Discover Peterborough · Film & Television
Peterborough
On Screen.
James Bond. Mission: Impossible. Atonement. Poirot. EastEnders. From Cold War trains and wartime France to Walford and the Orient Express, Peterborough has spent decades pretending to be somewhere else.
Lights · Camera · Peterborough
The city that keeps changing identity
Russia. Germany. France. Walford. Peterborough.
Peterborough has spent decades playing places it is not.
The city and surrounding landscape have appeared in major feature films, prestige drama, soaps, documentaries, commercials and music videos. Its greatest screen asset is the Nene Valley Railway, whose preserved stations, continental rolling stock and adaptable landscape have allowed filmmakers to turn Peterborough into Cold War Germany, Russia, France and almost anywhere else a railway can reach.
James Bond came twice. Tom Cruise performed one of the most famous stunts of his career at nearby RAF Wittering. Joe Wright used the Peterborough fens as wartime France in Atonement. Alan Rickman walked through the Cathedral precincts in The Barchester Chronicles. Poirot boarded trains here. EastEnders turned Orton Mere into Walford.
And the archive is larger than any public list. Screen-tourism research has recorded the Nene Valley Railway as having hosted more than 150 films, television programmes and commercials. This page brings together the major productions and named credits that can be positively documented.
Peterborough’s most successful acting role may be pretending not to be Peterborough.
007 · Peterborough
Licensed to relocate
Bond came here. Twice.
Peterborough’s screen story contains something few British cities can claim: two different James Bonds used the same local railway.
In 1982, Roger Moore and the Octopussy production descended on the Nene Valley Railway. Wansford became East Germany’s Karl-Marx-Stadt. Orton Mere, Ferry Meadows and stretches of railway around Peterborough became part of an elaborate sequence involving the Octopussy circus train, a bomb, a Mercedes running on railway tracks and some of the film’s most memorable stunt work.
The production spent weeks here, using local extras and railway volunteers. Peterborough was not simply a passing background. It became a substantial production base.
Octopussy
Wansford Station doubled as Karl-Marx-Stadt. Orton Mere, Ferry Meadows and the Nene Valley line supplied the railway action.
EAST GERMANY → PETERBOROUGHGoldenEye
Bond returned for the armoured-train sequence. The NVR became Russia, while Peterborough’s former British Sugar site also entered the production story.
RUSSIA → PETERBOROUGHThe Star Location
Nene Valley Railway
One railway. A hundred different worlds.
The secret is not simply steam trains. It is flexibility.
British, Belgian and continental rolling stock, period stations, sidings, crossings, bridges and countryside allow the Nene Valley Railway to change country, decade and mood remarkably quickly. That versatility explains why its screen credits stretch from wartime drama to soaps, crime series, musicals and blockbuster action.
The Screen Timeline
Selected documented productions
Roll through the credits.
Secret Army
Wansford and the Nene Valley Railway repeatedly stood in for occupied Europe.
The Barchester Chronicles
Peterborough Cathedral, the Deanery, Abbots Gate and Laurel Court helped create Trollope’s fictional cathedral city. The cast included Alan Rickman, Nigel Hawthorne and Donald Pleasence.
Octopussy
Roger Moore’s Bond turned Wansford, Orton Mere and Ferry Meadows into Cold War Europe.
Top Secret!
Val Kilmer’s cult spy spoof used the railway’s period European character.
The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission
The NVR again supplied a convincing wartime-European railway landscape.
Biggles: Adventures in Time
A memorable biplane-and-helicopter sequence used the railway, including a helicopter landing onto a moving flat-bed wagon.
GoldenEye
Pierce Brosnan’s first Bond film returned to the NVR for the Russian armoured-train sequence.
Casualty
The opening of series 18 staged an enormous double train crash on the Nene Valley Railway, filmed over 24 days with 1,470 supporting artists.
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Nene Valley Railway doubled for Nice and Paris railway stations in David Suchet’s Poirot.
Dalziel & Pascoe
The railway supplied another dramatic level-crossing collision for television crime drama.
Atonement
The Nene Washes and nearby fen landscape became 1930s rural France as Robbie Turner and fellow soldiers moved towards Dunkirk.
Nine
Daniel Day-Lewis and Penélope Cruz were among the stars associated with filming on the NVR.
Murder on the Orient Express
ITV spent several days at the railway, with much of the local filming taking place around Ferry Meadows.
EastEnders
Wansford hosted the dramatic Janine and Ryan level-crossing storyline. The railway later returned to Walford duty at Orton Mere in 2019.
