Elstree Calling

Danger! - demolition in process. Photo: © Adam Unger

Old Site Feature:

In this feature I will be taking and look at what happened during the demolition process of the studios' old site back in 1991.

Permission to use two photos of the demolition process in this feature (left and below) has been kindly given to me by the Unmutual website. They are a website dedicated to the 60s action TV series, The Prisoner. While permission to use all of the remaining photos of the demolition process (apart from the last one) has been kindly granted to me by Adam Unger, who worked on film productions at Elstree Studios, including The Shining. Finally, I was given kind permission to use the very last photo in this feature (which shows the cleared site) by a visitor to this website who likes to go by the nick-name of Smudge! My special thanks to all of them for their much-appreciated help.

The photos in this feature make for very sad viewing. However, I believe that it is very important that they are included here so people can see just how much of the studios was lost. They are also some of the very-last photos of the old site before the buildings were gone forever.

When Brent Walker agreed to buy Elstree Studios in 1988, they do so on the understanding that they would be allowed to sell off part of the site for redevlopement. Subsequntly a total of six stages and various other studio building were demolished and replaced by a Tescos supermarket development. One of the stages, Stage 6, was taken down and rebuilt at Shepperton Studios.

Permission was granted for the demolition on the understanding that a new Stage 6 and a Dubbing Theatre would be built on land on the surviving part of the studios site. Sadly, this did not happen, and eventually it became clear that Brent Walker wanted to demolish the surviving part of the stuidos' site as well. But, as described elsewhere on this site, this fortunately did not take place and he studios would saved. Eventually Brent Walker was to sell the studios to Hertsmere Borough Council after facing court action for not keeping to their side of the agreement.

The first photo shows what happened to the white admin. block which ran right along the front of the old part of the site during the demolition process. You can just make out the remainder of the stages block (which housed Stages 1 - 4) behind. All historic studio buildings which should never have been lost. The photo on the right shows what was left, at the time it was taken, of part of Stage 4. It's hard to imagine when you look at these photos that some of the best film & TV productions ever made in this country were filmed in this stage block. 

Part 2