Preamble

 

In 2019 films and TV shot in London generated approximately £7.9bn of inward investment.   This tour will take in some well known and less well know locations, with a bit of history and trivia thrown in. 

 

Filming in London can be an expensive business.  For example, filming at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich (which as featured many, many times on the big screen) costs £35,000 a day venue hire, including set up and pull down days.  

 

I remember a ride few years ago when I was held up outside the Royal Courts of Justice by a large film crew.  There were rubbish bags piled everywhere and a lot of 1970s cars parked along the road. I had no idea what they were filming, but a few years later I spotted the scene in The Iron Lady.   It was no more than a few seconds.  Those few seconds must have cost a fortune!

 

STOP: Bridget Jones Diary

LOCATION: Globe Tavern, Borough Market

 

This is the front door of Bridget Jones flat.  This is also the place where Darcy and Daniel have their bare-fisted battle and smash through the Greek restaurant. Well, that's now a wine merchant called Bedales, just around the corner.  The film grossed $282m worldwide and is a loose interpretation of Pride and Prejudice.

 

To prepare for the role, Renée Zellweger gained almost 2 stones, then worked at a British publishing company for a month. Using an alias and a posh accent, she was apparently not recognized. She also kept a framed picture of her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey on her desk. Her co-workers found the photo odd, but never mentioned it for fear of embarrassing her.

 

In order to make her English accent seem more natural, Renée Zellweger retained it on set even while not shooting. Hugh Grant said that he did not hear her speak in an American accent until the wrap party, after the film was completed.

 

STOP: Harry Potter

LOCATION: Stoney Street, Borough Market 

 

No 7 Stoney Street is the Third Hand Book Emporium where the Knight Bus stops outside the Leaky Cauldron Pub in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  Even though the pub next door is actually in Leadenhall.

 

Number 5 is the only original house left in Stoney Street. It was built early in the 18th century.

 

The history of Borough Market stretches back over 1,000 years when merchants first started trading grain, fish, vegetables and livestock here - because it was near the riverside. The market thrived until Parliament shut it down in 1775. Two years later local residents resurrected Borough and it’s been open ever since.  

 

The market operated mainly as a wholesale market until the end of the 20th century. Since then it’s blossomed into London’s most renowned gourmet food destination. Today Borough Market consists of over 100 stalls featuring vendors and farmers selling top quality ingredients and gourmet food. 

 

The market buildings were designed in 1851 by Henry Rose, with additions in the 1860s and an entrance designed in the Art Deco style added on Southwark Street in 1932. Significant changes to the buildings have been made over the years as a result of successive expansions to the nearby railway infrastructure.  It was refurbished in 2001, including re-erection of the South Portico from the Floral Hall in Covent Garden which was dismantled when the Royal Opera house was rebuilt in the 1990s. 

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STOP: Skyfall

LOCATION: The Old PLA Building, 10 Trinity Square 

 

In Skyfall, M comes here to discuss her retirement with Gareth Mallory, played by Ralph Feinnes  who took over the role of M at the end of the film. He reprised his role in Spectre and No Time To Die.   The interiors of the building were also used in a number of scenes.

 

There were eighty-five versions of James Bond's Tom Ford suit tailor-made for the opening chase sequence in Spectre. Thirty were made for Daniel Craig and another thirty for his double and stunt double. Each version of the suit was made specifically for a particular scene of the opening sequence. For example, when Craig was riding the motorcycle, a suit with longer sleeves was worn so that it wouldn't raise up over his forearms. They were all made of beautiful fabric. Bond was jumping and fighting, and yet when he stood up the suit would be perfect.  Also, Craig's tie had to be weighted for the motorcycle section of the chase. The weight kept the tie from flying around when he rode at high speeds.

 

Other filmings here include:

1977: British drama The Professionals starring Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Gordon Jackson aired from 1977 to 1983 and featured the exterior of Ten Trinity Square in the opening credits as a government building. The popular crime-series ran for four seasons and pulled in audiences of more than 10 million.

 

1991: In the 1990s, Ten Trinity Square  became Arnholt's Bank in the television version of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, starring actor David Suchet.

 

1992: The building starred as the Old Bailey in the 1992 American spy thriller film Patriot Games, based on the original book by Tom Clancy. Apparently the real Old Bailey was deemed "much too ordinary" for the creative American team by the location manager.

 

And in Tomb Raider this was the exterior of Manfred Powell's home.