Hugo
NVR rolling stock and railway material contributed to Scorsese’s Oscar-winning celebration of early cinema and railway-station magic.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
RAF Wittering became the setting for the extraordinary opening stunt in which Tom Cruise clung to the outside of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it took off.
Zombies in Tha Hood
A very different Peterborough appeared on screen through Queensgate, Orton, Railworld, Palmerston Road and other recognisable city locations.
EastEnders returns
Orton Mere station was dressed as Walford Common for a Bobby Beale storyline.
Peterborough Plays France
Atonement · 2007
No railway. No city streets. Just landscape.
Atonement proved that Peterborough’s cinematic power was not confined to trains.
Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel used the Nene Washes and nearby fenland to represent rural France during the retreat to Dunkirk. Eldernell Lane near Coates and the broad, low horizon supplied a landscape that could feel simultaneously English, European and timeless.
It is a perfect example of what location managers see in this area: scale, open skies, water, distance and very little visual clutter.
Peterborough Goes Global
Mission: Impossible · Rogue Nation
The plane was real. So was Tom Cruise.
One of modern cinema’s most recognisable practical stunts was filmed on Peterborough’s doorstep.
At RAF Wittering in November 2014, Tom Cruise was attached to the outside of an Airbus A400M Atlas and carried into the air for the opening of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
The sequence became part of the film’s global marketing and reinforced Cruise’s reputation for performing extraordinary practical stunts himself. For Peterborough, it placed a local military airfield inside one of the world’s biggest action franchises.
The Cathedral on Camera
From drama to documentary
Sometimes Peterborough gets to play itself.
The Cathedral precinct has supplied both fictional architecture and the real subject of television.
The Barchester Chronicles
Peterborough Cathedral, the Deanery, Abbots Gate and Laurel Court helped create Trollope’s fictional ecclesiastical world.
Six Wives with Lucy Worsley
The Cathedral’s Tudor story and royal connections make it a natural setting for historical television.
Saints and Sinners
The building has appeared in programmes exploring Britain’s monasteries, architecture and religious history.
Fred Dibnah, Long Lost Family & more
Its screen life also includes factual, lifestyle and live-broadcast television.
Location Casting
What did Peterborough play?
The city’s other identities.
Wansford & Nene Valley Railway
Nene Valley Railway
Nene Washes & the Fens
Nene Valley Railway
Wansford & Orton Mere
Peterborough Cathedral precinct
The Wider Credit Roll
Named productions associated with local filming
The list keeps going.
Public records also identify the Nene Valley Railway with productions including Silent Witness, Casualty, Dalziel & Pascoe, EastEnders and Poirot. Other archival accounts add further drama, documentary, advertising and specialist railway filming.
And Then Freddie Mercury Arrived
Queen · Breakthru
Not film. Too good to leave out.
In 1989 Queen took over the Nene Valley Railway for the video to Breakthru. Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon performed on a moving steam locomotive dressed as the Miracle Express.
It has become one of the railway’s most recognisable pieces of screen heritage and an irresistible part of Peterborough’s visual culture.
Walk Into the Frame
Peterborough’s screen locations
The locations are still here.
Nene Valley Railway
Bond, Poirot, EastEnders, Casualty and decades of screen history.
Orton Mere & Ferry Meadows
Railway action, Bond sequences and television locations in Nene Park.
Peterborough Cathedral
Historic drama, documentary and one of the city’s most cinematic interiors.
The Fens
The open landscape that transformed into wartime France for Atonement.
The Next Production
Film Peterborough
The credits are still rolling.
Peterborough is not simply looking backwards at its screen history. Film Peterborough supports productions searching for city streets, heritage architecture, waterways, parkland, industrial landscapes, villages, railway infrastructure and locations that can become almost anywhere on camera.
Discover Film Peterborough →Sources & Further Reading
Behind the scenes.
- Peterborough City Council, Past productions filmed in Peterborough
- Creative England / Olsberg SPI, Quantifying Film and Television Tourism in England
- James Bond International Fan Club, contemporary location reporting from Octopussy filming in Peterborough
- James Bond International Fan Club, GoldenEye at the Nene Valley Railway
- ITV News Anglia, filming Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation at RAF Wittering
- Movie-Locations.com, Atonement filming locations
No single public production ledger identifies every film, television episode, commercial and music video made locally. The named credits on this page are drawn from productions and locations that can be positively documented. The Nene Valley Railway’s wider screen archive is substantially larger.
Discover Peterborough
Seen the film? Now find the location.
Peterborough’s screen history turns familiar local places into part of a much bigger cultural story, from Bond and Hollywood to British drama, soaps and music history.
Keep Exploring Peterborough →