The British Television Location Guide is a new book that was published on 16th June by Splendid Books. Compiled by Steve Clark and Shoba Vazirani, the book sets out to "reveal the real-life filming locations for dozens of top television series including Doc Martin, Ashes to Ashes, Cranford, Life on Mars, Midsomer Murders, Doctor Who, Lewis, Little Britain, The Invisibles, Spooks, EastEnders and Only Fools and Horses." The book is 144 pages, including photographs.

The website says: "the book is the essential companion for viewers and tourists alike - and a comprehensive record of where TV programmes are filmed and full of behind the scenes secrets about where television shows are filmed." Exactly how detailed the guide is on Doctor Who locations remains to be read, but the example page on their website seems to indicate the book provides a simple summary of the locations used in the (new) series."

We were delighted to hear from Donald Turtle, former owner of the Bonny Mary, the vessel featured as the Albatross in William Hartnell's last location-based story, The Smugglers. You can read about his reminiscences on the shoot here.

Hot on the heels of the news on Portmeirion, another local news item has been found, discussing similar recording plans for Camber Sands. The article in the Rye & Battle Observer reports on plans to a documentary there for a DVD of The Chase, with Richard Bignell again requesting for people who were present at filming to be interviewed for the feature.

(Camber Sands can be seen again in the final episodes of the forthcoming DVD The Trial Of A Time Lord.)

Filming has been taking place over the last couple of days at the Cardiff Bay Yacht Club (previously seen in Random Shoes); this is from the second block of filming, covering episodes 7/8. Scott Frankton was able to capture some photos from today.

There was also a report about a boat being used by the cast and crew on doctorwhocorner.co.uk.

Richard Bignell of the Restoration Team has recently requested to hear from anybody who was present at filming for The Masque of Mandragora at Portmeirion during May 1976.

As reported in the Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald on 22nd May: A team, on behalf of the BBC, plan to return to Portmeirion bringing back some of the original actors and film crew to the village. Richard Bignell, from 2entertain, said: "We are aiming to come back to Portmeirion in late June. We that when the filming was taking place, Portmerion was open to the public so it would be lovely to hear from anyone who was there at the time."

You can read the full news article at The Doctor Who Review.

There seem to be a number of problems with satellite imagery in Google Maps recently, which has been tracked down a facility they have added to detect robots attempting to access their site. The appears to occur if a browser (ie. you) access a number of different locations quite quickly. The upshot is that if you start to see lots of messages like DON'T HAVE IMAGERY AT THIS ZOOM LEVEL ERROR instead of the satellite image then you may have triggered their block - if you try Google Maps and satellite pictures fail there too you've almost certainly hit this block.

This has been raised with Google by quite a few developers now, so they're aware of the problem, but in the meantime you can 'release' your browser by going to this link and if it tells you it thinks you are blocked you can enter the sequence of characters it says to (hopefully!) get you going again.

It's been quite a week for filming-watchers this week, with lots to see as the Doctor Who Christmas Special shoot draws to a close on location. Reports on-site cover the Gloucester filming at Miller's Green on Sunday, Gloucester Cathedral on Monday and Tuesday, and on Berkeley Street on Wednesday; then back to Monmouth for Thursday. Finally, today switched to action at Sarah Jane's house for her own series.

With thanks to Scott Frankton, Gareth Price, Mark Davies, Miranda and Robert Cardew, Andre Verhaeg, Dianne Johns & family, and David Kelm.

Filming is due to begin at the Shire Hall in Monmouth on Thursday and continuing on Friday; however, as they are expected to be recording in an area that is now closed off to the public for renovation work this means it might be unlikely for fan followers to see any filming this time around. The Western Daily Press reports that the location is quite controversial with the locals, who aren't too happy that a television series is allowed to go where they can't at present!

Meanwhile, the last day of filming around Gloucester takes place today in the Berkeley Street area; reports for the last few days activities will be up soon!

Gloucester's Citizen newspaper reported last week that filming would be taking place in the city over the course of this coming week; this looks likely to cover the period from the 20th to 23rd April. Filming took place at Miller's Green around the corner from the cathedral yesterday, with some photos from setup by Robert and Miranda Cardew, and during afternoon filming by Scott Frankton.

Update: today's Citizen/Gloucestershire Echo have also printed photos and a video from Sunday's filming. Meanwhile, Robert and Miranda were on hand for filming around Gloucester Cathedral today - warning there are SPOILERS in the photos.