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Celebrating 65 Years of The Avengers

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On this day we celebrate a landmark television anniversary.

On 7 January 1961, the first episode of The Avengers, “Hot Snow” was broadcast — starring Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel and Patrick MacNee as his enigmatic partner, John Steed. The first episode is about Dr Keel wanting to bring to justice the criminals who murdered his fiancée — hence the title The Avengers.

The series was originally taped at Teddington Studios but later moved to ABPC Elstree Studios for Series 4, where it was shot on 35mm film for the first time. The first episode filmed at Elstree was “The Town of No Return”, which began shooting in October and November 1964.

A little trivia about that first Elstree episode: “The Town of No Return” was originally filmed with Elizabeth Shepherd as Emma Peel, before she...

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From the Archive: Collection of Richard Best

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We are delighted to have been able to acquire a paper archive from the life and work of film editor Richard Best, who worked at Elstree Studios in the 1950s and 60s. The papers include studio contracts, correspondence, pay slips, rate cards, and more.

Richard worked as an editor on a number of productions including The Elstree Story, The Dam Busters, The Avengers, and School For Scoundrels.

We are going to digitise the collection and make the papers accessible for researchers.

We are looking for other collections to help us preserve and share the history of Borehamwood and Elstree’s studios. If anyone can help us with this, including sharing production paperwork and studio documents such as these, or with financial help to support this effort, then please do get in touch.

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Celebrating the centenary of the announcement of Elstree Studios

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On this day 100 years ago, 15 December 1925, it was announced that a site called Oaklands in Borehamwood had been acquired for eight studios to be built near Elstree Station by British National Pictures Ltd — led by JD Williams and Herbert Wilcox.

A year of building works led to the studio officially opening on 28 December 1926. Within a year both founders would have left the studio, with John Maxwell, their legal council, taking charge until his untimely death in 1940. The studio still exists and operates today as Elstree Studios.

As official historian of the studios, we are honoured to be a part of recording and preserving its legacy for future generations; and proud to work so closely with the fantastic team who operate the studio.

📣 Today officially makes this the centenary of the studio announcement!

Rudolph Walker and others cut the ribbon outside of the main door for Stage 7 at Elstree Studios.

On Friday 26 September, Elstree Studios reopened Stages 7, 8 and 9 after being closed for several years due to asbestos and concrete structural issues. Rudolph Walker CBE was asked to cut the ribbon outside of Stage 7 to declare them open once more!

The Elstree Project's director, Howard Berry, was among the invited guests and was asked to speak about the productions made on those stages. Below is a history of the stages and some of those iconic productions.

In 1966, ABPC’s Managing Director Robert Clark — a Scotsman appointed that same year — oversaw the opening of three new stages at Elstree, built at a cost of £1 million to mark the studio’s 40th anniversary.

The expansion reflected the demand for more facilities to serve the booming television market. Both The Saint and The Baron had already been pre-sold in colour to America, and ABPC...

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The Project Records BBC Elstree Centre in 360º Photography

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Recently, The Elstree Project were invited to go to BBC Elstree Centre to record and document the building in 360º photography, video and with LiDAR — a laser scanning system which records the exact dimensions, space and details of a room as data which can then be turned into a virtual 3D model. We spent four days on site at the Fairbanks Building and Neptune House, and we also took an acoustic sound print of Stage M so that its ambient sound tone can be recreated.

The 360º images will be edited together to form a "Google street-view" style interactive tour of the buildings, with embedded stills and audio from our archive. For the first time, the public will be able to walk through the buildings and onto the stages and hear voices of those who worked there.

Here's a preview of Howard on Stage D, as part of our work!

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