Filming Locations for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and More

A Travel Adventure in the Making

Hitchhiker’s Guide (1981) BBC Locations:

Arthur Dent’s House

The Edmonds Farm, near Balcombe, England

GPS Coordinates: 51.057321, -0.110045

Where Arthur wakes up to find a bulldozer trying to knock over his home. The hedge by the road is also where they filmed the scene with Arthur running down the road and shouting at Prosser and then Ford comes and pulls out the electronic thumb.

Red Lion Pub

Haywards Heath, Sussex

GPS Coordinates: 51.054410, 0.016341

The infamous pub where Ford and Arthur drink six pints of bitter and the barman asks if he should put a paper bag over his head. The inside has been seriously remodeled since the early 1980’s but the outside is very familiar!

Magrathea Location

Little John’s China Clay Works, Cocksbarrow, Cornwall

GPS Coordinates: 50.379185, -4.808454

A former clay pit where the hill that the Heart of Gold landed next to can still be seen though it’s no longer a cold dead planet but a green planet! Also if you visit, make sure you go to the nearby Sawles Arms Pub where the cast used to go and drink and eat after shooting.

Magrathea Location by Ashleaf Milliard

Magrathea Location by Ashleaf Milliard

Photo by Ashleaf Milliard

Tunnel That Slartibartfast’s aircar rides through

Former Par — Fowey railway (Pinnock) tunnel, Cornwall

GPS Coordinates: 50.351915, -4.671840

As far as I can tell, the Pinnock tunnel is where Slartibartfast’s aircar races through space inside of Magrathea. There is a clay pit in the same area that is where they filmed the scenes on Magrathea, though being a working quarry it will looking nothing like it did in the show.

Budgemoor Golf & Country Club

near Henley-on-Thames

GPS Coordinates: 51.542297, -0.921569

Where the Galactic Police shooting / exploding computer in Magrathea scene was shot.

Dovestones

Peak District National Park

General GPS Coordinates: 53.531002, -1.973165

Where the caveman playing Scrabble scenes were shot.

Hitchhiker’s Guide (2005) Movie Locations:

Arthur Dent’s House

Hare Street, Hertfordshire

GPS Coordinates: 51.935163, 0.033072

You can just about see it on StreetView zoomed in. The house stands on the lane to Mutfords off the B1368 south of Hare Street near Buntingford, Hertfordshire. Ford races towards the house as Arthur lies in front of a bulldozer. Facing east on the road leading to Mutford’s Farm.

Beehive Pub

Hare Street, Nr Buntingford, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Where Arthur and Ford drink beer and eat nuts in the local pub, remembering their first meeting.

Population Panics

The junction of Moorfields and Moor Place in London near Moorgate Underground Station

London, England

GPS Coordinates: 51.518106, -0.089904

Dolphin Dance

Loro Parque

Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Where the “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” dolphin song was filmed.

Vogsphere

Cwar yr Hendre Quarry / Trefil Quarry

Trefil, Blaenau Gwent, Wales, UK

GPS Coordinates: 51.824267, -3.329850

This Welsh quarry is used at the planet Vogsphere. Arthur, Marvin, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford walk away from their craft after landing on the planet Vogsphere. british-film-locations.com advises that this is Ystrad Quarry near Trefil, Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent.

For the rebuilding the world sequence, they did a lot of helicopter work over the Gower Peninsula, some of the dammed Valleys and forests in Wales

Humma Kavula Temple

United Grand Lodge of England

60 Great Queen St, Camden Town, Greater London WC2B 5, UK

Jodrell Bank

GPS Coordinates: 53.236632, -2.307291

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz announces the demolition of Earth as his ship hovers over Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire.

Cambridge

There is a great map that ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Ex-President, David Haddock created on Google that shows all of the relevant locations that a Douglas Adams fan would want to visit, highlighting various apects of Douglas’ life from birth to death and also includes several locations featured in the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency book.

David Haddock showing me where Douglas was born

Misc

Innsbruck, Austria

Where Douglas lay drunk in a field with his copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe and first of concieved of the universe needing a “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

Lower Cotteylands —

In the radio series, Arthur’s hometown is called Cottington and this is the closest place in real life that makes sense for that town.