Where is The Midwich Cuckoos filmed? Amersham filming locations of Sky TV series - and is Midwich a real place

The Midwich Cuckoos is a sci-fi horror tale originally written by John Wyndham in 1957, and has since been adapted several times for the big and small screen.

Sky Max released the latest adaptation as a seven-part series on 2 June.

The series follows the plot of the novel but sets the action in the present day, rather than the 1950s.

The series follows the events of a quiet fictional village in England where all the residents suddenly fall unconscious for a full day.

When they come to, the residents find that several of the women in the village are now pregnant, and that something very strange is happening.

Keeley Hawes plays Susannah, a respected doctor in the community alongside  Max Beesley as DCI Paul Haynes, a prominent Midwich police officer.

The original 1960 film adaptation of the novel, entitled Village of the Damned, was filmed in the village of Letchmore Heath in Hertfordshire.

A poorly received 1995 remake of Village of the Damned, helmed by acclaimed horror director John Carpenter, moved the action to California and was filmed on location.

Now Sky has returned the story to England, with filming for the series taking place in September 2021.

Where was The Midwich Cuckoos filmed?

This latest adaptation is once again set in the fictional English village of Midwich which is described in the novel as an ‘unremarkable’ place.

To capture the feeling of a sleepy English village, Sky chose the market town of Amersham in Buckinghamshire as a stand-in for Midwich.

Amersham has provided a backdrop for several other TV projects including an episode of Hammer House of Horror, several episodes of Midsomer Murders, and the comedy series Cuckoo (which has no relation to The Midwich Cuckoos).

Some scenes were also shot in St Albans, an historic city in the commuter belt north of London - and less than ten miles from where much of the original 1960 film was shot.

St Albans has also played host to shoots for comedy series The Inbetweeners, action flick First Knight, and comedy film Johnny English.

One of the show’s directors, Alice Troughton, told The Express: “[Amersham] is a hillside market town. It was very much for that reason because it was the market towns that we were looking at.

"When we first started looking for a location, we looked further afield and then most of us went ‘hm, no well it can’t be isolated, rural, cut-off, it needs to feel like Keeley can get on a train and she’s in a glamorous restaurant and she would do that.

"I think it brings it nearer to home as well and makes it more believable that Sam and Zoë would want to move there rather than move to somewhere backwards, it needed that plausibility."

Writer David Farr added: "Everyone is sort of there to get somewhere else quickly like seedy London!

"But it lends itself to drama really well, and particularly science fiction as there’s an otherness that everyone’s in denial about the entire time."

The full series is available to watch now on Sky Max and NOW.

The 1960 and 1995 film adaptations, both called The Village of the Damned, are available to rent on Amazon Prime Video from £3.49.