 

The building dates from 1912 (opened in 1922) and at the time was one of The City’s tallest buildings.  During its heyday, the building was frequented by hundreds of people each day who were paying their dues on goods landed in the Port of London. 

 

STOP: Harry Potter

LOCATION: Leadenhall Market  

 

The scene where Harry Potter and Hagrid go shopping for wands (and where Hagrid buys Hedwig as a late birthday gift for Harry) is one of the most memorable scenes in the first Harry Potter film…and it all happened here.

 

And not only was Leadenhall Market used to represent the one area of London which secretly leads magical folk to Diagon Alley (in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone), Potterheads should be able to recognise the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron pub at 42 Bull’s Head Passage (which is now an opticians office), as its blue door was used to film scenes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well.

 

On her way back from the auction house Lara Croft zooms through Leadenhall Market on her bike.

 

Leadenhall was in the middle of the Roman settlement ‘Londinium’ and here was where the Forum (market) and Basilica (courts) were located.  

 

Its history as a market began around 1321 when it functioned as a popular meat and poultry trading post. Dick Wittington bought the lease in 1408 and gifted it to the City of London. 

 

Nobody really knows where the name ‘Leadenhall’ came from, but many suspect it was due to a lead rooftop on the original grand house in the area. But it could also be a corruption of of ‘Leather Hall’. 

 

For centuries, it was a noisy place that was a hive of activity and the stalls were often a little unruly. So, the decision was made to redesign the market in 1881.  The cobbled floor, vibrant Victorian shopfronts, and oil lamps hanging from starry sky ceilings have not changed since.

 

Countless geese and chickens have been slaughtered here.  But during the early 1800s, there was one clever little goose who managed to escape his fate after he somehow managed to make a dash for freedom when it was his turn for execution. Because he was such a hard goose to catch, the market workers eventually gave up and decided to let the goose (who was eventually named Old Tom) live a life of peace and happiness inside the market, and he soon became one of Leadenhall’s most beloved residents.

 

Old Tom lived to the ripe old age of 38; and after his death in 1835, he was featured in the obituary section of a local newspaper, and was even given the proper burial he deserved inside the market.

 

Today Old Tom’s burial spot is marked by none other than the Old Tom’s Bar.   There are also two different representations of Old Tom on top of the old Midland Bank building, which is just near the Bank of England by the Bank tube station, which we’ll be passing later.

 

STOP: Mary Poppins

LOCATION: St Pauls Cathedral

 

St Paul's has been used in many films and TV shows.

 

You can see the famous church in Lawrence of Arabia; The Madness of King George; Sherlock Holmes; Star Trek Into Darkness; Thor: The Dark World; and London Has Fallen. It has twice featured in Doctor Who. And the Geometric Staircase in the south-west bell tower was used to brilliant effect as the route to the Divination Classroom in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

St Paul's most famous film appearance, however, wasn't filmed at St Paul’s but was actually shot on a film set. It is the Feed the Birds sequence in Mary Poppins. 

 

A Cathedral dedicated to St Paul has overlooked the City of London since 604 AD.  The first cathedral was made from wood and was built for Mellitus, Bishop of the East Saxons. It was destroyed by a fire in 675 AD and was rebuilt ten years later. It was destroyed again by Vikings in 962 AD and rebuilt in stone by the Normans. 

 

This third building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and was larger than the present building.  Today's cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the English Baroque style and was the tallest building in London from its completion in 1710 until 1962 when the BT Tower opened.

 

Christopher Wren died in 1723 at the age of 91. The Latin epitaph on his tomb inside the cathedral is translated as "Reader, if you seek his memorial look around you". The cathedral’s crypt is the largest in Western Europe and extends the entire length of the building. 

 

STOP: Scandal

LOCATION: Old Bailey

 

Featured in many films and TV series, including Scandal (Profumo affair) and A Very English Scandal (Jeremy Thorp) which we saw being filmed on a previous Sunday London Ride.  Even The Sweeney 2 has featured the court.

 

The name 'Old Bailey' comes from the street on which the court is located. The road marks the route of the City's original fortified wall (or 'bailey').

 

'Old Bailey' is only a nickname for what's really called the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.  

 

There's been a jail on this site for over 1,000 years, and a court since the 16th century (serving the old Newgate Prison). Various fires and attacks have seen the court rebuilt again and again, and the famous domed Old Bailey we now know only opened in 1907. Some of the bricks in the Old Bailey's façade are repurposed from the demolished Newgate Prison. Many of the more recent courtrooms were only added in the 1960s and 70s.

