1973

You can read more about the adventures we had making the original film Swallows and Amazons here:

Where is Rio and were you there in 1973?

A number of people have specifically asked, ‘Where is Rio in Swallows and Amazons?’

The answer is that Rio lies on the eastern shore of Arthur Ransome’s imaginary lake. I have always loved the map in his book, originally drawn by the illustrator Stephen Spurrier, that was used on dust jacket and frontispieces of the first editions. The Arthur Ransome Literary Estate have given me permission to include a thumb-nail image:

The Arthur Ransome Trust have made the map into a jigsaw puzzle. You can buy a virtual piece of this map to raise funds for their projects. If you go to their website and hover your cursor over the jigsaw pieces you can discover a great deal about the locations mentioned in the books with names of all the islands. Please click here and wait for it to load.

Simon Hodkin's collection — An early letter Ransome wrote a fan of the book

Arthur Ransome told his readers that they would need to go and find the places mentioned in the books themselves. Most people think that if you compare his lake with Windermere there is only one option for the town of Rio.

Rio Bay ~ Steam boat — Photograph taken by Martin Neville 1973 showing Windermere skiffs and George Pattinson in his steamboat ‘Elizabeth’. The old green boathouse can be seen beyond the town jetty.

Bowness-on-Windermere in the English Lake District was used as the location for ‘the native settlement of Rio’ in the film of Swallows & Amazons produced by Richard Pilbrow in 1973 and now distributed by StudioCanal, who have a shot of the town on their website here.

Bowness in 2014 photo John Burgess — Photograph of the town jetty at Bowness taken in June 2014 by John Burgess

Today the Bowness lakeside looks a little different, although the skiffs are still pulled up on the beach.

My father admiring the traditional boats

The old green boathouses have been replaced by a modern development but you can still walk along the town jetty, as the Swallows did, and even catch a native steamer down to the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway where the opening scenes of the film were shot.

DSCF9379 — MV Swan on Windermere today, seen from Lakeside Railway Station.

The secret known to a few people is that the chandlers shop where the Swallows bought grog and rope for the lighthouse tree is actually in Windermere town.

The Swallows in Woodland Road, Windermere in 1973 — The Swallows in Woodland Road, Windermere – now a barber’s shop

This is what the location looks like nowadays:

John, Susan and Titty can then be seen walking past the Stags Head Hotel in Church Street, Bowness-on-Windermere, which was ‘dressed’ with a pony and trap and vintage cars to emulate 1929 when the book was written. Click on the image to see the same view today:

John Susan and Titty walking past the hotel — John, Susan and Titty walking past the Old England Hotel. The Stags Head Hotel lies just beyond them in Church Street

This is how Church Street looks today. Please click on this image for the source.

If you go to explore the location, do send in more photos.

Rio - walking past the Stags Head Hotel — The Swallows in Church Street in 1973

To read more about filming in Bowness in 1973 please click here.

Rio Bay ~ newspaper article — Evening Post 11th June 1973. Please click on the photo for more news cuttings

Where you there?

We’d love to hear from anyone who took part in the filming. The entire Kendall Borough Band came along, someone brought a pony and trap, others arrived with period vehicles including a motorcycle. A man arrived with three donkeys and a number of local people took part, appearing as film extras. Do contact us in the comments box below.

If a new film adaptation is made, the producer has told me it may now be too difficult to use Bowness. It’s busy place in the summer months. The village of Coniston might be an alternative. What do you think?

Meanwhile here are the lyrics to the sea shanty Titty loved, Away Rio. The tune was incorporated into the film score.

O, the anchor is weighed, and the sails they are set,
Away, Rio!
The maids that we’re leaving we’ll never forget,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young gel,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grand!

So man the good capstan, and run it around,
Away, Rio!
We’ll heave up the anchor to this jolly sound,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young gel,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grand!

We’ve a jolly good ship, and a jolly good crew,
Away, Rio!
A jolly good mate, and a good skipper, too,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young gel,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grand!

We’ll sing as we heave to the maidens we leave,
Away, Rio!
And you who are listening, good-bye to you,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young gel,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grand!

