The Huggetts

[Steve Crook]

Cheers Alan, it looks like you've cracked it.



The roofs of the houses in the road still look the same as in the film and the gaps between houses seems to seal it.

I wonder why that particular road was used for filming? Is Mill Hill very far from Islington and the film studios?



Again, very well done Alan. Your work is very much appreciated.



Dave.

It's only about 8 or 10 miles from the studio



Steve

[steve lyden brown]

I very much doubt that is Islington. In fact I can almost certainly say that it is not.

Islington consists mainly of Georgian or Victorian houses and a rag bag of other styles, but the picture you show is definitively suburban, whereas Islington is cosmopolitan. Islington started to becme well developed in about the late 18th. Century. your houses are invariably between the Wars housing stock and pretty much what one would expect the Huggets to live in, or maybe they'd live in slightly less salubrious housing ?

[stevie boy]

Well, my copies of the films arrived yesterday and I set about dissecting the last three. It seems that Twickenham was the reddest of red herrings; the Huggett house is in North West London - Oakhampton Road – Mill Hill. The link below has the cross centred on the driveway of the house, scroll left and you find the embankment at the end of the road is Hendon Golf Course, scroll up and the brown patch in front of Mill Hill East Station was, until about eight years ago, the gas works.



http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.60475&lon=-0.213946&z=20&r=0&src=msl



I found these pictures of other houses in the road on an estate agent’s site, looks like everyone has had new windows fitted, presumably the chewing gum wore out.

Hi, when I go to the link I get the big google earth blurb in the middle of the scene, how do you move this ?? also is the Huggets Garage still there ??

[DB7]

Another from Vote for Huggett, as Jack Hawkins drives into work.

[Christopher Matheson]

Like DB7 I too wonder where Jack Warner works in 'Vote for Huggett'. Here are some shots immediately preceding DB7's grab. As you can see there is a badly out of focus street sign in my second grab. The surroundings look suitably rural so I wonder if this too could be in the Mill Hill area like the Huggett home?

[orpheum2]

Have been watching the Huggetts video recently.Very enjoyable.I thought that the house would be somewhere in my area.I also instantly recognised Boots in Temple Fortune where the bus stops.The Odeon temple Fortune used to be on the brow of the hill.Am about to buy Jack Warners autobiog to see what he has to say about the films.

[Mark O]

Another from Vote for Huggett, as Jack Hawkins drives into work.

I can't quite decipher if that's a disused station platform behind the 'Campbells' sign or what it is, but there was a rail line between Mill Hill East and Edgware with an intermediate station at Mill Hill (The Hale) that was closed just before the war that may be worth investigating, a link to the wiki page about it.......

Mill Hill (The Hale) railway station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[orpheum2]

Given that there is a road sign on the second frame up couldnt someone enlarge it sufficiently for it to be read.If it is Mill Hill then that is only a couple of miles from where i live.

[tavistock]

I have been up and down that line using the old maps website (the 1951 version is quite good) and there is a school facing the rail line just north of Gold Hill near The Mead, there is a school there today. Incidentally there is still a campaign to re-open the line from Highgate to Finsbury Park.

[Christopher Matheson]

I must say that I also thought that may be some aspect of a railway by the Campbell's sign, but then again perhaps it isn't for there isn't much to grasp. As far as the street sign is concerned there is 'nothing' to enlarge: it's not that it's too small, for the problem is that it's very blurred and out of focus. Many thanks for the input.

[Arthur Linden-Jones]

Can't see that that's a railway - looks more like just a railing fence or a retention wall of some sort.

EDIT : On second thoughts, though ......

[Nick Dando]

It looks like a canal to me.

Nick

[Mark O]

It looks as if it could be a former trackbed that's been converted into a pathway, maybe what looks like a station platform was The Hale at Mill Hill, and when the M1 was constructed and maybe the building and surrounding structures were completely demolished?........it's a possibilty.

[bobsterkent]

This is the only decent reference i can find to Mill Hill -the hale Mill Hill - Edgware

according to the site, The site of Mill Hill (The Hale) station was located between the bridge carrying the mainline from St.Pancras and the bridge carrying the western end of Bunns Lane (now on the west side of the M1 motorway). The site was largely covered over with spoil taken from a slip road constructed for the M1. The small piece of remaining visible platform was located under the Bunns Lane bridge shown here.

Further have now found this picture of the station http://www.memoriespictures.co.uk/lo...on%20MH256.jpg

[tavistock]

I don't think the track bed was lifted until later than 1950, I'm pretty sure it was used for for freight through the 1950s. If it is the station then Mr Huggett is driving up Sylvan Avenue and the road he passes is Woodland Way..... except the age of the house in the background looks older than all the 1920s houses around there.

[wadey]

Yes there is a Station Road at the bottom, love these sort of threads

[Christopher Matheson]

Well I think the jury must still be out on where Jack Warner works but wonder if anyone can identify this house he visits in 'Vote for Huggett'?

[Christopher Matheson]

Well let's see if anyone can make anything of these shots from 'Vote for Huggett'. As you can see they sort of make up a pan shot. Could this be another Mill Hill location?

[tavistock]

There is a petrol station and a similar parade of shops at the junction of Holders Hill roundabout and Dollis Road in Mill Hill East, but most of the houses around there are 1920s/30s and not early Victorian.

[Alan F]

There is a petrol station and a similar parade of shops at the junction of Holders Hill roundabout and Dollis Road in Mill Hill East, but most of the houses around there are 1920s/30s and not early Victorian.

It's not a similar parade of shops, it's the same parade of shops.
The petrol station, the roundabout and the gas holder all appear together near the start of Huggetts Abroad, that's how I found the Huggett's house, back in post #58.
If I had known then what I know now, there is a great big clue to the area they were filming in contained in Vote For Huggett.



Kellys Corner is the unofficial name for Holders Hill Circus and Bittacy is Bittacy Hill.