The Sandman Season 1 and 2 filming locations: Revisiting key places where the Netflix show was filmed

The Netflix series The Sandman has a very particular atmosphere. It’s not just the plot or the characters, but something in the way space is used. Scenes don’t just happen, they unfold. Quietly, slowly. And where they happen ends up shaping how they feel. The setting is part of the emotion.

None of the episodes was filmed in the United States, even though the story travels through various regions. All locations used, across both seasons, are in the United Kingdom. That decision, which started as a practical constraint, gave the show a strange kind of visual identity. Everything is rooted in real places, but it never looks fully grounded. There’s a slight distance, something just off-center.

It’s that dissonance between real locations and surreal feeling that defines The Sandman. The landscapes feel familiar enough, but not quite. Like walking through a place that’s been seen before, maybe in a dream or a memory from someone else.

A strange world built with real places

The idea of building a fantasy universe using existing locations could have gone very wrong. But The Sandman leaned into the textures of these places. It didn’t try to hide what they were. The production used what already existed and let it carry meaning. Old stone, crooked streets, cold light. These details ended up doing more than any digital effect.

Most of the first season of The Sandman was filmed around Greater London and the southeast of England. Urban shots were built from fragments of cities that already hold a layered history. The show didn’t use the postcard version of London. It went behind the corners, found institutional buildings, museums, and libraries, and gave them new life.

The second season of The Sandman Season 2 moved away from the architectural focus and looked outward. There was more landscape, more nature, more air. It’s a shift in tone that matches the progression of the story.

Season 1 locations in The Sandman: spaces that hold silence

In the first season of The Sandman, places like Canary Wharf were used to simulate other cities. The tall, shiny buildings stood in for Manhattan during key sequences. It’s a space built for speed and finance, but here, it became something else. Cold, glassy, detached.

Other locations in The Sandman carried more weight. The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, for example, was used during scenes involving secret societies and rituals. Its symmetry and scale helped create tension. The show never explained the buildings; it let them speak for themselves.

Guildford Cathedral appeared in moments that needed quiet. The structure, both empty and massive, brought a certain gravity to scenes that might have felt theatrical otherwise. There’s something about that much stone that silences everything around it.

Some sets were built inside existing places. The Lincoln’s Inn Library served as the Dreaming’s library. The choice made sense, a place already filled with law, history, and things unsaid. The Natural History Museum, on the other hand, became part of Morpheus’s domain. Bits of fossils and marble helped shape a world outside of time, one that only The Sandman could inhabit in such a grounded way.

Further from London, filming for The Sandman happened in places like Scotney Castle in Kent. Overgrown and weathered, it was turned into the home of Cain and Abel. The setting held its kind of absurdity, mixing fairy tale with decay.

Brookwood Cemetery showed up in one of the later episodes. The scenes there didn’t need much dialogue. The space did most of the talking. And then there was Sandbanks beach, down in Dorset. Used briefly, but it stays in the visual memory. Open sea, pale sand, horizon fading into fog.

Season 2: Space opens up

By the time the second season of The Sandman arrived, the series had begun using more natural locations. The Seven Sisters cliffs made an immediate impact. White chalk, steep drops, rough sea. The setting felt alive. And dangerous.

Durdle Door, another coastal spot featured in the show, brought in a different rhythm. The rock formation is iconic, almost too photogenic, but the way it was filmed kept it grounded. There was still tension, but a quiet one.

The Royal Pavilion in Brighton was used for scenes with a more refined tone. Something about the building’s excess worked in contrast to the harsher landscapes shown elsewhere. Chatsworth House also made an appearance, chosen perhaps for its stately weight, but also for how it absorbs characters into its walls. In The Sandman, even elegance becomes eerie when framed a certain way.

Studio work continued, especially for scenes involving transitions between realms. Shepperton and Leavesden offered the control needed for more abstract storytelling. But the design remained tactile. There was always an effort to keep things textured, imperfect, a little dusty even, a detail that helps ground the surreal nature of the show in something physical.

Locations with a purpose

The show doesn’t point at its settings. There are no explanations, no signs telling what or where. The camera just stays, and lets the space reveal itself. Some places are beautiful. Others are too sharp, too empty. That’s the point.

Each location serves a narrative role, even when nothing dramatic is happening. A road, a hallway, a foggy garden. The silence between characters often rests on the environment. The wrong location would change the whole mood.

There’s also a strange consistency to the palette. Even though the show moves from place to place, the tones stay muted. Blues, greys, earth. It keeps everything connected. The dreaming, the waking world, hell, all of them blend in through color and space.

New parts still coming

Season 2 was split into two parts. The first one premiered in 2025, and the second part is expected before the end of the year. No date confirmed yet, but filming wrapped last year. There have been rumors about new settings and new realms, possibly with stronger visual contrasts.

Some fans expect more surreal transitions. Others are waiting for the appearance of more of the Endless, which could mean a shift in space, rhythm, and tone again. There’s curiosity about how these characters will shape the world around them.

Final thoughts

The Sandman didn’t rely on fantasy tropes to build its world. It didn’t lean on massive effects or invented landscapes. It took what already existed and used it with intention. That’s part of what makes it feel so strange, and yet so familiar.

The filming locations helped create something layered. These are places with memory, weight, and silence. And maybe that’s why the show lingers after it ends. Not because of what was said, but because of where it was said.