Before we say goodbye, here’s our round-up of what to look out for in Season 4, including new locations you won’t have seen before.
While many of the locations for Season 4 remain familiar—Otis and Jean’s house is still the gorgeous The Chalet, for example—there’s one very significant change this time around. The announcement of the closure of Moordale High at the end of Season 3 came as the Caerleon campus, where it was filmed, became unavailable after it was sold to developers. That means the Moordale pupils (or most of them, at any rate) have moved to a new establishment, Cavendish College, with all the nerves and opportunities that entails.
Cardiff
Cavendish is represented by a proper icon of Welsh life: the modern reception building of St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff, one of the country’s most popular visitor attractions. Opened in 2018, the block we see is a new addition to an otherwise old-world complex, centred on the Elizabethan manor of St Fagans Castle. In its grounds are several recreations of work and culture chronicling life in Wales throughout history, from clogmaking and ironwork to pottery and cornmilling.
Cwmcarn
For the approach to the new school, meanwhile, filming took place on the beautiful Cwmcarn Forest Drive, north-west of Newport. Running for seven miles through woods, hills and valleys, it’s at the heart of another popular visitor attraction, favored by hikers and mountain-bikers.
Tetbury
While her classmates are getting used to another school, Maeve is settling into new surroundings of her own: Wallace University in the US. For this, the production used two locations, both of them rather closer to the Sex Education base of operations than you’d think. The first, used for the classical Ivy League exterior, is Westonbirt School in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. A private boarding school since 1928, this was previously a stately home, owned by the Holford family since the 17th Century. The current incarnation is its third, built in 1870 by Robert Stayner Holford in lavish Elizabethan style and said to have been one of the most expensive houses of its time, involving the diversion of a main road and the relocation of a village.
Bristol
For interior scenes at Wallace, meanwhile, Maeve and Thomas Malloy (Dan Levy) are seen in the Wills Memorial Building of Bristol University. The unofficial centre of a non-campus university which otherwise sprawls across the city, this was built in 1925 as one of the last Gothic-style buildings in England, financed by heirs to the Wills tobacco company. We see the dark wood bookshelves and vaulted ceiling of the Law Library, one of many rooms that make up the Wills Memorial complex that centres on a Great Hall used for degree ceremonies.
Abergavenny
Another leaver from Moordale is Adam (Connor Swindells), who is now in rather more down-to-earth surroundings than Maeve: we find him working the fields at Werngochlyn Farm near Abergavenny, about 20 miles north of Newport. Dating back to the 12th century, sitting under the Skirrid Mountain in Llantilio Pertholey, this now combines a working farm with four holiday cottages, which can be booked through werngochlynfarm.org.
Monmouth
More changes to spot include a new bridge: rather than the Wireworks Bridge in Tintern seen in previous seasons, we now see the Duke of Beaufort Iron Bridge in Monmouth. Built in 1874 as part of the great Victorian rail expansion, it was closed to locomotives in 1964 but has remained as a footpath and landmark.
