Brocket Hall, Lemsford, Herts, UK – Inspector Morse, Who Killed Harry Field (1991) - Movie Locations on Waymarking.com

Harry Field, an artist and picture cleaner, is found dead at the bottom of a railway bridge. In his studio acid has been thrown at several paintings and another slashed. Morse has plenty of potential suspects. Perhaps the wife, who is having an affair with one of Harry’s friends, Tony Doyle. Or, is it Tony Doyle who is giving money to Harry because of his affair with his wife, and also because Tony, as an art teacher at a local school, provides Harry with young schoolgirl models. Morse meets several of Harry’s friends at his wake, many of whom could have had reason to murder Harry.

Before his death Harry had gone walk about for a couple of weeks. His wife had not seen him during this time, but had had a message on her answer machine only a few days earlier. This was odd because when Harry was found his body was dry despite it having rained all the previous week. Harry had died at least a week ago. Morse eventually works out that Harry’s voice had been recorded before his death and then played back over the phone.

Morse enlists an art expert friend to review Harry’s work, most of which aped the styles of famous artists, but with Harry’s models heads on them. Morse asks the expert if Harry was into forgery. The expert says that Harry is not good enough, except for the painting of Harry’s wife that was slashed. That painting is of good quality, but not painted by Harry. It was, in fact, painted by Harry’s father, a professional art restorer.

One of Harry’s sidelines was painting heraldic signs for clients. All of them bore bogus mottos, except for one commission which was for Paul Eirl. Morse finds out that Eirl lives only a few hundred yards from where Harry Field was found and that he has inherited a significant number of valuable pictures from his father. Morse believes that Harry was blackmailing Eirl and that Eirl killed Harry, however Eirl has an alibi for the previous weeks.

Whilst Morse is pondering the crime Eirl is murdered in his car in the grounds of his house. On investigating the death Morse finds out that a rare painting by Albrecht Durer, not seen outside the Eirl collection, was about to be seen for the first time in a public exhibition for a fee of £5 million, payable by a government arts council. On investigation Morse discovers that the Durer painting was restored by Harry Field’s father. On confronting Harry’s father he confesses to having forged the painting in collusion with Eirl’s father, and then covering their tracks by a botched restoration job. In the end Eirl’s chauffeur probably killed Harry and Harry’s father killed Eirl.

The Eirl estate is in fact Brocket Hall in Lemsford. The Hall is now a golf club and restaurant and not publicly accessible, unless you are a golfer or diner. You can get a perfect shot of where Morse and Lewis stood from the gates opposite the Crooked Chimney pub. The spot where Eirl’s body is found can be glimpsed from the public footpath through the estate, but not from the spot where the camera would have been, which is across the golf links. The estate gates where Lewis enters are visible from the end of the drive, but again not from the position where the camera would have been.

Movie or TV Show: Inspector Morse Year Released or First Aired: 1,991.00 IMDB Link: [Web Link]

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