Small Town Made Famous by BBC Serial

Tobermory is a small fishing port town on the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides with a current population of about 700. Till about a decade ago, it was relatively unknown to the world.

Many of the buildings on the main seafront are painted in different bright colours, and British Television decided to use the coloured houses here as a backdrop for their TV series for small kids entitled "What's the Story in Balamory", whose episodes revolved around an imaginary, fictional small island community known as Balamory in Scotland. It was produced between 1999 and 2005 by BBC Scotland, with 254 episodes, and soon became famous not only in the British Isles but also in other parts of the world.

In the story, each main character has his/her own house/shop/workplace of a distinctive colour and they wear clothes of the same colour as their house. These buildings, which do exist in Tobermory*, are only filmed from the outside, with all interior shots taken in the studio or elsewhere.

*Update - February 18, 2010: There is one exception - the Archie's pink-coloured castle is in East Lothian and not in Tobermory. Also, with the stoppage of shooting, the town has reverted to more practical colours for the regular repainting required by continual exposure to salt water.

Thanks to the popularity of the TV series amongst kids, the town now has a thriving tourist industry with many gift and curio shops relating to the items shown in the TV series. Many families visit the island with their kids, and they have great fun roaming around town trying to identify the houses of various characters. For the kids, it is like a story coming true. They even want to meet and see the fictional characters who are said to live in the coloured houses in person. this sometimes causes disturbance to the actual residents of the houses who have no connection with the characters in the TV series.

Image from Flickr is by bugmonkey

Image from Flickr is by jaymasood

Image from Flickr is by jaymasood

Here is the opening theme song of the serial which shows almost all the main characters;

The orange house where Spencer lives in the story;

Image from Flickr is by jaymasood

The three kids shown above are my grand children. I had a tough time explaining to the youngest one why we cannot go in and meet Spencer!

The white house is PC Plum's police station in the story;

Image from Flickr is by Martin Burns

The yellow house where Josie Jump lives in the story;

Image from Flickr is by Martin Burns

The green house where Miss Hooley lives in the story;

Image from Flickr is by Martin Burns

A polite "Do Not Disturb" note on so called Miss Hooley's House

Image from Flickr is by Martin Burns

View location in  Google Maps

Source of info and more info:

• Wikipedia: Tobermory
• Wikipedia: Balamory
• Balamory Information: tobermory.co.uk
• BBC: cbeebies

Credits: I am thankful to Martin Burns for suggesting some correction and sending additional information, which I have included as addendum. Thank you Martin.