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AMOLAD Village Found!!

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While I was reading Kim Hunter's very readable autobiographical cook-book, "Loose in the Kitchen", I noticed a brief reference to the village of Shere in Surrey. Kim said they went there to film some of the scenes from AMOLAD. It turns out that it is the village seen through the camera obscura. The camera obscura itself and the back of the doctor's house and garden that we see from it are almost certainly filmed in the studio. But they must have taken some film of the village and then projected it onto the table in the camera obscura. As the doctor opens the door and the light floods in they don't turn down the projected image at quite the right moment.

Steve Crook

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Phil Hite Lives fairly close and went exploring. He confirms that it is the right place and took some photos which you can see on the link below.

• Link to -> Phil Hite's photos from Shere
• Link to -> Map of Middle Street, Shere
• Link to -> Estate Agents guide to property in the area
  Intriguingly this includes a panoramic scan of the village, but not as seen through the AMOLAD camera obscura.
• Steve's visit to Shere
  When I went on one of my P&P related trips I called in at Shere on the way back

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From "Loose in the Kitchen" by Kim Hunter:
Chapter "Trade Secrets", p. 177

... the day we shot the "camera obscura" scene in Surrey. We were headquartered in a 12th centuary cottage in the village of Shere, and only the minimum of equipment was brought along, It was partially to save trucking fuel in an England still beleagured by wartime rationing, but it was also a very odd cottage, and the unit manager assumed that much of the usual film equipment a film company carries (such as a hairdryer) simply wouldn't be able to function. For instance, the ceilings were so low, even I, as short as I am, had to stoop to walk about. Only one room had been "modernized". A century or so prior, one of the owners had dug up the living room floor in order to make more comfortable head room. And discovered the cottage had once been in the hands of sheep rustlers. They found hundreds of sheep carcasses beneath the floor boards, craftily hidden from the authorities.

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