tellingbone

I'm sad to say that the former Welwyn Garden City Studios site (British Instructional Films (BIF) on Broadwater Road is no more. More recently used as a base for Polycell, the site which has lain in disrepair for some years has finally succumbed to the developers and is now totally levelled. Seems that Tesco have plans to build a new superstore on the site!

Being a life-long WGC resident, I'd always assumed that certain buildings on the site were listed for preservation, clearly that was not the case.

So bang goes another piece of UK film industry history and along with it, a part of my childhood.

kelp

Seems to be the way tellingbone. Or is it that we are just getting older...? I must admit there doesn't seem to be any respect for our heritage in this Country anymore. Someone ages ago put forward a theory that if you look at the age of Government, you know, born in the sixties and seventies, it doesn't mean anything to them at all. So very sad.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

Steve Crook

Given the amount of potential heritage in this country, only a small part of any of it survives - otherwise we'd be over-run with Elizabethan manor houses, Norman churches, Georgian town houses and so on.

It's impossible to protect everything

Steve

MikeB

Having just finished Matthew Sweet's 'Shepperton Babylon', he has a point when he says that going around an old film studio is a bit like going around an old factory - film-making does seem to take place in large sheds which are of limited architectual value.

On the other hand, having lived in Borehamwood for some years, it was sad to see so little of the old film studio's still standing - apparently the old Gate Studio's (opposite the station) have just been leveled for flats, and this building had real history behind it. Unfortunately, we have enough problems trying to get 'Elizabethan manor houses, Norman churches, Georgian town houses' listed (I speak as an archaeologist), so getting large empty buildings on valuable land near London protected is always going to be difficult. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try though...

tellingbone

It's a sad state of affairs really. A few years ago, a lot of my fellow WGC residents would have been up in arms about this, now the apathy is really obvious.

As an aside to this, another landmark local to me, a pub that has been the subject of some debate as to whether or not it should be demolished or redevelopment, mysteriously got destroyed by fire on Saturday night. That was the place I had my first pint in, now it's gone and another piece of my past bites the dust.

The same happened with Panshanger Airfield, some 2 miles from where I live. It had been used as a location in countless films and tv shows, now only the main hanger remains out of the original buildings and that's almost rusted to the point of collapse. Still no idea why the control tower and surrounding buildings were pulled down.

There is just no sense of nostalgia/history or heritage anymore. What will happen when us present day 40 somethings and our elders have passed on? I shudder to think about what is round the corner for the country.