A Room with a View Film Locations in Italy & England + Map!

According to the film (and the classic novel by E. M. Forster that the film is adapted from), women are partial to a good view. In my limited experience, I have to agree. Give me pretty scenery and I will appreciate the heck out of it. Just as I appreciate all the gorgeous A Room with a View film locations in both Italy and at home in England.

A Room with a View (1985) has a cracking all-star cast. Helena Bonham Carter stars as Lucy Honeychurch who, along with her companion Charlotte (Maggie Smith) head to Italy for an educational, coming-of-age trip. They meet an array of quirky characters at their pension, including author Eleanor (Judi Dench) and the intriguing father-son duo The Emersons. Upon arriving back home in England, Lucy is forever changed by her experience in the Land of La Dolce Vita.

If you like uppity English period dramas where everyone sits around drinking tea and holding in their feelings, but in Italy, you’ll love this film. So, let’s get into all the A Room with a View locations in both Italy and England!

Where Was A Room with a View Filmed?

A Room with a View Film Locations in Italy

1. Via dei Girolami, Florence

The film opens, and delivers on its promise, with a shot of “a room with a view.” Except the view is awful. It is not of Florence’s River Arno as expected but of a random back alley, Via dei Girolami. No no, says Maggie Smith’s Charlotte, this will not do at all. I’m with you, Mags.

2. Hotel Degli Orafi, Lungarno degli Archibusieri, 4, Florence

A Room with a View hotel, A Room with a view B&B… I’d personally call it a guesthouse. Regardless, Charlotte and Lucy are staying at Pension Bertolini which is supposed to be right on the River Arno (hence the promised view, which Lucy finally gets). In real life at the time of filming, it was the Quisiana e Ponte Vecchio hotel. Unfortunately, in the early nineties, it suffered damage as a result of a car bomb. The Ponte Vecchio appears in a couple of establishing shots early in the film.

Today, the A Room with a View hotel in Florence is Hotel Degli Orafi which occupies the same building. It is completely renovated and looks like a beautiful place to stay. I hear mixed reviews about the view.

3. Villa di Maiano, Via del Salviatino, 1, Maiano

As well as Hotel Degli Orafi, I have it on good authority that Villa di Maiano just outside of Florence also stood in for some of Pension Bertolini’s interiors.

Read next: 22 Amazing Films set in Italy to Inspire You to Visit

4. Piazza Della Santissima Annunziata, Florence

With Lucy having a lie-in and fannying about back at the Pension, Charlotte heads into Florence to explore with eccentric Eleanor which is our next A Room with a View Italy location. They admire the Equestrian Monument of Ferdinando I statue in Piazza Della Santissima Annunziata in Florence. They are about to enter Loggia dei Servi di Maria when they spot the Emersons walking in and decide to hang back so they don’t have to speak to them. Rude!

5. Basilica of Santa Croce, Piazza di Santa Croce, Florence

Lucy blows off the Pension and heads out into the city without a *gasp* chaperone. She does whatever any young girl with her first taste of freedom does in Florence: visits a church. But not just any church, the Basilica of Santa Croce. To be fair to her, it is one of the top, must-do things in Florence and you should also visit if you are in the area.

Lucy makes a beeline to the Dante monument. The famous Italian poet was not buried in this Basilica like so many other notable countrymen because the state exiled him to Ravenna before he died.

6. Piazza Della Signoria, Florence

Lucy leaves the Basilica and ends up at the next A Room with a View film location, Piazza Della Signoria. This piazza is where the famous Palazzo Vecchio is, a famous 13th-century palace that penetrates Florence’s skyline along with the Duomo. 

It’s here that Lucy witnesses a tussle and a surprise stabbing mere inches from where she is stood. Naturally, she faints as English women so often did during this time period. Luckily, the dashing, fair-haired George Emerson (Julian Sands) is there to catch her.