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The 22-ton, 3.5m tall figure of Lady Justice is the Old Bailey's crowning glory — clutching the sword of retribution in her right hand, and the scales of justice in the other. But contrary to the well-worn adage, this particular Justice is not blindfolded.  

 

Delve into the depths of the Old Bailey's former coal room, and you'll find a hatch in the floor, beneath which is a ladder leading down to the river Fleet.  It's said that prison reformer Elizabeth Fry used to collect water here for inmates, although how much good drinking from what was basically a sewer did them, we're not sure.

 

A grizzly remnant of Newgate Prison is 'dead man's walk'. This is a series of archways which become increasingly smaller, through which condemned prisoners were led through on their way to the gallows. It was designed to make the prisoner feel the walls closing in on them.  In 1868, the date of the last public hanging here, 20,000 people came to watch. And they came by tube.

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STOP: The Hatton Garden Job

LOCATION: 88 Hatton Garden (at junction with Greville Street)

 

The streets in and around the famous diamond district appear in The Hatton Garden Job (2017), and King of Thieves (2018) the true story of the 2015 burglary from the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company by a gang of elderly men.  

 

The total stolen may have had a value of up to £200 million, although court reports referred to £14 million. The theft was investigated by the Flying Squad and in March 2016 the seven perpetrators were convicted.

 

In September 2021, the area was transformed in to 1960s America as part of filming for Indiana Jones 5 (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny).  Old-school cars and vintage store facades populated the area, complete with U.S. Mail boxes, rubber tyres and weathered posters reading, 'Blood bank, donors paid.'

 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick’s final film, was set in New York so a couple of blocks of Greenwich Village were dutifully recreated on the backlot at Pinewood Studios. However, no matter how lavish, a set is always going to be a bit limiting and sooner or later, a real street which stretches more than two blocks is needed.  When Tom Cruise’s guilt-ridden doctor is stalked through the night time streets of the Big Apple, that’s a stretch of Hatton Garden dressed up with NY street furniture and shop signs.

 

Hatton Garden has royal roots stretching back to the area’s namesake, Sir Christopher Hatton, who in 1581 was gifted the property of Ely Place by Elizabeth I. Hatton was a politician and close advisor to the Queen who gained recognition from his knighthood and appointment as Lord Chancellor. The property featured a beautiful garden that, eventually, branded the street and surrounding area ‘Hatton Garden’. 

 

Toilets in Lincoln's Inn Fields

 

STOP: The Muppets

LOCATION: Freemason Hall, Great Queen Street junction with Wild Street

 

This is the United Grand Lodge of England.  Freemasons have been meeting on this site since 1775.

 

Inside the Art Deco Grade II listed building are plush interiors and polished floors. This building has seen more than its fair share of movie magic, including Assassins Creed, Sherlock Holmes, Green Zone, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. TV favourites, including Poirot and Spooks were also filmed here.

 

Some of the most famous faces to be filmed at Freemasons’ Hall are made of felt, thread and feathers…The Muppets! During filming for the musical comedy caper Muppets Most Wanted (2014), Freemasons’ Hall was turned into the Spanish Art Gallery, Museo del Prado. In these scenes, shot in the vestibules, Interpol is investigating an art theft carried out by Kermit the Frogs’ doppelganger.

 

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a 2008 science fiction comedy. The story follows Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) as he journeys into space after Earth is destroyed by aliens. The Grand Temple inside the building took on one of its first starring roles in this movie as a spaceship and headquarters for John Malkovich’s character Humma Kavula.

 

Within the Hall are 24 temples; chambers used by various Masonic lodges and chapters as meeting rooms. Every temple is unique, and all are richly decorated in Art Deco style. At the core of the building is the Grand Temple, approached through massive bronze doors weighing over 1 ton each. The Temple chamber seats 1700 people and is often used for concerts and performances as well as a meeting place for Masonic lodges in the Greater London region.

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STOP: Batman Begins

LOCATION: Garrick Theatre, Charing Cross Road

 

This was Gotham Opera House in Batman Begins (2005) and was where a bat-infested production creeps out the young Bruce Wayne when he was visiting with his parents.

 

The Garrick Theatre is named after the stage actor David Garrick (1717-1779). It opened in 1889 and in its early years, specialised in the performance of melodrama. The theatre later became associated with comedies, including No Sex Please, We're British, which played for four years from 1982 to 1986.   

