The 2025 BBC crime drama Lynley is set in East Anglia, mostly in the fictional “Three Counties” area of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, with the main police base in Horsford, Norfolk.

Where the story is set

In the show’s world, DI Tommy Lynley leaves London and joins the Three Counties Major Investigation Team, a regional unit that covers crimes across Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. Their headquarters is shown as being in Horsford, a real village just north of Norwich in Norfolk.

So, the series is firmly East Anglian, with the plot unfolding in:

  • Norfolk (especially Norwich and the Broads region)
  • Suffolk (as part of the “three counties” area)
  • Cambridgeshire (including Cambridge in some scenes)
  • Occasional trips back to London.

Where the show was actually filmed

Despite being set in East Anglia, almost all on‑camera filming for Lynley took place in Ireland in 2024, not in England. The main locations were:

  • Around Dublin and its suburbs
  • The Wicklow Mountains
  • Mallow Castle in County Cork.

Only a few scenes (like establishing shots of Norwich and the Broads) were actually filmed in Norfolk; the rest of the countryside and town scenes were shot in Ireland, which meant the local accents and very flat East Anglian landscape aren’t quite authentic on screen.

How this differs from the original books

This is different from Elizabeth George’s original Inspector Lynley novels, where Tommy Lynley is a London-based detective with the Metropolitan Police, investigating cases all over the UK rather than being based in East Anglia. The 2025 Lynley series is a fresh reimagining, so it deliberately shifts the setting to rural East Anglia for a different feel.