Sex Education

Where Was Sex Education Filmed? Find Moordale in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

Otis's house and the bridge he cycles over to school are real places, and most of Moordale sits along one stretch of the River Wye.

Sex Education (Netflix, 2019 to 2023) is set in the fictional village of Moordale and was filmed mainly in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean and in South Wales, with Otis and Jean's house at The Chalet in Symonds Yat East.

Before they filmed a single scene, the makers of Sex Education drew a map of Moordale. "We drew a map, like in The Goonies," producer Jon Jennings told Radio Times. "School, bridge, water, Jean's house."

The school was over in South Wales. The rest of that map is here. Jean's house sits above the River Wye at Symonds Yat, and the bridges cross at Tintern, Brockweir, Redbrook and Monmouth. The Forest of Dean fills the woods in between. Creative Wales puts the show's audience at more than 55 million households worldwide, and plenty of them have since come looking for the real thing.

Jean's house: The Chalet at Symonds Yat East

The red and white house with the balcony over the river is the one everyone wants to see, and the production found it by chance. "We struck gold with Jean's house," Jennings said. "It's insane. We were driving around and we just saw it at the other side of the valley. We found this house and literally knocked on the door!"

It stands above the Saracens Head Inn at Symonds Yat East, where the Wye bends hard through a steep wooded gorge.

One thing to know before you go: the Chalet is a private home. It spent a spell as a holiday let after the show made it famous, but people live there now, so please don't go knocking.

The best view is from the water anyway. The Saracens Head has an old hand-pulled ferry across the river (which is worth a trip in its own right), and from the far bank you get the house and the gorge in one frame. Or see it from a canoe, drifting past the balcony you'll know from the show. And don't go looking for the red treehouse. It was a set, built by the crew for filming.

The pub felt the Sex Education effect early. "We've been totally blown away by the number of people coming here because of Sex Education," Chris Rollinson of the Saracens Head told SoGlos in 2020. Most of its ten rooms look out over the river, so if you want to wake up to Otis's view, this is as close as you'll get. Book ahead in summer.

Local tip: Climb up to Symonds Yat Rock for the whole gorge from above, then come back down to the river for lunch. Check the ferry is running before you plan your day around it.

The bridges: Tintern, Brockweir, Redbrook and Monmouth

Otis and Eric's ride to school goes over the Wireworks Bridge at Tintern, a Grade II listed crossing with one end in England and the other in Wales. Tintern Abbey is a short walk down the river, and Tintern and Llandogo turn up again and again as the pair cycle along the Wye.

When the final series came to film, the Tintern bridge was being renovated, so the location team had to find another. They chose the Duke of Beaufort Iron Bridge in Monmouth. The new bridge "turned out to be quite an epic location," supervising location manager Deon Du Preez told Time Out. "You can see for miles and you've got a river running on both sides of it." The Wireworks Bridge reopened to walkers and cyclists in May 2023, so you can now cross both.

Brockweir Bridge, just north of Tintern, turns up in several scenes. Redbrook Bridge appears more than once, and it's at its most dramatic in series 3, in the depths of winter with the Wye running high against the banks.

Between the two, Bigsweir House played Aimee's home. It's an 18th-century listed house and a private one, but you'll pass close by when you cross the river at Bigsweir Bridge. Browns, the Llandogo village shop where Adam and Ola worked, closed in 2021.

If you'd rather walk than drive between them, the Wye Valley Walk links Tintern, Llandogo, Bigsweir and Symonds Yat along the river.

The Forest of Dean on screen

Series 3 was filmed during the pandemic, and the Forest of Dean stood in for France. Mallards Pike, a lake in the middle of the forest with a café and picnic benches, was dressed as a French petrol station for the school trip. The coach through "France" runs along the road between the Speech House Hotel and Mallards Pike. Anyone who drives that road regularly will know it straight away.

For the best sunset on this page, go to Wintour's Leap. Jackson and Cal sit on these cliffs in series 3, looking across the Wye into Wales. The cliffs face west, so time it for the end of the day.

Beyond the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

The school itself was never here. Moordale Secondary was filmed at a former university campus in Caerleon, near Newport. For the final series the gang moved to Cavendish College, which is St Fagans National Museum of History near Cardiff. Adam's new life on the farm was filmed at Werngochlyn Farm near Abergavenny. Maeve's American university was Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire, with the library scenes shot at the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol. Each is around an hour's drive or less from the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

Visit Wales made a short film about the Welsh locations:

Stay in the story

You can't sleep at Jean's, but you can sleep in the castle from series 2. The YHA runs a hostel inside the walls at St Briavels. The Bull Pen at Blistors Farm, used as Ola's family home, is a four-bedroom holiday cottage with its own hot tub, on the edge of Bream. Werngochlyn Farm takes guests too, if you want to stay where Adam found his feet.

For everything else, browse our places to stay in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

A Sex Education day out

Start at Tintern. Cross the Wireworks Bridge and walk down to the abbey. Head north along the Wye through Brockweir, Bigsweir and Redbrook to Monmouth for the series 4 bridge and some lunch. Finish at Symonds Yat East with the ferry, a look at the Chalet from the far bank and a drink at the Saracens Head Inn as the light goes.

More screen locations to find

Otis and Eric are in good company. Follow our Film & TV Trail to Puzzlewood, where Star Wars and Harry Potter were filmed, or read about The Change, Bridget Christie's Channel 4 comedy set deep in the Forest of Dean.