 

David Garrick has a London club and numerous theatres named after him. His legacy has been considerable, and he was a celebrated figure in his own lifetime. When he died, a reported 50,000 people lined up to come and see him lying in state before his funeral.

 

STOP: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

LOCATION: Whitehall Place, junction with Scotland Place 

 

Great Scotland Yard was used as the visitor entrance to the Ministry of Magic. Appearing in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and also in Deathly Hallows Part 1, this filming location was home to the telephone box that transported witches and wizards to the Ministry. Don’t look out for the telephone box though. It doesn’t exist - it was a combination of props and CGI.  

 

The name Whitehall was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings. Whitehall became an official royal palace in 1530 when Henry VIII  seized York Place for himself.  It was later renamed Whitehall Palace. He transformed it into a magnificent royal residence to replace Westminster as his main London residence.

 

In 1617, the Native American princess Pocahontas was brought before King James I at the old Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall at a performance of Ben Jonson's masque The Vision of Delight.

 

In 1698 a Dutch maidservant was drying linen sheets on a burning charcoal brazier in a bed chamber at Whitehall Palace. For some reason the maid left the room and in her absence, the sheets caught fire. The flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, the fire raged for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish it.

 

Many of the palace's wooden structures were destroyed in the fire. The remaining structures were torn down. The Banqueting House, built by Inigo Jones in 1622, survived the fire. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, but they are mostly mostly incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall government complex.

 

STOP: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One

LOCATION: Horse Guards Avenue 

 

Horse Guards Avenue. Behind the black Statue of Spencer Compton was where the staff entrance to Ministry of Magic was located in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One. As with the phone box used for the visitors entrance, the toilet sign that marked the staff entrance was a prop specially brought in for filming and taken away once filming had been completed. It’s worth remembering that staff enter the Ministry by flushing themselves down the toilet!

 

Horse Guards Avenue was the launch site of the IRA's 1991 Downing Street mortar attack. A transit van was parked on the Avenue near the corner with Whitehall, and the mortar launch occurred minutes later. The incident led to a ban on street parking in the area.

 

King Charles 1 was executed here 30 January 1649.  

 

STOP: No Time To Die

LOCATION: Roupell Street

 

These streets have been made world famous by the hundreds of films, TV shows and commercials shot here. It’s one of the most popular locations in London.

 

ITV's Murder on the Home Front recreated wartime blitz destruction by constructing a bombed house in Windmill Walk.  Skilled set-builders restored the frontages of former shops and added extra ones to get the right period feel for Legend. Tom Hardy played both of the Kray twins through their gangland reign of terror. The Krays' house was in Whittlesey Street, with filming in all streets.

 

In No Time to Die, Daniel Craig as James Bond and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny visit to the home of inventor Q in Roupell Street

 

In her final scenes for Eastenders, Dame Barbara Windsor as Peggy showed Steve McFadden, as son Phil, the old Mitchell family home in Roupell Street.

 

Theed, Whittlesey and Roupell streets have all featured in episodes of this long-running global hit Call The Midwife, set in the 1950s.

 

Several regenerations ago, Dr Who was caught between rival factions of Daleks in Theed Street.

 

Mrs Harris goes to Paris is another recent film to be shot here.

 

Roupell street and the surrounding streets were laid out in 1824 by John Roupell, a merchant in metal and aspiring property magnate. Rather egotistically he initially named the surrounding streets after himself and his family: John Street, Catherine Street and Richard Street but the names have since changed.  It must have been a tight squeeze with, initially, up to 20 people living in each house of four rooms. Builders, blacksmiths, printers, nurses, bakers, butchers and teachers, i.e. ordinary artisan Londoners, would have all been rubbing shoulders on Roupell Street in Georgian/Victorian London.

 

It’s rare for the houses of the working classes to have survived the test of time in central London. That’s what makes this street particularly special.

 

Roupell Street and the surrounding streets are all now part of the Roupell Street Conservation Area. 

 

Keep your eyes peeled for small metal plaques on the sides of the houses. These are fire insurance plaques: a pre-1865 leftover, when the public London fire service was created.

 

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, entrepreneurs spotted a business opportunity and set up fire insurance companies. Paid up clients would have displayed one of these plaques on the side of their house. Should they then have a fire, the insurance company’s private fire fighting team would put it out. If they didn’t have a plaque, they would simply leave. There were even occasions when they were known to have stayed to just watch as observers!

