Where Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi filmed Wuthering Heights — and how to visit
The rugged majesty of Brontë country, the backdrop to a new version of Wuthering Heights, is yours to explore.
Ed Grenby - 10 February 2026
Image: Heathcliff surveys the Yorkshire landscape in the new film version of Wuthering Heights
When Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi filmed Wuthering Heights in the Yorkshire Dales last spring, it was so sunny they had to use a fog machine, a local barman tells me. When I visit in January, the low-hanging mist delivers such gloom at midday that my car’s GPS switches to night mode. But then bleakness is exactly what you want when you’re trying to get into the spirit of Emily Brontë’s destructive tale.
Inner moody hero unleashed, I stomp through oozing mud and gulp the biting air. Around me, skeletal trees scratch the pale sky and mottled dry-stone walls weave across the hills like arteries, binding mossy green fields and ferns the colour of dried blood. The wind whips my pinkening cheeks before curling between ruined farm buildings, their interiors stripped raw.
Set at the northern edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Swaledale is considered among its wildest and most unspoilt valleys: it’s not hard to see why director Emerald Fennell chose it for the backdrop of her sexed-up adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, which hits cinemas this week. Here, only the pylons spiking the shrouded hills tell you you’re in the 21st century – even the grazing sheep, as off-white as the wintry heavens, could belong to any era.
Walk this rugged landscape and you’ll follow in the footsteps of Victorians and venerated actors alike – a 9km circular hike from 19th-century Surrender Bridge, for instance, rewards ramblers with the ruins of Old Gang Smelting Mill, one of the best-preserved lead-mining complexes in the Pennines as well as an atmospheric location for the film (spot a breathless Robbie and glowering Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff reuniting here amid swirling fog in the film’s trailer).
Brontë purists on a Yorkshire break can also visit the real-life spots that inspired author Emily: jutting gritstone rock Ponden Kirk, in West Yorkshire, sparked the fictional moorland haunt Penistone Crag; while nearby Elizabethan farmhouse Ponden Hall – a place often visited by the literary family nearly 200 years ago – is believed to be the model for the Heights’ posher neighbour, Thrushcross Grange. Both can be ticked off on a short circular walk, and Bradford Council has a helpful selection of maps and routes available online (visitbradford.com).
For formal swotting, there’s the Brontë Parsonage Museum (bronte.org.uk) in Haworth village, where the famous clan lived. While I’m there, I learn, among other nuggets, that the sisters were partial to jewellery made from each other’s hair, and that they shared a box room so small it would have me – unlike Cathy’s ghost – begging to be let out rather than in. (Don’t worry, that’s less of a spoiler than it sounds.)
Luckily, my own home for the night – The Angel at Hetton (angel hetton.co.uk) – leaves me with no such escapist desires. A 30-minute drive from Haworth, the Michelin-star restaurant with rooms has just placed 6th in the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs, and rightly so. There’s a signature scent, cheery staff who ferry bags from your car, and everything – even breakfast – is a tasting menu. Celery snow and blue cheese ice cream are among the more unusual dinner ingredients, while the thick slab of Himalayan-salt-cured bacon capped with glossy fat that I tuck into first thing is simply the best I’ve ever eaten. If Heathcliff and co had stayed here instead of endlessly eating gruel in the cold, there might have been a much happier ending.
For a more affordable stay near Brontë country, there’s The Coniston (theconistonhotel.com), which, if you fancy a modern break from moor-mooching, also offers Land Rover experiences, clay-pigeon shooting and fishing. Alternatively, on the other side of the Dales, in North Yorkshire, sprawls the Swinton Estate (swintonestate.com), dating back to the 1600s. Complete with castellated turrets, an imposing tower and portraits of snaggle-toothed ancestors, the house is a perfect, countess-for-the-weekend stately retreat. Guests fleeing the wuthering weather can enjoy whisky tastings and even a “sleep sanctuary” (well, nap on a spa waterbed) at no extra cost. The deer herd roaming the park adds to it all – although the “Estate to Plate” concept does give the sense of having stared one’s meal in the (doe) eye just moments before, when tucking into venison beneath the restaurant’s gold-leaf ceiling. Robbie et al, meanwhile, had simpler tastes. Burgers and fish and chips were ordered when the Wuthering Heights cast and crew stayed at The Punch Bowl Inn (pbinn.co.uk) in the quiet Swaledale village of Low Row while on location last year. Margot was even on pints of Guinness. “She was very polite,” a waitress shares, “and so beautiful even without her make-up” – impressive given the actor, new baby in tow, was apparently up at 4am to film each day.