Come heave up the anchor, let’s get it aweigh,
Away, Rio!
It’s got a firm grip, so heave steady, I say,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young gel,
For we’re bound for the Rio Grand!

Heave with a will, and heave long and strong,
Away, Rio!
Sing a good chorus, for ’tis a good song,

Traditional – Lyrics from Iron Men & Wooden Ships, by Frank Shay

If you enjoyed watching ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974) on television

If you would like to know how the movie of Swallows & Amazons (1974) was made and know where the real locations can be found, ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons(1974)’ is currently available as an ebook on Amazon and Smashwords for £2.99. The paperback was launched to mark the 40th anniversary of the film’s release and is available online here.

Do you know where the Peak of Darien can be found? photo: Roger Wardale — Do you know where the Peak of Darien can be found?

The paperback, which is suitable for any age group, is based on the diary that I kept when I played the part of Titty Walker in 1973. It is illustrated with behind-the-scenes photographs and memorabilia such as one of the tickets to the Royal Gala premier in Shaftesbury Avenue held on 4th April 1974. You will also find out what the actors who played the Walker family ~ the Swallows ~ are doing now.

The joy of the ebook is that it includes a number of home-movie clips that my parents took of life behind the scenes that you can play wherever you have internet access.

Classi Boat magazine Books ~ Feb 2014 — A review of the ebook in Classic Boat magazine ~ Feburary 2014

If you have any questions about making the film, please add them to the comments below, and I will get back to you.

Richard Kay's column in Daily Mail Friday Nov 22nd1 — A review of ‘the Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ in Richard Kay’s column in the Daily Mail ~

There were rather over-excited headlines in the Times and Telegraph when the ebook was launched but they only spoke of the legendary drinking of Ronald Fraser. Please don’t worry – there is nothing X-rated about the book – it is just the price one pays for half a page in a daily newspaper, especially since it came out on a Saturday.

The ebook has been doing well in the Amazon charts and hit Number 1 in the category ‘Stage and Theatre’.

A preview of what the book holds in store can be watched here:

‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ – the book trailer

Very many thanks to all those who have left customer reviews on Amazon. It is always exciting to find out how the book has impacted others, especially those who love the Arthur Ransome books.

To read more reviews please click here

'The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville' — Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’

The new film adaptation of ‘Swallows and Amazons'(2016)

Sophie Neville with Swallow on Coniston Water, Cumbria

Nick Barton of Harbour Pictures, in collaboration with BBC Films, launched a new adaptation of Swallows and Amazons on 19th August 2016.

I had joined him and his wife on the first recce to the Lake District back in 2011, staying at Bank Ground Farm, sailing Swallow on Coniston Water and taking a boat trip down Lake Windermere in Cumbria. He went on to find locations on Derwentwater and in Yorkshire with his director Philippa Lowthorpe who developed the new script with Andrea Gibb.

To see a clip of the opening scenes, starring Kelly Macdonald and Andrew Scott – please click here

If you want to know what it was like to be in the film made back in 1973 ~ please click here: https://sophieneville.net/category/autobiography/

To read more about the making of the 1974 classic, take a look at my book ‘The Making Of Swallows and Amazons’

Octopus Lagoon ~ the trials of filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973

‘The rain poured down.’ Cumbria was covered in cloud, the Lake District dark and dismal. What a nightmare for Richard Pilbrow and his production team. We were behind schedule, Lesley Bennett who played Peggy was ill in bed and we had run out of ‘rain cover’.

There was one sequence left that could be recorded in dull weather. Today was the day Claude Whatham shot the haunting scenes of Octopus Lagoon. After finishing our school work Kit Seymour and I sat watching the filming from the sloping field above the beautiful but rather smelly lily pond.

