My googlemap Gavin and Stacey tour of South Wales
The map below features about 25 filming locations for Gavin and Stacey in the South Wales area. Click on Cardiff Station to begin…
Doctor Who? With the announcement of a third series, Gavin and Stacey tourism is the only thing ‘occurring’ in the Cardiff area.
On a quiet, leafy suburban housing estate near Penarth, traffic is steadily increasing. Visitors furtively step out of their cars, walk a short distance past an ordinary house – casting a calculated glance down its driveway – before hopping back into their vehicles as if nothing had ever happened.
But this isn’t the site of a murder, nor is it a celebrity’s house.
This is the house of Gavin – of Gavin and Stacey fame – 198 miles away from its on-screen location in Billericay, Essex. The series, despite its humble beginnings in 2007, has become the biggest success story of BBC comedy since The Office, with nearly two million viewers in its second series, and seven million watching the Christmas special.
Although the storyline see-saws between Essex and Barry Island, every episode (with the exception of a day trip to London) is filmed in a relatively small part of South Wales. Barry pubs pass as Billericay bars, the back end of Cardiff station masquerades as Billericay station, Cardiff nightclubs and kebab shops play host to a messy stag-do in Essex. Slowly but surely, inquisitive groups of families and friends are making pilgrimages to these locations, and it’s an arrangement that suits the Barry tourist board.
“We’re getting a lot of reports back from guesthouses and B&Bs saying people are visiting sites where Gavin and Stacey is filmed” says Claire Evans, Tourism and Marketing Manager for the town: “Some traders on Barry Island were saying they were getting a 20% mark up.”
Other businesses are also starting to benefit from the popularity of the show. “We seem to get a lot of tourists in” confessed a barmaid at the Colcot Arms, Gavin and Smithy’s favourite Billericay watering hole. “This one week we had a load of people from Essex come on a day trip down here.”
However, some suspect the impact of Gavin and Stacey tourism has been overstated. Lauren, an attendant at Island Leisure – the amusement arcade which houses Nessa’s booth – says appearing on the show hasn’t significantly boosted their business. “To be honest, it seems mostly to be people coming in to snoop around, rather than spending money. But (the BBC) do pay us when they use the building.”
The owners of Gavin’s house, in particular, have not responded well to their property’s new found fame, with Julia Dwyer telling the Daily Mirror: “People come and ask for a look round our own home. We’re fed up with it. It’s an invasion of our privacy.” With the announcement just before Christmas of a third series, the family look set to experience more unwanted attention. However, the proposed Gavin and Stacey trail – suggested by Councillor Rob Curtis, and brought before a council committee this week – would not include Gavin’s house, with the Vale of Glamorgan council insisting private residences not be included.
Slideshow of Filming Locations
To find these locations, see the googlemap at the top of the page!
Few have responded to the success of the programme with greater enthusiasm than Glenda Kenyon, 54, the owner of Stacey’s House on Trinity Street, Barry. Whenever visitors tentatively pace up and down outside the house, Glenda opens the door and invites them in for a closer look. Glenda reveals how her house was picked for the hit TV show:
“Everybody on Trinity St. received a letter. Because I can’t read or write, there was a telephone number. I phoned them up and they said they wanted to do a comedy drama. I said yeah!”
Audio Backstory*
Inside, the house appears in almost exactly the same way as in the show. With the exception of a framed portrait of the cast above the fireplace and a few pictures of Glenda’s grandchildren, the furniture – and the famous couch – is unchanged. She says the cast and crew are excellent house guests, and always leave her home in impeccable order:
“Ruth Jones is asthmatic – she doesn’t like dogs or cats so they have to bring cleaners in. I don’t mind the house all nice when I come back!”
Despite the Vale of Glamorgan council’s concern over her admitting strangers into her home, Glenda doubts she will ever tire of showing people around.
“I’m doing it because that’s the way I am.”
*spokesperson’s quote read by Jessica Elgot.
