Uttoxeter, the town it remembers
A market town between Stoke and Derby, on the railway. The market place and bus station are a few minutes apart.
Shane Meadows · 2006 · the summer of 1983
This Is England
Uttoxeter, 1983, to Nottingham, 2005
The way home.
On his way home from school one summer evening, Meadows sees 10 or 15 skinheads at a bus shelter and is terrified and drawn to them at once.
Playground myth said one kick from those boots could kill, and kids refused to fight a skinhead unless he took his boots off first.
Where this comes from
’83 Uttoxeter to Long Eaton
At the shelter. Ring the bell for the first stop.
Seven stops, seven places.
Uttoxeter, where it started; Sneinton, where Meadows started; St Ann’s, Lenton and The Meadows, where it was shot; the empty houses at RAF Newton; and a school in Long Eaton.
Uttoxeter, Staffordshire
Woody
was real.
Meadows’s older sister went out with a skinhead who took him under his wing; Woody is based on him.
That boyfriend taught him that skinheads grew out of white working-class lads and West Indians working side by side in factories and shipyards, and that ska came with them.
Meadows grew up in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, and wrote that much of the film is based on his own childhood there, at 11, trying to fit in. The town was too small for each youth tribe to have its own club, so most weekends everyone went to the same village hall disco.
Meadows says the film shows how far-right politics crept into skinhead culture in the early 1980s, with Combo as the kind of charismatic recruiter the National Front used; most of the old skins moved away from it.
With no money to rebuild 1983 Uttoxeter, Meadows opens and closes the film on archive news footage.
Where this comes from
Outside the city
The edges.
The former RAF Newton
One section of the film used abandoned houses at the former RAF Newton site, just outside Bingham. Rushcliffe Borough Council records a 528-home phase on the former base as under construction, with over a quarter of the homes built. The council notes pillboxes and shelters from the old airfield that may need to be kept.
The old base is being built over as a new village. See it from Newton’s public roads; building sites are closed.
Where this comes from
Wilsthorpe, Long Eaton
The Nottingham Post shows Shane Meadows filming at Wilsthorpe Business and Enterprise College in Long Eaton. Its 2018 guide lists Wilsthorpe College among the places the film was made.
A working school: see it from Derby Road only, and never during the school day.
Where this comes from
Grimsby, 2005
A fiver
to turn up.
Meadows goes to Grimsby looking for a lively lad for Shaun; Thomas Turgoose, who had never acted, demands £5 to come to the audition.
MeadowsTommo, 13
He will not come to the audition for nothing.
Where this comes from
Grimsby and its docks
Grimsby Live says the film is set in the Midlands and mostly shot in Nottingham, but the crew came back to Grimsby for the docks.
Screen Daily reported on 13 September 2005 that the shoot was about to start in Nottingham and Grimsby. LeftLion calls Grimsby the backdrop for parts of the film’s small coastal town.
The film had its premiere at Grimsby’s Whitgift Film Theatre, where Thomas Turgoose learned it was dedicated to his mother. The film wins Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards, and Turgoose wins Most Promising Newcomer.
A working port: the quays are closed, but the Dock Tower and the water can be seen from public roads and from the Alexandra Dock side.
Where this comes from
Fishing Heritage Centre and the Ross Tiger
The centre stands on Alexandra Dock and recreates the port’s 1950s heyday with sets and preserved trawler interiors. The trawler Ross Tiger is berthed alongside, restored as a tribute to the town’s trawlermen and opened to the public in 1992.
Tuesday to Sunday, closed Mondays. Adults £8.50, with £3 more for the Ross Tiger tour (Visit Lincolnshire). Summer hours, 1 April to 31 October, are 10:00 to 17:00; winter hours are 10:00 to 16:00.
Where this comes from
Visit Lincolnshire
Fishing Heritage Centre and the Ross Tiger
Alexandra Dock, Grimsby · Adults £8.50, Ross Tiger tour £3 more · closed Mondays
The 1950s port recreated on Alexandra Dock, with a guided tour of the trawler Ross Tiger alongside.
