Lime Grove Studios was a film, and later television, studio complex in Shepherd's Bush, west London, England.
The complex was built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915. It was situated in Lime Grove, a residential street in Shepherd's Bush, and when it first opened was described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put up in this country solely for the production of films". Many Gainsborough Pictures films were made here from the early 1930s. Its sister studio was Islington Studios, also used by Gainsborough; films were often shot partly at Islington and partly at Lime Grove.
In 1949, the complex was purchased by the BBC, who used it for television broadcasts until 1991. It was demolished in 1993.[1]
Gaumont-British Picture Corporation
In 1922, Isidore Ostrer along with brothers Mark and Maurice, acquired control of Gaumont-British from its French parent. In 1932 a major redevelopment of Lime Grove Studios was completed, creating one of the best equipped sound studio complexes of that era. The first film produced at the remodelled studio was the Walter Forde thriller Rome Express (1932), which became one of the first British sound films to gain critical and financial success in the United States (where it was distributed by Universal Pictures).
The studios prospered under Gaumont-British, and in 1941 were bought by the Rank Organisation. By then Rank had a substantial interest in Gainsborough Pictures, and The Wicked Lady (1945), among other Gainsborough melodramas, was shot at Lime Grove.
BBC studios
In 1949 the BBC bought Lime Grove Studios as a "temporary measure"—because they were to build Television Centre at nearby White City—and began converting them from film to television use. The BBC studios were ceremonially opened on 21 May 1950 by Violet Attlee (wife of the then prime minister Clement Attlee).[2][3]
Lime Grove would be used for many BBC Television programmes over the next forty-two years, including: Quatermass II; Andy Pandy; The Sky at Night; Dixon of Dock Green; Nineteen Eighty-Four; Steptoe and Son; Doctor Who; Nationwide; Panorama; and The Grove Family, which took its title family from the studios, where it was made.[3] A children's magazine-style programme, Studio E, was broadcast live from the studio of the same name from 1955 until 1958; it was hosted by Vera McKechnie.
In popular culture
Lime Grove Studios was the setting for the fictional current affairs programme The Hour in the BBC drama of the same name. The studios are also represented in the 2013 drama An Adventure in Space and Time which was shot at Wimbledon Studios.
See also
- Gaumont Film Company
- Gainsborough Pictures
- List of Gainsborough Pictures films
- Urania Cottage
External links
References
- The BBC's TV studios in London tvstudiohistory.co.uk, retrieved 18 February 2010^
- 1950s British TV Milestones Whirligig 50s British TV^
- Last programme from Lime Grove Studios www.bbc.com^