Netflix’s Missing You Filming Locations

Greater Manchester provided the backbone of the series, with Bolton’s town centre and Manchester city centre combining to form the fictional Westbridge. Principal photography ran from March to June 2024, and the production also took cameras to the Lake District in Cumbria, farms in Derbyshire, coastal Cheshire, and a Victorian park in Liverpool. The five-part limited series premiered worldwide on January 1, 2025, drawing 21.7 million views in its first week on Netflix. It transplants the story entirely from New York, where Harlan Coben’s 2014 source novel is set, to the North West of England.

Manchester City Centre

The series opens in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, where Detective Inspector Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) goes on a blind date in a restaurant on Edge Street. The city’s Metrolink tram network appears throughout the series as Kat moves between locations. MNKY HSE, a bar, restaurant and social venue at 18 Lloyd Street between Albert Square and Deansgate, was used for interior scenes. Crews were also spotted filming on Hardman Street in the Spinningfields financial district in May 2024.

In Episode 4, Manchester Art Gallery provides the backdrop for Kat’s meeting with crime figure Calligan (James Nesbitt). The gallery, a Greek Revival building on Mosley Street, was founded in 1823. Manchester Central Convention Complex, a former Victorian railway terminus, appears in establishing shots alongside Manchester Cathedral and Central Library.

The Police Station: Two Buildings, One Set

The fictional Westbridge police station comes from two real buildings that never appear together in the same shot. Trafford Town Hall in Stretford, completed in 1933 in a Neo-Classical style with a prominent clock tower, provides the exterior. The entire interior, however, was filmed in a Victorian building in Stockport that Richard Armitage, who plays DCI Ellis Stagger, described as a possible former orphanage.

“Our production designer, Vanessa Hawkins, used this old Victorian building, which I think was once an orphanage in Stockport,” Armitage said. “It has a balustrade balcony and real height so we have crane shots. You can see the whole of the police station from above and the layering of design within the room.” On Stagger’s office, he added: “It reminded me of a scene from Columbo. It’s all dark wood and moody mid-century furniture.”

The specific name of the Stockport building has not been confirmed in official production materials.

Bolton and the Greater Manchester Region

Bolton’s Victoria Square and Le Mans Crescent appear as the street-level face of Westbridge’s town centre, with Bolton School also used for scenes. Elsewhere in the region, Castle Armoury on Cooper Street in Bury, an 1860s former drill hall, was dressed as a prison for Episode 1. Daisy Bank Manor in Victoria Park, a Grade I listed Victorian building now operating as an events venue, features in Episode 3. In Didsbury, a contemporary property called Terracotta House, a finalist for the 2019 Manchester Society of Architects awards, represents a character’s home.

Kat’s apartment, referred to on screen as Reidall House, was filmed at a loft space in the Castlefield and Knott Mill area of Manchester, a district of converted Victorian industrial buildings near the canal. For a contrasting modern setting, New Islington Marina canal basin provided at least one waterfront scene.

Titus’s Farm and the Rural North West

The criminal operation run by Titus Monroe (Steve Pemberton) is built around two farms near Glossop, Derbyshire, on the eastern edge of the Peak District. Victoria Asare-Archer, the lead writer and an executive producer on the series, said the production deliberately resisted making the rural setting look appealing. “That is not a pretty farm,” she said. “It is a dark, messy, muddy place where horrible things happen. It rained horrifically on the day of filming one of the biggest farm scenes and it felt perfect. Very British.”

Parkgate, a village on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire where the Dee Estuary marks the England-Wales border, doubles as the fictional settlement of Hatherport. Its most recognizable spot is Nicholls Famous Ice Cream shop on The Parade, which overlooks the estuary nature reserve. The village of Great Budworth in Cheshire also appears, representing the fictional Keelden village in a bakery scene.

One Liverpool location appears without being acknowledged as Liverpool: Sefton Park Bandstand, a Victorian structure in south Liverpool, was used for a yoga scene, with the Manchester city skyline composited into the background in post-production, according to Screen Rant.

The Lake District Finale

The final episode shifts the action to the shores of Derwentwater near Keswick, in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria. Filming took place at Manesty Park, a woodland and lake-edge area south of Keswick along Derwentwater’s western bank. A four-bedroom rental property called Brandlehow, bookable through Keswick Cottages, also appears in those scenes. According to the Times and Star, the production kept quiet about the Lake District connection until close to the release date.

From New York to Westbridge

The 2014 novel sets its story in New York City; the series moves Kat Donovan to fictional Westbridge in Greater Manchester. Manchester-based Quay Street Productions, founded by executive producer Nicola Shindler, used the same approach for earlier Coben adaptations. Executive producer Richard Fee said in production materials that the region gave the show a range it could not easily find elsewhere: “We chose to build that geography using locations in the North West because we feel that it offers a lot of wealth of really brilliant locations, from the city centre of Manchester to stately homes.”

The series makes Kat a Detective Inspector rather than the New York City detective of the novel. Josh Buchanan, the long-missing former fiance whose reappearance drives the plot, is played by Ashley Walters (Top Boy, Bulletproof). Richard Armitage plays DCI Ellis Stagger, Kat’s senior colleague. Lenny Henry plays Clint Donovan, Kat’s father, and Marc Warren plays career criminal Monte Leburne. Direction was split between Nimer Rashed, who had also directed episodes of Fool Me Once for Quay Street, and Isher Sahota.