Plan a visitApril 2007
18 or 15?
Meadows argued that someone of 15 could cope with it, and that it was as much about Iraq as the Falklands.
The British Board of Film Classification gave the film an 18 for “realistic violence and racist language”.
Where this comes from
Bristol City Hall
City Hall sits at the bottom of Park Street on College Green, facing the cathedral.
The council’s offices and an events venue: see it from College Green, opposite the cathedral.
Where this comes from
Viator · Ad / affiliate
Bristol walking tours
Bristol
Live marketplace results for guided walks in central Bristol. None is a This Is England tour as such.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWalk home.
Where it all is now.
Where it is now
10 places you can visit, from the Nottingham estates where it was shot to the Grimsby docks, Uttoxeter and Bristol. No house is named or pinned; the school and the docks are seen from the road.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A lived-in estate on the hill east of the centre. Walk the public paths and underpasses; the houses are people’s homes, so keep cameras off doors and windows.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. An inner-city district between the centre and the university. Public streets only.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A district of terraces and post-war estates south of the station. The tram runs through it. Public walks and streets only.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Sneinton Market’s courtyard of small shops and cafés is the easiest place to start.
An underpass at Robin Hood Chase and Abbotsford Drive, St Ann's, in 2016. The Nottingham Post does not say which St Ann's underpass the film used. Clem Rutter · CC BY-SA 3.0 St Ann’s, east of Nottingham city centre
St Ann’s and its underpass
Despite the story being set in a coastal town, the Nottingham Post says the film was shot mostly in St Ann’s.
A lived-in estate on the hill east of the centre. Walk the public paths and underpasses; the houses are people’s homes, so keep cameras off doors and windows.
Where this comes from
Lenton Boulevard, Lenton, in 2019. Bryn Holmes · CC BY-SA 2.0 Lenton, west of Nottingham city centre
Lenton
The Nottingham Post lists Lenton with St Ann’s and The Meadows as the parts of the city where the film was shot.
An inner-city district between the centre and the university. Public streets only.
Where this comes from
Arkwright Walk, The Meadows, in September 2007, a few months after the film opened. Stephen McKay · CC BY-SA 2.0 The Meadows, south of Nottingham city centre
The Meadows
Visit Nottinghamshire says The Meadows’ distinctive post-war housing estates play a central part in the film.
A district of terraces and post-war estates south of the station. The tram runs through it. Public walks and streets only.
Where this comes from
Sneinton Market, 2020. Bryn Holmes · CC BY-SA 2.0 Sneinton, east of Nottingham city centre
Sneinton, where Meadows started
LeftLion says Meadows began by making short films starring friends and neighbours in Sneinton.
Sneinton Market’s courtyard of small shops and cafés is the easiest place to start.
Where this comes from
Stay
A night in Nottingham.
A city-centre hotel Visit Nottinghamshire suggests for walking the streets Meadows filmed in.
Visit Nottinghamshire
Mercure Nottingham City Centre
Nottingham city centre
A four-star hotel in the city centre that Visit Nottinghamshire suggests as a base for walking the streets Meadows filmed in. The photograph shows St Ann’s, not the hotel.
See the hotelGo there
Docks, walks, a council house.
The Fishing Heritage Centre on Alexandra Dock, and guided walks from the marketplace in Nottingham and Bristol.
Visit Lincolnshire
Fishing Heritage Centre and the Ross Tiger
Alexandra Dock, Grimsby · Adults £8.50, Ross Tiger tour £3 more · closed Mondays
The 1950s port recreated on Alexandra Dock, with a guided tour of the trawler Ross Tiger alongside.
Plan a visit
Viator · Ad / affiliate
Nottingham walking tours
Nottingham
Live marketplace results for guided walks in Nottingham. None is a This Is England tour as such.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursViator · Ad / affiliate
Bristol walking tours
Bristol
Live marketplace results for guided walks in central Bristol. None is a This Is England tour as such.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
Nothing dated yet.
