On Location: Young Sherlock takes us from a historic university city in England to Spain’s Cádiz

Oxford features throughout the series – look out for shots of famous Merton Street. “In the first couple of episodes, it was challenging to match the locations in Oxford to the studio sets in a seamless way,” Tom explains. “We built the Porter’s lodge into the Quad of Magdalen College. On stage, we built the corridors and professors’ rooms along with Moriarty, Shou’an and Sherlock’s rooms. We matched a section of The Bodleian Library on the stage with elements that we needed to have for the action and story, as obviously, you can’t climb on their bookcases, make holes in their walls or create secret passageways. So getting the joins between location and sets was the main challenge.“ Sets were also created across South Wales for interior shots, and the cast and crew headed to Merthyr Mawr Country Estate to film scenes at the Holmes family house, Appleton Manor.

Joseph Fiennes filming in Spain

Amazon Prime

Elsewhere, Spain doubles up as Constantinople – “the Moorish architecture is a good standing for the Ottoman architecture of Istanbul”, says Tom Burton. “We got to go to Spain towards the end of the shoot. At that point we’d all spent six months with each other, so … our one big family went on holiday to Spain and did some filming while we were out there,” Hero says of the Spanish shoot. “It really did feel like a blast. We grafted through the rainy winter in Wales and earned a couple of months in Spain at the end. So that was a nice way to end the shoot.” The team filmed in the Spanish cities of Seville, Cadiz and Almeria.

“The production on Young Sherlock is exquisite. It’s an incredible period piece, which to film is quite difficult,” says Joseph Fiennes, who plays Sherlock’s dad, Silas. “There’s a great authenticity, there’s a great attention to detail as well. And I have to say, the set design, the costumes, are extraordinary in this production.”

“I had so much fun on this show,” adds showrunner Matthew Parkhill. “I mean, I enjoyed the big set pieces obviously, and I particularly loved shooting in Oxford, and in Cádiz and Seville, but some of my favourite moments were watching the actors work together and doing things that surprised me, that I didn’t see coming, that brought the scene or the character to life in ways that just took a left turn or exceeded my expectations.

All eight episodes of Young Sherlock will premiere exclusively on Prime Video on March 4, 2026.