Fans of Bridgerton, get ready. Netflix’s steamy hit is coming back for a second season on March 25. So, where was Bridgerton filmed this time around? As unlikely as it may seem, more than half of the opulent world exists under one roof in a studio north of London. It’s a massive space, measuring upwards of 110,000 square meters, and there a visitor can uncover everything from the Bridgerton drawing room to a cobblestone street that opens into the Modiste shop to a two-story set that has been designed and re-designed as three different balls. The studio, used previously for the Netflix series’ first season, housed 54 different studio sets—used alongside numerous real-world locations—for season two, often repurposing them halfway to make new environments. It’s the sort of place where you could get hopelessly lost, which is one of the first things I observe as I walk inside.
“I live here,” says production designer Will Hughes-Jones during a tour of the soundstage last fall, confirming that he has previously had to rescue someone who got turned around in the massive labyrinth. “It takes about ten days to learn your way around here.”
Part of what makes the collection of sets so overwhelming is the level of detail—it feels almost real. As avid viewers know, Bridgerton shoots both in the studio and on location, this year using iconic British buildings and locales like Hampton Court Palace, Wilton House, Windsor Great Park, and Syon Park. For season two, the production traveled to 86 different location sets, but Hughes-Jones notes that for every scene there is a strong emphasis on the Regency decoration, which remains consistently meticulous whether the actors are filming in a historic property or on the soundstage.
“I did a lot of research at the beginning looking at country houses, making sure that the proportions of the rooms were authentic to the locations,” Hughes-Jones explains as he shows me around the Bridgerton home, which is divided among several sets (all featuring the family’s signature Wedgewood blue). It takes us over an hour to see everything, and we’re forced to tiptoe through the Featheringtons’ rooms where the cast is currently filming. “That, then, makes everyone feel they’re in a real place. We made all the rugs because of the size of the room and the color palette is quite important. The paintings are either copyright free or we paid licenses to use them, and they’re all from galleries. We made sure that with these paintings that they’re sympathetic to the Bridgertons, so the color of the costumes in the paintings are similar to the costumes that they wear.”
Hughes-Jones and his set decorator Gina Cromwell were tasked with several new sets this season, including Lady Danbury’s high society home, a gritty printworks shop, and the Bridgertons’ country manor, Aubrey Hall. In keeping with tradition, Lady Danbury received her own signature hues: Dusty pink and peach, with a flourish of gold trim. “It’s all about giving her a very narrow color palette so the audience immediately knows where they are in the world,” Hughes-Jones explains. “Even down the flowers—they’re these very strong purples and pinks, which we don’t use anywhere else.”
Another new set is Will’s gentleman’s club, which the boxer has opened with his ill-begotten winnings from last season. The team built the entire club interior, taking inspiration from similar clubs of the era like the Reform Club and White’s but also bringing in a sense of Las Vegas style. The fireplaces—like all of the Bridgerton fireplaces—work, and the period-accurate glassware was procured from charity shops, eBay, and various flea markets. The pastoral paintings on the walls were custom-made by Bridgerton’s scenic painter Humphrey Bangham. But like the series overall, the club is both true to the period and a purposeful exaggeration.
Historically, for instance, a gentleman’s club wouldn’t have had an actual bar. The social elite would simply summon a drink. On Bridgerton, however, the script called for one. “We’ve done a sort of bar that’s not a bar,” Hughes-Jones says. “It works for the story, but it’s not so stretched that anybody who wants to be funny about period correctness could say, ‘Oh, that’s completely wrong.’ But it’s not completely right.”
He adds, “The thing about Bridgerton is that it’s a pastiche of the period. There are some things within the storylines that just don’t fit the Regency world. We’re storytellers, so you need to make it work for the story.”
Although the sets look disconcertingly real, the production design team has a few clever tricks up their collective sleeves. There’s fake ice in the champagne buckets at Will’s club. The expensive-looking chinoiserie that covers the walls of Lady Danbury’s dining room was painted by Bangham and then printed. The cobblestone street, which replaced several real-world locations in Bath for season two, is made of rubber so horses and carriages can easily move past Modiste and Gunter’s Tea Shop. The hundreds of flowers are fake, to prevent drooping. One thing is authentic: A massive Stanhope printing press borrowed from Reading Museum to print Lady Whistledown’s missives. The piece, of which there are only two still in existence, was so heavy that it had to be fork-lifted in and out of the printworks set.
“With sets you sometimes need to put grubbiness into them so you’ve got something to bounce off,” Hughes-Jones says of the importance of including less idealized depictions of the time period. “Because if everything is all shiny and beautiful and bright colors, you’ll get a bit bored of it after a while. So you need a bit of contrast every so often to pull you back into knowing that it is actually a very grand space.”
Of course, the production designer is aware that Bridgerton’s viewers are obsessed with the vibrant glamour of the Ton. So much so that there’s been a notable demand for Regency objects and decor since the first season premiered. “It’s great to know that Regencycore is alive and well and happening,” Hughes-Jones acknowledges. “I know that the fake wisteria price went through the roof on auction sites and eBay when Bridgerton came out. You couldn’t buy it for love or money. It is very flattering, and I think it’s nice that people have responded to it in the way it was meant to be taken.” He gestures around the sets. “Everybody can put a bit of that into their house if they want to.”
