FILM buffs looking for something different can tour around Essex locations which have been used for famous movies and television shows.

A new website, called Scene on Screen, has been dedicated to famous and lesser known film locations.

It lists more than 600 spots across the county which have appeared in popular television shows and mega-budget movies, from Minder to Batman Begins.

One of the locations listed is Southend Airport, which was the backdrop for a famous scene from Oscar-winning 2006 movie the Queen, where Prince Charles landed in England after flying from Paris following Princess Diana’s death.

The James Bond film Goldfinger was also filmed partly at Southend Airport.

In the 1964 flick, Bond, played by Sean Connery, drove an Aston Martin on to a car-carrying aircraft.

Essex Boys, a gangster movie based on the true-life Rettendon murders of three drug dealers in 1995, was shot in Brentwood town centre and other locations across the county.

St Clement’s Church, in London Road, West Thurrock, appeared in the moving funeral scene of the 1994 Brit flick Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Scenes for the 2005 film Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale as the Dark Knight, were filmed in Tilbury Docks and Coalhouse Fort, in East Tilbury.

The 1979 feature film Porridge, spawned from THE cult 1970s comedy series starring Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale, was supposed to have been at the fictional HMP Slade, in Cumberland, but was actually shot at Chelmsford prison.

Tudor manor house Ingatestone Hall, owned by Lord Petre, was the location for a 1992 episode of much-loved television series Lovejoy.

The hall was also the exterior location for the 2005 adaption of Charles Dickens novel Bleak House.

Southend Pier, Adventure Island and Eastern Avenue, in Southend, all featured in 2008 Mike Leigh film Happy Go Lucky, when free-spirited teacher Poppy visited her sister Helen who lived locally.

The closing credits from long-running television comedy drama Minder, featuring crooked businessman Arthur Daley, were also filmed on Southend Pier when the series was revived with new character Ray Daley replacing Terry McCann in 1991.

Long-serving Southend councillor David Norman, 66, said: “One of the directors of Minder was Diarmud Lawrence, who came from Southend.

“His father was a well known teacher at North Street School and Belfairs School, in Leigh, and a prominent member of the Southend Shakespeare Company.

“I remember watching the credits at the end of the show one night, seeing his name and thinking ‘so that’s why they chose to film them on the pier’.

“On Goldfinger, Bond drove on to one of the Carvair Air Ferries which used to fly people in their cars from Southend to Le Touquet, in France, back in the airport’s glory days in the 1950s and 1960s.”

The councillor also suspects the Three Shells cafe, on Southend seafront, and other locations across town featured regularly in EastEnders because one of the show’s writers Tony Holland, who recently passed away, came from Shoebury.

Alastair Welch, 42, managing director of Southend Airport, said: “Southend Airport is often used by flimcrews.

“It’s because bigger airports like Stansted and Gatwick are always too busy to allow in a film crew. We are able to be a bit more flexible here.”

A satellite navigation system device is also available for sale, which pinpoints where 6,000 films were shot across the UK, including hundreds in South Essex.

Tilbury Docks makes the guide as it has been the setting for several Hollywood offerings, as well as Batman.

These include the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which sees the whip-cracking archaeologist in pursuit of the Holy Grail.

The film, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery as Indy’s father, featured a memorable speedboat chase in Venice.

However, a large part of this scene, which sees Indy being followed by armed members of a cult intent on protecting the Holy Grail, was filmed at Tilbury Docks, considerably cheaper, and more convenient, than shooting on the bustling waterways of Venice.

Science fiction fans might also want to make a pit stop at Shell Haven Oil Refinery, near Corringham, which is where the 1955 black and white BBC series Quatermass was shot.

The refinery was the setting for the factory in the programme where alien creatures were being grown on earth.

The film-guide sat nav, which costs £19, can be downloaded from www.roadtour. co.uk The film location website can be downloaded at www.sceneonscreen.co.uk