One might not think of Hampshire as a place of stars, showbusiness, glitz and glamour but the use of Hampshire locations for film sets brought the county £1.9 million in 2016.

This is an increase from the £1.2 million generated in 2015.

At beginning of 2016, Hampshire was home to the production of the first UK Netflix production – and its largest to date – The Crown. 

The making of this saw Winchester double as parts of London and the Great Hall as Westminster, with stars such as Claire Foy, Matt Smith and John Lithgow spending time in the city.

However, Hampshire has long been a place for movie making and a hangout for film and TV moguls.

The Echo delved into its photo archives and found a variety of locations all over Hampshire have played host to the rolling cameras.

One photo in the archive shows Frankie Howerd signing autographs on the set of The Great St Trinian Train Robbery in 1965.

In another the naughty St Trinian girls are waving hockey and lacrosse sticks.

The location for this was a former railway in Hampshire called Longmoor Military Railway.

In the movie Frankie played a crook Alphonse Askett and his accomplice Flash Harry Hackett is played by George Cole who went on to become known as Minder’s Arthur Daley.

More glamorously, Rat Pack actors Sammy Davis Junior and Peter Lawford were filming at Elvetham Hall, Hartley Wintney in 1967 for a comedy thriller called Salt and Pepper.

The New Forest has also been a favourite area for filming.

In 1966 the Beaulieu River had grand Tudor boats on it for the multi-Oscar winning movie A Man for All Seasons, directed by High Noon director Fred Zinneman and starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Vanessa Redgrave as Ann Boleyn, as well as Orson Welles and Susannah York.

Later, in 1972, the Queens Head in Burley was used by Yorkshire Television to make the drama The Main Chance, featuring Glynn Edwards and George Baker years before he would go on to play Inspector Wexford.

Another boating scene was filmed near Lymington in 1969, supposedly doubling for a river in Malaya.

Movie makers told the story of US airmen in Britain during the Second World War in the 1978 movie Yanks.

This was filmed at RAF Odiham and starred Vanessa Redgrave and a youthful Richard Gere in one of his first movie roles.

In 1980 Dad’s Army’s Arthur Lowe was filmed with John Barron outside New Milton’s St Mary Magdalene Church for the BBC drama Potter.

Hampshire has had its fair share of classic costume dramas, too. In 1982 Breamore House, near Fordingbridge was the site of a BBC production of Anthony Trollope’s The Barchester Chronicles and the following year Winchester’s Canon Street was the scene of a TV mini-series version of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

In 1984 the county’s capital, Winchester, saw the filming of Lady Jane at the Great Hall starring a young Helena Bonham Carter in her first lead film role.

The Echo’s behind the scenes photo amusingly shows a big happy birthday sign for one of the electricians on the set.

The interior of Southampton’s handsome Harbour House now Maxim’s Casino was in 1987 the set for the TVS drama ‘Gentlemen and Players’.

In 1995 Southampton Docks was where the BBC filmed a re-enactment of a Second World War raid on the French port of St Nazaire.

The Western Docks had been used much earlier for the Norman Wisdom comedy romance Girl on a Boat which was released in 1961.

The film was an adaption of a PG Wodehouse novel and also starred Millicent Martin as his love interest and Richard Briers before he became more known for the TV sit-com The Good Life.

Other areas that have been used are Romsey for Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Lymington for Wurzel Gummidge and in 1986 the former Echo office was the location for the sailing soap, Howards Way.