Rivals returned to Disney+ on 15 May 2026, and with the second half landing on 11 November, fans have plenty of reasons to plan a pilgrimage. The show's fictional county of Rutshire may be pure Jilly Cooper fiction, but nearly all of it was filmed in real, visitable places across the Cotswolds, Wiltshire and Bristol.
The rural heart of the series is Tetbury in Gloucestershire, which the production took over for roughly a week, swapping street signs and dressing shopfronts back to 1986. Corsham in Wiltshire stood in for the fictional town of Cotchester, its historic High Street doubling as a quintessentially English 1980s market town. For the Rutshire Cup polo scenes, the crew built a temporary pitch in the grounds of Berkeley Castle, with close-up action shot at Beaufort Polo Club near Tetbury — the same club that gave the cast riding lessons. Lord Tony Baddingham's grand home is Neston Park in Wiltshire, a late-18th-century country house on a 15th-century estate; it's private, though a section of its woods is open to visitors via Neston Farm Shop.
Bristol, though, is the surprise star. The Corinium TV studios were built at TBY2, part of The Bottle Yard Studios — the largest production site in the West of England, with 11 stages. Canons House on the harbourside, a vacant 1980s Lloyds Insurance office, masqueraded as everything from a Manhattan restaurant to Heathrow Arrivals. New locations in the second half include St Mary Redcliffe Church, a Gothic marvel hosting a funeral scene and open to visitors outside services; the Victorian Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, doubling as a nightclub; and the Bristol Hippodrome, whose 1912 stage door became a West End theatre entrance. Nearby Denmark Street and the buzzing harbourside — home to the Arnolfini and M Shed museum — round out an easy walking route for fans. Aviation buffs can also visit Aerospace Bristol, where the last Concorde ever built appeared in season one.
For travellers, this is a well-mapped weekend: Tetbury and Corsham cover the Cotswolds chocolate-box quota, while Bristol packs filming locations, harbourside restaurants and a Concorde into a walkable city. Watch the show first, then go find Rutshire yourself.
