Inside pretty UK village complete with award-winning pub and 12th century church

03 December 2023 , 14:33

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Turville is is dotted with sixteenth-century cottages (Image: Buckinghamshire Live / Darren Pepe)

A tiny village wrapped in lush, green scenery boasts an award-winning pub and a quaint church - which you may recognise from a TV show.

Turville based in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire is dotted with sixteenth-century cottages, has a small village green and is situated amid the beauty of the Chiltern Hills. An outdoor lover's paradise, Turville invites tourists to admire its fine heritage.

You'd be forgiven to think, for a moment or two, you've been transported back in time several centuries as the beauty of the cluster of cottages dazzles. Yet, look at the St Mary the Virgin Church closely, and you may recall it as St Barnabus in The Vicar of Dibley.

St Mary the Virgin Church was used as a filming location for The Vicar of Dibley (Buckinghamshire Live / Darren Pepe)

The wonderful 12th century church was the setting for the popular sitcom, starring Dawn French and Emma Chambers. The church is largely built of local flint and, such is the beauty of Turville, a farm nearby was used as a filming location for Midsomer Murders and James Bond film The Living Daylights in 1987.

And on the top of a high ridge overlooking the village is the dark outline of a windmill, painted black around its base. This windmill was used for the film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968.

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More recently, Killing Eve has been filmed in and around Turville. The Bull and Butcher is a lovely country pub with ceiling beams, and it won an AA Pick of the Pubs award this year.

The Bull and Butcher is a popular country pub (Buckinghamshire Live / Darren Pepe)

The cosy boozer serves proper pies, real ales and has open fires - but it gets busy frequently, so it is advised to book. The pub could mark the start of delightful country walks across the beautiful terrain to neighbouring communities of Skirmett and Fingest, which both have wonderful pubs of their own.

But there is more to Turville than meets the eye. It has a fascinating history, not least because the manor of Turville once belonged to the abbey at St Albans, but was then seized by the Crown in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1547.

And, in the 19th century, the tiny settlement made international news because an 11-year-old girl here, Ellen Sadler, fell into a deep sleep, from which she did not awaken for nine years. Despite medical scepticism, and repeated attempts to prove the affair a hoax, Ellen apparently slept on, fed on wine and gruel, using the spout of a toy teapot. Ellen finally awoke in 1880 and went on to marry and have five children.

Bradley Jolly