New Buckinghamshire Midsomer Murders tours aim to 'hook' visitors

John Nettles played Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby for the first 13 series

Four new tours relating to ITV's Midsomer Murders series hope to encourage more people to visit one of the counties where it is filmed.

The three walking routes and a driving tour take visitors to filming locations used in south Buckinghamshire's "quintessential English" landscape for the hit detective series.

They include pubs, churches, a brewery and a model village.

Visit Buckinghamshire said it was a "hook" to get tourists into the county.

Midsomer Murders, set in the fictional region of Midsomer, first aired in 1997 and boasts dark humour with an unusually high murder rate for the size of the area.

Filming location Danesfield House is on the Marlow Trail and it has also played host to some of the actors

The Grade II listed 12th Century St John the Baptist church in Little Marlow appeared in Faithful Unto Death and A Noble Art

Visit Buckinghamshire said about 80% of filming took place across South Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, highlighting the Chilterns' landscape and its towns and villages.

It developed the 17-mile self-guided Marlow and Hambleden Valley Trail two years ago and, after it proved a success, new tours have followed.

Midsomer on the Misbourne, produced by the Chiltern Revitalisation Group, follows the route of the River Misbourne and includes Great Missenden, Little Missenden and Amersham.

The three walking tours, collectively known as Step into Midsomer, include Bledlow, Princes Risborough, High Wycombe and Marlow, and are funded by Wycombe District Council.

Neil Dudgeon's John Barnaby became the show's main protagonist following Nettles' departure

Much of The Curse of the Ninth was filmed at Chiltern Valley Winery & Brewery

Locations on the trails include:

• Marlow Library is Causton Library, from The Black Book, where a shopping trolley containing £2m ransom money was switched

• Chiltern Valley Winery and Brewery, where much of The Curse of the Ninth was filmed

• Lacey's farm, where a victim was found dead in the dairy

• The Two Brewers pub in Marlow, which appeared in King's Crystal and again in Sauce for the Goose when a victim met their untimely death beneath a tower of toppling relish bottles

• Princes Risborough Information Centre, which doubled up as Causton Social Services

• Bledlow, which has 10 episodes to its name and is home to Badger's Drift Church and the pub

• Little Marlow, which has appeared four times in the series and is home to a Grade II listed 12th Century church, which appeared in Faithful Unto Death and A Noble Art

• Bekonscot Model Village, which captures 1930s England in miniature and appeared in Small Mercies in 2009 when a murder victim was laid out like Gulliver in Lilliput

• Little Missenden, which features in 13 episodes and was the village of Badger's Drift in the show's very first episode

• Old Amersham, which was chosen for the 100th episode, The Killings of Copenhagen.

Source: Visit Buckinghamshire

Tourism development officer Lucy Dowson said more than six million people watched each new episode in the UK and the ITV show had been sold to about 100 countries.

She said the drama was "particularly successful in attracting the higher-spending overseas market".

"Millions want to come and visit the quintessential rural England seen in the show," she said.

"Tourism initiatives like this not only add to the "feel good' factor of a place, but also play an important part in supporting local businesses by bringing new customers."

Bekonscot Model Village appeared in Small Mercies in 2009 when the victim was laid out like Gulliver in Lilliput

The Two Brewers pub in Marlow has appeared in King's Crystal and Sauce for the Goose

Trails are built around other attractions to encourage visitors to stay in the area and they could also see the series being filmed.

"The Midsomer Murders hook gets them in but while here they learn other things and it builds a bigger story," Ms Dowson said.

"Some areas have had a huge number of filming locations so we put them in a sensible order and include variety, give the visitor different things to see and do around the concept.

"People do come across filming... there are obviously cordons up but you can usually get a good look."

Visit Buckinghamshire says the "easy viewing, traditional classic British TV takes place in a beautiful part of the countryside" where "chocolate box" cottages are typical