I do not have the Call Sheet for 29th June 1973 but have an extract from this earlier one detailing the ‘Alternative Dull Weather Call’:

I can’t say whether the weather allowed for the scene set on the Amazon River to be shot. Lesley had ‘flu so they would have had to somehow manage without her. I think Claude devoted his time to capture the conundrum and challenges faced by Captain John in the lagoon. The location chosen for this was on private property near Skelwith Fold Caravan Park. Those who are interested in finding the film locations used might find this old hand-typed ‘Movement Order’ useful:

Roger Wardale sites Octopus Lagoon as being Allan Tarn a short distance up the River Crake at the Southern end of Coniston Water, near High Nibthwaite. This is the place Arthur Ransome had in mind. He spent time there with is brother and sisters as a child when they spent their summers on Swainson’s Farm at Nibthwaite nearby. His father went there to fish for pike. It you have a shallow bottomed boat you can get there but it is not exactly on a footpath. The lily pond we used was in a high sided dip, which made it appropriately dark and gloomy. It was also more accessible for the film crew.

Graham Ford, who signed the Movement Order was our Production Manager. I only have a photograph of him taken on a sunnier day.

The Production Team on 'Swallows and Amazons' in 1973 — Second Assistant Terry Needham, Associate Producer Neville C Thompson and Production Manager Graham Ford with the unit radio on a sunny day in June 1973

Graham Ford would have been responsible for the film schedule, putting together the whole logistical jigsaw puzzle posed by factors such as the availability of leading actors and locations with the movement of vehicles and boats, including the massive camera pontoon. It was Graham who took the stress of problems caused by wet weather. I guess that he also took on the responsibilities of managing the locations, negotiating with owners and the Lake District National Park, something that authors such as Arthur Ransome would not have had to face.

Graham Ford in Derwentwater

Although young, Graham was pretty experienced. He had previously worked as an assistant director on such classic films as Steptoe and Son and had been the Unit Manager on The Devils, a film that starred Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed. After Swallows he went on to work as Production Manager on S.O.S Titanic, The Honorary Consul and Princess Daisy as well as Time Bandits and Brazil directed by Terry Gilliam starring Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist and Robert de Niro. Imagine being Terry Gilliam’s right hand man. He was a Location Manager for David Lynch on The Elephant Man and for Richard Attenborough on Ghandi in 1982. Graham’s career progressed. He produced The Nightmare Years and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in the late 1980s before working on Gettysburg, the massive four hour long movie about the American civil war, in 1993. A life in film. He died in Ontario in 1994 aged only 48.

If you would like to read more, the story of the filming can be read in a paperback entitled ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1976)’ available from libraries worldwide or from online stockist and good bookshops. The Nancy Blackett Trust have signed copies available here with proceeds going to the trust. These are illustrated so cost £15 but make good presents.

‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) the opening locations of the classic film

On the first day of making the original movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’ in May 1973, a huge effort was made to ‘dress’ Haverthwaite Railway Station, at the southern end of Windermere. The aim was to bring across the feel of a bustling holiday destination in the year 1929. Local people had been fitted with costumes in the Ambleside Church Hall, there was a horse and cart, porters’ trolleys laden with trunks and a number of old bikes, which were all of great interest to us.

Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville

Having stepped down from the steam locomotive, where the Times photographer must have taken this shot, we children were piled into an open-topped period vehicle, for further publicity photographs.

An article in The Times 1973 — A photograph taken for The Times of us all aboard the steam train at Haverthwaite

I thought the publicity photographs taken that day were silly, especially since Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennett, who played the Amazons, were wearing ordinary clothes rather than period costumes, but the results were later published in both The Guardian and Woman’s Realm.

With Virginia McKenna on the first day of filming — A publicity shot featuring Virginia McKenna, with Kit Seymour, Steven Grendon, Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton, taken on the first day of filming and published in the Guardian and other newspapers

The yellow motor used in the film for our taxi was superb. Would a real Lakeland taxi have been so grand? I recorded in my diary that Sten, playing Roger, hung out of the window as the director, Claude Whatham, ‘filmed us driving out of the station, along the platform at top speed.’

Once this shot was ‘in the can’ Virginia McKenna was interviewed by journalists while we were hurried away to get on with our lessons. Our tutor taught us Art. I drew the a picture of the motor car.

Claude and Virginia at the railway station — Director Claude Whatham talking to Virginia McKenna

Arriving at Holly Howe in the taxi was truly exciting. It was not filmed the next day, as I think rain had set in. Claude waited for good evening light. But I remember the thrill of drawing up outside the farmhouse in the old car and pulling on my hat as we spilled out and ran past the big farm horses Mr Jackson was leading into the yard. Our OOV (out of vision) dialogue was added later.

