Boating Lake, Regent’s Park, NW1

No matter how much Brief Encounter is derided for its tirribly, tirribly proper accents, it remains a surprisingly powerful account of a love that dare not speak its name publicly. Set in the fictitious Home Counties town of ‘Milford’, the railway station at which would-be lovers Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) and Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) furtively meet is, famously, Carnforth in Lancashire.

Maybe less well-known is that ‘Milford’ high street is Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, and the park in which the couple go boating is Regent’s Park Boating Lake. It’s at the Long Bridge, in the centre of the park, where Howard is left dangling after the accident and has to dry off in the boating shed.

• Brief Encounter (1945, dir: David Lean)