A short village high street between a Georgian picture gallery and a college, with woods at its edge.
What Dulwich Village looks like
Dulwich Village runs as one street between Georgian and Victorian houses, most set back behind low brick walls and gravel forecourts. White timber posts and iron chains line the verges the whole length of the road, and plane trees close over the pavement.
stands on Gallery Road in raw brick, its long wall broken by arched windows and lit from above by a run of skylights. A low brick garden wall is lettered with the gallery's name, the same white posts and chains along the kerb outside.
's New College building faces College Road behind a gravel drive, a red brick and terracotta front with a rose window under twin spired towers. Playing fields run south behind it, and a gravel path continues under oak cover into Sydenham Hill Wood at the area's edge.
The tollgate at the southern end of College Road is a small white weatherboard building with gothic arched windows, still working, with a barrier across the carriageway. and the streets nearby carry more of the same brick terraces, painted sash windows and doorcases behind hedges.
Shot in Dulwich Village
For Legally Blonde, the production filmed the graduation scene at Dulwich College while Reese Witherspoon was in London for another project. Witherspoon and Luke Wilson both wore wigs for the scene, since each had already changed their hair for other films.
Legally Blonde, 2001
Dulwich College
Played Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the early 2000s
Dulwich College's New College building, its 1870 front designed by Charles Barry Jr, stands in for Harvard Law School in the film's ending. The production used the building's own front and forecourt rather than dressing it. Street View
What Dulwich Village can double for
Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Princeton's Gothic Revival college buildings and quiet, tree lined streets read close to Dulwich College's own spired New College front. Nassau Street's shopfronts give a comparable small scale high street beside the campus. Princeton's buildings run to grey stone rather than Dulwich's red brick and terracotta, so tighter frames on doorways and windows hold the illusion better than a wide facade shot. Try searching Gothic Revival college buildings now.
Rosedale's Victorian villas sit behind hedges and iron railings on quiet, curving streets close in scale to the houses around Dulwich Village. Private schools nearby give it the same mix of grand houses and a campus. Rosedale's wider plots and ravine setting read differently from above, so street level frames along a single block work best. Try searching Victorian villas behind hedges now.
Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Chestnut Hill mixes stone and brick houses with a village feel, and a private school campus sits inside the neighbourhood much as Dulwich College sits inside Dulwich Village. Germantown Avenue is the comparable high street, cobbled in places. The local Wissahickon schist stonework is a rougher, greyer texture than Dulwich's brick, so it works best for a period framing rather than a contemporary match. Try searching stone and brick houses now.
