The Rumour is the latest Channel 5 thriller to land on our screens with a bang, in which a single mum moves to a new village and tries to settle in – but what filming locations were used?

Joanna, played by Rachel Shenton, moves to the quiet town of Flinstead with her young son, Alfie. They hope the fresh start in a new place will bring the peace they desperately crave. But beneath Flinstead’s sedate surface lies something more sinister…

So is Flinstead a real place, and where exactly was the five-part series filmed? Here’s everything you need to know about The Rumour on Channel 5’s filming locations.

Is Flinstead, the village featured in The Rumour, a real place?

Nope, Flinstead – the so-called quiet village in Sussex that single mum Joanna moves to – is NOT a real place. It’s a fictional village made up by the author Lesley Kara, who wrote the 2019 book the Channel 5 series is based on. Lesley based her thriller in the (made-up) Flinstead-on-Sea. However, the TV adaptation moved it away from the coast – for one crucial reason.

In fact, the location used for Flinstead isn’t even in the UK. Cast and crew filmed in Budapest, Hungary. Director Richard Clark told us: “The first decision we made was not to set the story on the coast anymore because Hungary is landlocked.

“The second thing we discovered from our initial recce was that there wasn’t a high street that we could use. There was a corner by the castle in Budapest but that would have cost £30,000 a day. The script has a shop and an office and a gallery, so my idea was that often where people live there is a converted barn, which has been turned into an emporium.”

He continued: “In Budapest there are buildings that have sort of gateways through to big courtyards at the back with cafes etc. We decided to take one of those and put all those locations in one space and give it an English feel.”

‘Flinstead represents a bit of that mix of different communities’

Actress Lucy Speed, who plays mum Rachel, explained what the village achieves as a location. She said: “Flinstead represents a bit of that mix of different communities whose kids go to the same school. That’s how you meet a lot of people when you are a parent. Your kids make friends with somebody and then you meet the mum and go, ‘Oh alright, I didn’t think they’d be like that. They’re kind of cool’. It’s nice to be forced by your kids to talk to people that aren’t in your own echo chamber.”

The former soap star, famous for playing Natalie Evans in EastEnders, continued: “Flinstead is a bit Scandi. It’s very glamorous.”

The Rumour on Channel 5 filming locations based in Europe – not UK

Like Little Disasters on Paramount+, the makers of The Rumour realised the capital of Hungary, Budapest, was an ideal place to film.

And it’s not the first time an European location has posed as an UK town for a Channel 5 series. Season 2 of The Couple Next Door was set in Leeds, but was actually filmed in Belgium.

Talking about filming in Budapest, lead actress Joanne Whalley revealed: “I love Budapest. We did two seasons of The Borgias there. It’s a beautiful place. There is so much available. You can just walk up the street and hear world class musicians. There is so much music there and art.

“Their history is alive on the streets, and it is also a very modern place. They manage to combine the two and not sacrificing the one for the other. They have a big music festival every year on a little island on the Danube. And if you are looking to party there are plenty of places. And good food.”

Meanwhile, Ellie Haddington added: “The food in Budapest was wonderful.”

Actress Emily Atack, who plays mum Debbie, enthused: “We did so much sightseeing in Budapest. We’ve got so many photographs of [my one-year-old son] Barney in beautiful churches and buildings to show him when he’s older.”

Like co-star Ellie, she loved the food, adding: “The food was incredible. There was this little restaurant at the end of our road, Gerlóczy Kávéház. It’s the most beautiful restaurant ever. I would love to go back there. We went there most nights, and we befriended one of the waiters who I’m still in contact with.”

Budapest looked like ‘the English countryside’

Samuel Anderson, perhaps most famous for his recent portrayal of Mal in Amandaland, loved the countryside in Budapest – but not the cold so much.

The actor, who had never filmed in Hungary before, told us: “When we arrived, we got super-lucky. We had two weeks of what was almost warm like summer. It was still 80 degrees in November. Everyone was quick to make us understand how lucky we were and how rare that was. Then, when it did change, it plummeted. You went from going out and about and seeing the sights to have to wrap up and run from door to door to keep warm. When it got cold it was very cold.”

However, he was quick to praise the “incredible” filming locations on the Channel 5 thriller The Rumour. Samuel said: “We were out in the woods a lot of the time. The drive out of the city was always incredible. At first, I was thinking how on earth are they going to make Budapest look like the UK, but then you got out into the countryside. The forests there are beautiful.

“I discovered that they filmed The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die in Budapest. I got into watching that. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure. I would never have suspected that where we were filming wasn’t the English countryside. There was also a party scene which production had designed. We had a nice layer of snow that morning, which added to the magic of the place.”

Despite being “bitterly cold”, Samuel went on to say that the forests were “beautiful when the fog was low, and dawn was breaking”.

Budapest is known for being rich in lush greenery. It is a plentiful green area, with parks and forests surrounding it. Understandably, the forests of Buda hills are environmentally protected.

The Rumour Channel 5 filming locations: Link to The Terminator film

Lucy Speed shared her favourite filming location of The Rumour on Channel 5. She disclosed: “We did some filming in a house in the middle of nowhere that was used in The Terminator.

“I think it was built specifically for the film. It’s that scene where Linda Hamilton is getting shot at in a log cabin. My 80s/90s kid self was very impressed by that. I took loads of pictures.”

Lucy was also keen to visit historically significant locations as a self-confessed “massive nut about World War II”. She added: “I was fascinated by the history of the country and the people. What a remarkable nation they are with what they have been through. Jo Whalley came with me to The House of Terror Museum. It sounds awful, but it’s their museum about the Second World War and the occupation of Hungary and its ongoing history and what they went through.

“Jo and I also spent five hours walking around an art gallery. When we came out it was really snowing. It’s right at the top of the town so you look out over this beautiful city.”

Where are Debbie, Bea and Liz’s houses in real life?

Talking about sourcing some of the distinctive houses in the Channel 5 thriller The Rumour, director Richard Clark shared the logic between with filming locations.

He explained: “In some ways, Debbie’s house was the easiest property to find. There are some substantial properties around Budapest. Debbie is the queen bee of the school mums so that house felt interesting for her character. Having glass all the way round is not ideal for filming. It was particularly problematical when we shot there, and it snowed. If you look carefully at the Halloween party, I used those massive pictures of Debbie to cover up the foot of snow outside every window which had not been there when we filmed earlier.”

Talking about Bea’s house, he added: “Bea’s home was the location that brought a huge sigh of relief when we stumbled across that. It could be an old English house and that is very hard to find out there. And inside it was already dressed. We had no money to hire props, but it was already so rich in detail. It had a Bohemian quality. It looks like the home of an artist. And we got great light and scale in there. A lot of the story takes place inside. It’s a very rich visual world that house.”

‘The Hungarian crews were outstanding’

Director Richard Clark described another big bonus to filming in Budapest. He shared: “The Hungarian crew were outstanding. We had one of the best crews I’ve ever worked with in terms of temperament and efficiency. They were an absolute joy. A lot of them had just come off big, big Hollywood feature films. They are very, very skilled.”

Richard also paid tribute to their tirelessly long hours – often 12-hour days.

Singing the praise of the art department, he said: “They also did an astonishing job on a meagre budget. The art department are often unsung. They go in and clear up the set after the film crew have left. That horrendous job of putting houses right and taking stuff back. It’s a thankless job. They need all the praise they can get.”

Read more: Five best bingeworthy thrillers on My5, including a forgotten Sheridan Smith classic

The Rumour starts on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 9pm on Channel 5.