Swallows 1973 screenplay — The screenplay of the 1973 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ adapted from Arthur Ransome’s book by David Wood

If you ever go to Bank Ground Farm near Coniston, named Holly Howe by Arthur Ransome in his books, you must run down the field to the lake as we did. As soon as you arrive. And at top speed. And you will be filled by the same feeling of elation as we were when we played the Walker children.

The slope, formed by glacial scouring and subsequent deposits long ago, is steeper than you might think. We became adept at the art of glaumphing, advocated by Ransome in the book.

What struck me when I returned to Bank Ground Farm one Spring, was that sadly the great trees have gone from around the old farm gate and the boatsheds down by the lake. They must simply have reached the end of their lives, but their glory was captured on celluloid to be remembered forever.

Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West with Mr Jackson at Holly Howe~ photo: Daphne Neville

Most Arthur Ransome devotees will know that the Peak at Darien, where once stood stout Cortez, is familiar to readers as it appears in two of the illustrations in the book. Sadly it can not be found below the farm in real life. Mrs Ransome said that you could find the headland on Windermere. In April 2011, when I was on an early recce with Nick Barton, CEO of Harbour Picture Productions, we did pass one promising spot. However Richard Pilbrow and Claude Whatham chose Friar’s Crag on Derwent Water for the location. I didn’t know it but Christina Hardyment writes in her excellent book, Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint’s Trunk, that they had found the very place Ransome had in mind, “without the slightest idea that they were quite right to be doing so.” She found that Ransome had marked up postcard of Friar’s Peak for his illustrator Clifford Webb to work from in 1930. It feels completely right when you are there, with the iconic view of an island under the towering mountains. It was over a shot of this that the opening titles were added.

Sout Cortez was not around. Neither were we children. By the time we had been transported from Coniston to Derwent Water for this scheduled scene the sun was going down. We’d been delayed by the make-up artist who was determined to tone down the tans we had developed. This took ages as he used a very small sponge. My mother was frustrated, as she thought that this would never have shown up, but he put his foot down with the result that we were ‘late on set’ for the evening shots. Mum grabbed this photo but it was a disaster. Claude Whatham was very annoyed.

Sophie Neville at Derwent Water — Sophie Neville as Titty arriving too late in the day to film at Friar’s Crag on Derwent Water. The island portrayed as Wildcat Island can be seen in the distance ~ photo: Daphne Neville

One of the big secrets of the film is that the sequence when we run up to the Peak at Darien and first set eyes on the island in the lake was shot under an oak tree in Runnymede, near the River Thames. We were not an island at all. It must have been an expensive ‘pick-up shot’ but Claude had made an effort to gather together the same crew members and I was back in my lovely silk dress once more. We knew how to act by then and the joy of being together again shows on our faces. The result was a scene to set the film off on the right foot. We were jubilant and so excited, that, like swallows, we could have taken flight.

Pick-up shots — Sophie Neville, Claude Whatham and Simon West with Richard Pilbrow, right ~photo:Daphne Neville

I would have to check with Richard Pilbrow to be certain, but I think that Simon Holland, the Art Director, penned the SWALLOWS and AMAZONS graphics for the opening titles. I remember a discussion about the font type. A very fashionable script used on the poster of the film was favoured. I said that they ought to use the handwritten capitals that Clifford Webb had penned on the map in the opening cover of the book, which were copied by Simon Holland (and me) on our chart. This was chosen.

Swallows and Amazons (1974)

A snazzy Seventies’ font, had been used for the titles of Lionel Jefferey’s movie The Railway Children and the poster of Swallows & Amazons. For sometime a DVD has been available which gives you both movies released by EMI Films.

Click on this image to see the poster of the film

As a viewer I felt that this soon dated it, whilst Swallows and Amazons sailed onto our television screens in the 1980’s and 1990’s, without being spoilt by what became most unfashionable graphics. Of course that particular retro font is now all the rage.

'The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)'

You can read more about the trials of producing the classic film in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ published by the Lutterworth Press, available online and at all good bookshops.