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There's nothing quite like a good old-fashioned murder mystery set in an English village, is there? Channel 5's Ellis is back for a second season, and it's delivering on the cosy crime with a bit more grit and edge than you may expect.
Set in the North of England, Ellis follows DCI Ellis (Sharon D. Clarke) as she travels from sleepy town to sleepy town, working with new, bristly police workforces in each new community. With crimes that feel confronting and current, plus the fascinating relationships between Ellis and her temporary colleagues, Ellis is one of the most engrossing police dramas going.
In the four-parter second season, which wrapped up last night, Ellis took on two crimes. First, the murder of Peter Barron, a local businessman from the fictional village of Ashenham, followed by the death of Abi Marshall, a university student from the fictional village of Elmsly.
In both story arcs, the teeny tiny villages of Ashenham and Elmsly are practically main characters themselves. But where were these picturesque villages actually filmed?
Where is Ellis filmed?
Although Ellis may be proud of its northern setting, this season, production set up camp in Northern Ireland.
“It’s location-based, so you’re not in the same police station every week with the same colleagues,” said Clarke to the Mirror. “You get out and about and you see different people, and such beautiful, lovely, creative talent has joined the Ellis family this year.”
Added Andrew Gower, who stars as DS Harper: "It's special. The landscape is amazing. It gives you everything you need. You’ve got the hills, the beaches, the industry, so it’s an amazing experience. I had never filmed in Northern Ireland or even been here before series one so it was a great experience for me to get to know not only the amazing infrastructure that they have for filming, but also to get to know Belfast and the beautiful landscapes of Northern Ireland."
Here are a few of the spots where the team filmed for season 2.
Glenarm offered the perfect location to stand in for Ashenham. In particular, you might have spotted Glenarm's impressive Slemish Mountain looming in the background — as well as the foreground.
“We've been up Slemish Mountain, which was brutal, but beautiful at the top,” said Clarke of the location. “You can see the cows grazing, and there's wind farms, and it's just beautiful emeralds and limes and olives, there's all manner of greens. We watched the fog rolling in, or what I thought was fog, but it turned out to be rain. We watched it come up and come towards us, and then it was over us, and then it rained horizontally and passed, and we watched the next bank come in, and that's how the day was.”
The town of Downpatrick was one of the spots that stood in as Elmsly. Many of the police station scenes, as well as the Quinn family home scenes, were filmed in the charming brick buildings of this town.
Meanwhile, Drumaness, an old mill settlement, stood in for Abi Marshall's residence as well as her memorial. You may also recognise the town as one of the filming locations from 2019's Dublin Murders.