The 2026 anniversary screenings have finished; nothing else is announced for the coming months.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
A book and a soundtrack.
Essays on Meadows’s films and the 2007 soundtrack CD.
Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate
Shane Meadows: Critical Essays
Martin Fradley, Sarah Godfrey and Melanie Williams (eds)
A 2013 collection of essays on Meadows’s films.
Find the book
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eBay · Ad / affiliate
This Is England (soundtrack)
Various artists · CD, Universal Music Soundtracks, 2007
The film’s soundtrack album, released in Britain in 2007.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Boots off.
Where this comes from
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources. Filming places are named only where a source says so; Uttoxeter is where the story was remembered, not where it was shot.
10 of 10 places · 22 of 22 Moments
St Ann’s and its underpass
St Ann’s, east of Nottingham city centre
Where Shaun meets the gang
Shaun first meets Woody and the gang by an underpass in St Ann’s.
The shoot starts
The shoot starts in Nottingham and Grimsby in mid-September 2005.
Lenton
Lenton, west of Nottingham city centre
Lenton
Parts of the film are shot in Lenton.
The Meadows
The Meadows, south of Nottingham city centre
Post-war estates
Key scenes are filmed among The Meadows’ post-war housing estates.
Sneinton, where Meadows started
Sneinton, east of Nottingham city centre
Friends and neighbours
Meadows starts out making short films with friends and neighbours in Sneinton.
The former RAF Newton
Newton, near Bingham, Rushcliffe
Empty houses
One section is shot among abandoned houses at the former RAF Newton.
Wilsthorpe, Long Eaton
Wilsthorpe School, Derby Road, Long Eaton, Derbyshire
At school
Meadows films at Wilsthorpe Business and Enterprise College in Long Eaton.
Grimsby and its docks
Grimsby Dock Tower and the dock estate, Grimsby
Back for the docks
The crew return to Grimsby for the docks.
A fiver to turn up
Meadows goes to Grimsby looking for a lively lad for Shaun; Thomas Turgoose, who had never acted, demands £5 to come to the audition.
The Whitgift premiere
At the premiere in Grimsby’s Whitgift Film Theatre, Turgoose learns the film is dedicated to his mother.
Best newcomer
The film wins Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards, and Turgoose wins Most Promising Newcomer.
Fishing Heritage Centre and the Ross Tiger
Alexandra Dock, Grimsby DN31 1UZ
The Ross Tiger
The trawler Ross Tiger opens to the public on Alexandra Dock as a tribute to Grimsby’s trawlermen.
Uttoxeter, the town it remembers
Uttoxeter, East Staffordshire
The bus shelter
On his way home from school one summer evening, Meadows sees 10 or 15 skinheads at a bus shelter and is terrified and drawn to them at once.
Fifteen minutes
Jeans, work boots, a white shirt and a shaved head: Meadows writes that a skinhead needed nothing else, and that a bullied kid could change in 15 minutes.
Boots off first
Playground myth said one kick from those boots could kill, and kids refused to fight a skinhead unless he took his boots off first.
The real Woody
Meadows’s older sister went out with a skinhead who took him under his wing; Woody is based on him.
Where skinheads came from
That boyfriend taught him that skinheads grew out of white working-class lads and West Indians working side by side in factories and shipyards, and that ska came with them.
How it turned
Meadows says the film shows how far-right politics crept into skinhead culture in the early 1980s, with Combo as the kind of charismatic recruiter the National Front used; most of the old skins moved away from it.
Archive at both ends
With no money to rebuild 1983 Uttoxeter, Meadows opens and closes the film on archive news footage.
Bristol City Hall
City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR
An 18
The BBFC gives the film an 18 for realistic violence and racist language.
Bristol says 15
Bristol city council overturns the decision locally and gives the film a 15.
About now
Meadows argues the film is as much about Iraq and England in 2007 as about the Falklands and 1983.