'We became a film studio because farming didn't pay'

A farmer has become part of the UK's thriving film industry "by accident" - after Hollywood came calling.

Harvey Mash set up Bovingdon Airfield Studios after several movie productions, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, asked if they could film on his Buckinghamshire farm.

The industry now provides a vital source of income - which also allows Mash to keep the family business thriving.

"I can't think of any farmers that 100% rely purely on the income from their farm," he said.

It was not Mash's original plan.

"I started off studying agriculture at university and always thought I'd take over running the farming business," he said.

"Then, at the point of actually being involved in the management of the farm, I realised farming profitability and the commercial aspects were very, very difficult."

He realised he could capitalise on the interest from film companies.

"We weren't actively promoting the site for filming," he added. "It was quite opportunistic and we didn't understand the sector of the industry either so it was all a steep learning curve."

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Bovingdon Airfield Studios now boasts five purpose-built sound stages, workshops and backlots, where filmmakers have created everything from the fantasy of TV's Game of Thrones spin-off, The Rings of Power, to the trenches of World War One for the movie 1917.

"One of my favourites was 1917," said Mash.

"Normally sequences are filmed in short segments and edited together, whereas the director wanted to have a continuous sequence and film almost start to end.

"That meant the sets that were created were absolutely vast in nature – whole battlefields, no man's land, the Allied trenches and the German trenches."

Other movies shot at Bovingdon include Deadpool and Wolverine, 28 Years Later, and TV shows such as Dancing on Ice and Michael McIntyre's The Wheel.

Mash has ambitions for even more as he looks to increase the number of sound stages to 10.

"At the moment we have five and we'd like to double that," he said.

"But the way we're trying to develop and build the studio is quite organic.

"So as we get revenues from film productions, we're reinvesting it 100% back into the site and trying to develop the site without using debt."

Not that Mash has turned his back on farming. He still manages land at Torrington Farm in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he has 200 head of cattle and arable crops.

"I love farming," he said. "My role has changed with the film studio, but the farm is the thing that I'm most passionate about.

"Simple things like seeing nature, seeing the deer, seeing the birds, seeing the sort of harmony between farming the land and nature is great and it's very rewarding."

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