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STOP: Rocketman

LOCATION: Regency Cafe, Page Street

 

Regency Cafe opened in 1946.  It’s on the borders of Westminster and Pimlico. It was sold by the original owners to Antonio Perotti and Gino Schiavetta in 1986 and is now run by Antonio's daughter, Claudia and Gino's son Marco.  

 

The interior tiling is original, while the tables are newer and Formica topped. Interior decorations include photographs of Tottenham Hotspur football players.  The cafe is designed in an art deco style.  

 

The cafe has been featured in several BBC series such as Judge John Deed , Rescue Me and London Spy. It has also appeared in the films Layer Cake (the teapot beating scene) , Brighton Rock, Pride, and Rocketman (where Elton John met Bernie Taupin).  

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STOP: Judy Garland

LOCATION: 4 Cadogan Lane

 

In 1969, this house was home to Mr and Mrs Mickey Deans (aka Judy Garland). And it was here that the Hollywood legend died, suffering heart failure after her frail body finally gave out from too many pills. Judy’s husband Mickey awoke to find her dead on the toilet.  She was just 47.

 

The night before Garland's death, she and her new husband had apparently watched a documentary on the royal family, after which they had an explosive row. He said she ran into the street and disappeared, then he went to bed.  Waking up the following morning, he still couldn't find his wife, but discovered the bathroom door was locked.  After climbing onto the roof to get access to the bathroom window, he saw Judy hunched forward on the loo and broke through the window to find her skin discoloured and blood coming from her nose.

 

She had been dead for an estimated eight hours from an overdose of sedatives.  Not long before she died, Judy had said she felt at home in the city. She told the Sunday Express: 'I don't know if London still needs me, but I certainly need it! It's good and kind to me. I feel at home here’.

 

Judy married five times and had three children, Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft, but her life was plagued with eating disorders and prescription drug addiction.

 

English Heritage spent almost 15 years trying to commission a blue plaque to commemorate the Hollywood legend.  But the owners would not give permission for the marker because they didn’t want the property property associated with a tragedy. And, it can’t now have a blue plaque as this is not the original building - a major restoration was renovation was commenced in 2015 and was completed in the past couple of years.

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STOP: Bridgerton

LOCATION: Lancaster House - the first grand house on the left as you enter The Mall

 

In front of Buckingham Palace is St James’s Palace - another royal palace. Between the two you’ll find Lancaster house.

 

Lancaster House is a neo-classical mansion constructed in 1825 for the Duke of York (the Grand Old Duke of York from the nursery rhyme, and second son of George III). The interior wasn't completed until 1840. 

 

The house has become a popular stand-in for Buckingham Palace in films and TV, playing that role half a dozen times, including The King’s Speech, Bridgerton and Downton Abbey.  Lancaster House has most recently reprised its role as Buckingham Palace for the Netflix series The Crown.

 

When it was originally built it was assessed for rating purposes (i.e. for property taxes) as the most valuable private house in London.

 

STOP: Raiders of the Lost Ark

LOCATION: Herbert Johnson milliner, 13 Old Burlington Street

 

This was formerly the shop of milliner Herbert Johnson where, one afternoon in 1980, two American men arrived with a very special request.  They introduced themselves as Mr Steven Spielberg and Mr Harrison Ford.

 

They explained that they were about to make an adventure film called Raiders of the Lost Ark and a hat would be pivotal to the character that Harrison Ford was to play. Could the assistant could advise them on a suitable one?  

 

Since they weren't looking for any particular style or time period, the assistant suggested the oldest hat they had in stock, a tall, crowned Herbert Johnson wide brim, felt hat called "The Poet". 

 

This particular fedora style hat had been manufactured continuously since the 1890's and was considered ageless.

 

Since Indiana Jones would be wearing the hat in a variety of terrains, a shade of brown called Sable was chosen. The workshop staff then made suitable alterations to the hat and the two men left, apparently very satisfied with their purchase.

 

The following week the shop received an order for 45 hats of assorted sizes, for Mr. Ford and the stunt extras!

 

Herbert Johnson still exists as a brand and is part of the upmarket Swaine group with shops in Bond Street, Burlington Arcade and all over the world.  They have supplied hats for many films and TV programmes, including Peaky Blinders, Batman, Who Framed Roger rabbit, Dad’s Army and My Fair Lady.

 

The ride ends at the cafe in Russell Square

Many famous scenes have been shot in this square, including Season 2 of Killing Eve, where Villanelle famously stalks Eve in the park.