By Nick Pollard
The huge extension to Shepperton Studios currently taking place is a reminder of the many films that have been made here over the years since it originally opened as ‘Sound City’ in 1932. The majority of films have been made within the confines of the studios, but quite often the local area has been used as a backdrop to the action.
The earliest films using the vil-lage as a location were actually made in the silent era by Cecil Hepworth, a pioneer of British cinema whose studios were in Walton-on-Thames, where the road that now crosses the site is named after him. They included ‘The Dog Outwits the Kidnapper’ (1908), which fea-tures Church Square and Russell Road, ‘Tilly the Tomboy visits the Poor’ (1910) which was set in Russell Road by the river, and an adap-tion of Dickens’ ‘Barnaby Rudge’ (1915) for which a large set was built in a field some-where in the village.
Turning to films made by Sound City, in 1934 the River Ash, which then flowed through the studios but is now a public park, was used in the colonial-era epic ‘Sanders of the River’ starring Lesie Banks and Paul Robeson. An African village was built on the edge of the river and giant war canoes paddled along the Ash.
There was a hiatus in film production during the war, but afterwards a surge of new films made around the village included wartime drama ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ (1955) which made use of several locations including Old Charlton Road and watersplash, and the rail-way station. ‘Bond Of Fear’ (1956), about a family held hostage by an escaped criminal, was made by Nettlefold Studios of Walton, which had taken over the Hepworth Studios, but nonetheless contained many scenes shot in Shepperton including Duppa’s Farm in Russell Road and the former Anchor garage opposite the Church Square (now a car sales business). In the same year, crime thriller ‘The Long Arm’, starring Jack Hawkins, was filmed along the Towpath (presented as the main road into Shepperton) as well as around a bungalow by the lock which looks un-changed to this day.
In 1960 the popular radio comedy ‘The Navy Lark’ was made into a cinema film starring the late Leslie Phillips. Ferry Square and the adjacent boatyard (now the Warren Lodge Hotel extension) were transformed into a French fishing port! In 1970 the film version of ‘Dad’s Army’ featured Old Charlton Road and Littleton Church. Part of the attraction of all these old films is that they show parts of Shepperton which have changed dramatically in the intervening years – literally frozen in time.
‘Sailing on the Thames’ by Mark Laity is the subject of the next meeting of the Sunbury and Shepperton Local History Society, on Tuesday 17th January (postponed from November) at Halliford School in Russell Road, Shepperton. The talk starts at 8pm and all are welcome. Admission £2 for non-members.