7. Fiesole, Florence

After the ordeal in the city, some of the guests of Pension Bertolini ride out to the Tuscan countryside in carriages. I don’t know exactly where, but this A Room with a View setting is in the Fiesole part of Florence.

This is where George Emerson surprises Lucy with a passionate kiss which leaves her reeling before she returns back to England.

A Room with a View Film Locations in England

8. Foxwold House, Piper’s Lane, Brasted Chart, Kent

Lucy returns to her home in England and a swift proposal from the well-to-do Cecil Vyse (played by Daniel Day-Lewis). The name of her estate is the homely yet opulent Windy Corner in a village called Summerstreet, Surrey. In reality, it is a private home called Foxwold House on Piper’s Lane in Brasted Chart, Kent. I’ve pinned the exact A Room with a View film location on the Google Map at the start of this post.

So, this is a location you probably cannot go and see because it’s someone’s residence.

I believe this is also where the lads bathe later in the film. This is my second time watching A Room with a View to write this blog post, and I did not remember there being so much male nudity. But that’s Merchant Ivory productions, you can always trust them to deliver the goods.

9. Emmetts Garden, Ide Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent

Cecil and Lucy promptly host an engagement party. I’m not sure where the film location is supposed to be, the grounds of Windy Corner maybe? But in real life, it’s the National Trust property Emmetts Garden in Sevenoaks, Kent.

10. Chiddingstone Village, Edenbridge, Kent

Escaping their own engagement party, Lucy and Cecil go for a walk through the village of Summerstreet. A simple row of Tudor houses is one of the most charming A Room with a View locations and it stands in as the whole village. It is another National Trust property, Chiddingstone Village in Kent.

11. St Mary’s the Virgin Church, Chiddingstone, Kent

While on their walk, the young couple sees Reverend Beebe’s church (played by Simon Callow) which is St Mary’s the Virgin Church also in Chiddingstone, Kent. They chat with him about who should rent the Honeychurch’s empty cottage.

12. Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman, 167 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington

Blink and you’ll miss this A Room with a View filming location! Lucy writes to the two Miss Alans whom she met at the Pension in Florence to invite them to rent her family’s quaint cottage in Summerstreet. They read out her letter in their upper-middle-class home in London. At the time of filming, it was the Embassy of Estonia. Today, it is the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman.

One thing I can almost guarantee, you will not be able to see the inside of this building.

13. Linley Sambourne House, Kensington, London

Staying in London, Lucy visits Cecil’s mother who lives in a “well-appointed home.” I’d say! In real life, it is a perfectly preserved Victorian home named the Linley Sambourne House in London. It was the home of the cartoonist it is now named after. And though the home stayed in his family, they never updated it.

14. National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London

Cecil Vyse rents out the Honeychurch’s house from under them to the Emersons. He meets the Emersons in front of a painting at the National Gallery in London of all places. I don’t know if they actually shot this scene in the National Gallery or not. But, the painting they are standing in front of is in that gallery. It is ‘The Battle of San Romano’ by Paolo Uccello.

15. Chiddingstone Church of England School, Edenbridge, Kent

The house in Summerstreet that the Honeychurch family owns is what Cecil calls a “villa” but in real life, it is the Chiddingstone Church of England School. Though it does look more like someone’s holiday cottage than a school. The Honeychurch’s villa becomes the new home of the Emersons.

16. Horsted Keynes Station, Bluebell Railway, West Sussex

Mrs Honeychurch sends for cousin Charlotte to spend a week or so at Windy Corner while the plumbers are fixing her boiler, much to Lucy’s chagrin. So, Charlotte arrives by train. The last of these A Room with a View locations is Horsted Keynes Station on the Bluebell Railway in West Sussex. It’s a working steam train line so it stands in as a Victorian/Edwardian era station perfectly.

It was also a filming location in Miss Potter (2006).

And those are the top A Room with a View film locations in Italy and England! Have you watched the film or visited any of the movie locations? Let me know in the comments below!

Read next: Inferno Filming Locations in Italy, Istanbul & Budapest