Director Fennell has a similarly tough ask of her audience: she wants them “to cry so hard they vomit”. Maybe save watching the film until after your weekend away.
Image: Heathcliff surveys the Yorkshire landscape in the new film version of Wuthering Heights
When Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi filmed Wuthering Heights in the Yorkshire Dales last spring, it was so sunny they had to use a fog machine, a local barman tells me. When I visit in January, the low-hanging mist delivers such gloom at midday that my car’s GPS switches to night mode. But then bleakness is exactly what you want when you’re trying to get into the spirit of Emily Brontë’s destructive tale.
Inner moody hero unleashed, I stomp through oozing mud and gulp the biting air. Around me, skeletal trees scratch the pale sky and mottled dry-stone walls weave across the hills like arteries, binding mossy green fields and ferns the colour of dried blood. The wind whips my pinkening cheeks before curling between ruined farm buildings, their interiors stripped raw.
Set at the northern edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Swaledale is considered among its wildest and most unspoilt valleys: it’s not hard to see why director Emerald Fennell chose it for the backdrop of her sexed-up adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, which hits cinemas this week. Here, only the pylons spiking the shrouded hills tell you you’re in the 21st century – even the grazing sheep, as off-white as the wintry heavens, could belong to any era.
Walk this rugged landscape and you’ll follow in the footsteps of Victorians and venerated actors alike – a 9km circular hike from 19th-century Surrender Bridge, for instance, rewards ramblers with the ruins of Old Gang Smelting Mill, one of the best-preserved lead-mining complexes in the Pennines as well as an atmospheric location for the film (spot a breathless Robbie and glowering Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff reuniting here amid swirling fog in the film’s trailer).
Brontë purists on a Yorkshire break can also visit the real-life spots that inspired author Emily: jutting gritstone rock Ponden Kirk, in West Yorkshire, sparked the fictional moorland haunt Penistone Crag; while nearby Elizabethan farmhouse Ponden Hall – a place often visited by the literary family nearly 200 years ago – is believed to be the model for the Heights’ posher neighbour, Thrushcross Grange. Both can be ticked off on a short circular walk, and Bradford Council has a helpful selection of maps and routes available online (visitbradford.com).
For formal swotting, there’s the Brontë Parsonage Museum (bronte.org.uk) in Haworth village, where the famous clan lived. While I’m there, I learn, among other nuggets, that the sisters were partial to jewellery made from each other’s hair, and that they shared a box room so small it would have me – unlike Cathy’s ghost – begging to be let out rather than in. (Don’t worry, that’s less of a spoiler than it sounds.)
Luckily, my own home for the night – The Angel at Hetton (angel hetton.co.uk) – leaves me with no such escapist desires. A 30-minute drive from Haworth, the Michelin-star restaurant with rooms has just placed 6th in the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs, and rightly so. There’s a signature scent, cheery staff who ferry bags from your car, and everything – even breakfast – is a tasting menu. Celery snow and blue cheese ice cream are among the more unusual dinner ingredients, while the thick slab of Himalayan-salt-cured bacon capped with glossy fat that I tuck into first thing is simply the best I’ve ever eaten. If Heathcliff and co had stayed here instead of endlessly eating gruel in the cold, there might have been a much happier ending.
For a more affordable stay near Brontë country, there’s The Coniston (theconistonhotel.com), which, if you fancy a modern break from moor-mooching, also offers Land Rover experiences, clay-pigeon shooting and fishing. Alternatively, on the other side of the Dales, in North Yorkshire, sprawls the Swinton Estate (swintonestate.com), dating back to the 1600s. Complete with castellated turrets, an imposing tower and portraits of snaggle-toothed ancestors, the house is a perfect, countess-for-the-weekend stately retreat. Guests fleeing the wuthering weather can enjoy whisky tastings and even a “sleep sanctuary” (well, nap on a spa waterbed) at no extra cost. The deer herd roaming the park adds to it all – although the “Estate to Plate” concept does give the sense of having stared one’s meal in the (doe) eye just moments before, when tucking into venison beneath the restaurant’s gold-leaf ceiling. Robbie et al, meanwhile, had simpler tastes. Burgers and fish and chips were ordered when the Wuthering Heights cast and crew stayed at The Punch Bowl Inn (pbinn.co.uk) in the quiet Swaledale village of Low Row while on location last year. Margot was even on pints of Guinness. “She was very polite,” a waitress shares, “and so beautiful even without her make-up” – impressive given the actor, new baby in tow, was apparently up at 4am to film each day.
Director Fennell has a similarly tough ask of her audience: she wants them “to cry so hard they vomit”. Maybe save watching the film until after your weekend away.
Wuthering Heights
In cinemas nationwide from Saturday