101 Dalmatians|Hambleden — The Village That Played the Whole Countryside

Nearly every country scene in the film happens in one Chilterns village, and Hambleden has been taking that job from film units for decades. Flint-and-brick cottages around a small square, a hand pump in the middle of it, the church of St Mary the Virgin at one end, a brook running under a low bridge on the way out. The puppies are stolen here. The police arrive here. The last stretch of the rescue moves through these lanes.

Jasper and Horace stop at the Stag and Huntsman to telephone Cruella. The pub is still up the lane past the square, and still a pub, which is more than can be said for most film locations thirty years on.

Hambleden sits about three miles north-east of Henley-on-Thames, in a dry valley running down to the Thames. There is a car park, a village shop, a good footpath network out to Hambleden Mill and the river, and very little else — which is exactly why the location scouts keep coming back. Walk down to the brook bridge at the bottom of the village, then turn and look back up the street toward the church tower. That framing is in the film, and standing in it explains in about four seconds why this village keeps getting cast.