Text on the Canterbury House memorial plaque

Ridgehill Housing association
(A member of the Affinity-Sutton Group)
-----------------------------------
Canterbury House refurbishment 2004-6

Location site of scenes from
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
(1971)

A film directed by Stanley Kubrick 
(1928-1999) founder member of the
directors guild of Great Britain and
 recipient of its lifetime Achievement
award 1999

Plaque unveiled by
James Clappison mp
-----------------------------------
1 December 2006

Daily Call Sheets

These are sheets of paper created by an assistant given to the cast and crew describing where and when the days shooting takes place. They also include contact information, phone numbers, scenes and what extras are needed and are rarely seen by the general public. It shows the order the film was shot from Sept 7, 1970 to Feb 24, 1971.

Scan of September 7-9, 1970 sheet

Misc. sheets: Map of Bullhead Road, Memo Princess Alexandra Hospital 1&2, Memo Purchase Orders, Notes on missing Call Sheets, Revised Schedule 01-03, Transport Allocation 1-3, Unit Memo No 2 - Set List - Interiors and Exteriors, Unit Memo No. 8, 15, 19, 20A, 20B, 21, 22, 25, 32, 35
Notes:
Photo research: 890 Contact sheets. (36 frames per roll = 32,040)
Footage wasted: 39,880ft
Footage exposed: 377,090
S/E: 13,120
Total footage: 452,960ft
Total footage printed: 225,880
1/4" audio tape: 288 rolls

Set List: Thursday 17 July 1970
From 1 to 50.
03 EXT. Municipal Power Plant
09 EXT. Da Silva's apartment
14 INT. Public Biblio
17 EXT. Alley
20 INT. Pasta Parlor
23 EXT. Hebrew Fantasy
24 INT. Public Toilet
27 EXT. Mugging Film
31 EXT. Body Fantasy
33 EXT. Car Fantasy
34 INT. Ludovico Hall
35 EXT. World Fantasy
36 INT. Ludovico Press Room
37 EXT. Jap Film/Nazi Film (Stock)
46 INT. Train
48 INT. Da Silva car
50 INT. Police Van

Articles & Stories

TSL Education
By Matthew Reisz 11/13/08
When Brunel College of Technology was designated a College of Advanced Technology in 1961, it was required to accommodate about 2,000 students. The impossibility of achieving this on its west London site in Acton led to plans to build a new campus - in a neglected field in Uxbridge, Middlesex, littered with the remains of greenhouses from a former nursery. In the decade it took to complete the move, the college took on yet another new identity - Brunel University. As part of Brunel's commitment to encourage mixing between different disciplines, restaurants, bars and common rooms were concentrated in a communal building and a single lecture center was built at the heart of the campus. It was this that featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange. Those who witnessed the filming remember the building echoing with McDowell's screams as the famously perfectionist Kubrick demanded take after take. He also stationed someone on the ground floor to make sure women removed their noisy high heels before walking on the stone tiles.

Discussion on Kubrick movie filmed in Harlow
10/7/08
Harlow Playhouse is to host a screening and discussion of the controversial and once banned film A Clockwork Orange - parts of which were filmed in Harlow. The local screening will take place at the Harlow Playhouse at 7.45pm on Tuesday October 14. One hour prior to the screening, there will be a discussion led by David Devine, Local History Officer from the Council's Museum of Harlow. Admission is free when buying a ticket to see the film. He will point out some of the local locations used in the making of the film and discuss the impact of the film then and now. The Princess Alexandra Hospital was among the familiar locations used. Local people who were in Harlow at the time and remember the making of the film or were involved in any way are particularly invited to come along and take part in what promises to be a lively debate. The film has an 18 certificate and contains scenes of a violent and sexual nature. To buy tickets phone the Box Office on 01279 431945 or visit www.playhouseharlow.com

Thamesmead History
    Once dubbed the town of the twenty-first century Thamesmead is a vast housing estate, with some peripheral industry, situated on former marshland between Woolwich and Erith. The River Thames here makes its most northerly excursion within Greater London, so Thamesmead is on the same latitude as Westminster. Its name was the winning entry in a newspaper competition. After the land was vacated by the military the Greater London Council developed Thamesmead in fits and starts from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. The area was divided into sectors, of which Thamesmead South was the main housing zone, while Thamesmead East was initially designated for industry and commerce. Thamesmead Central offers the majority of the town's retail facilities - but these are woefully inadequate for a settlement of such proportions. Thamesmead North was the last of the municipally built zones, while Thamesmead West has recently seen private development on a major scale. The first buildings used pre-cast concrete but this was subsequently abandoned in favor of more humane materials. The topography is dominated by a series of lakes and canals that serve to drain surface water as well as providing good fishing and relieving the starkness of the built environment. After the abolition of the GLC the estate's ownership transferred to a trust company and the founders' wishful vision of a futuristic community has largely been abandoned in favor of traditional British suburban housebuilding. Large sums of money from municipal, national government and European Union sources will continue to be ploughed into
improvement and expansion but forecasts of Thamesmead's final population have halved from the original target of 100,000.

Clockwork Orange winds down
The Times UK | 1/29/07
A housing estate is finally to lose its association with the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. The last 230 homes on the Tavy Bridge estate in Thamesmead, southeast London, are being demolished for a regeneration project. The estate is infamous for being the backdrop to Stanley Kubrick's film and some locals think that the film's depiction of youth disorder tainted the area's reputation. Ian Clement, the leader of Bexley council, declared it a new fresh start for Thamesmead.

Flat scheme goes like clockwork
By Tommy Norton | Hertfordshire 12/5/06
    A Borehamwood tower block made famous by the 1970s cult film A Clockwork Orange has been overhauled thanks to a 5 million refurbishment. Canterbury House, in Stratfield Road, was part of the set for Stanley Kubrick's controversial masterpiece in 1971, and to mark the completion of the improvements, a mosaic celebrating the film has been restored to its former glory.
    Ridgehill Housing Association has spent the past 17 months fitting all 102 of the 1960s two-bedroom flats with new kitchens, bathrooms and central heating in order to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard. The outside has also been transformed with double-glazed windows, balconies and cladding. On Friday, a plaque was unveiled by Hertsmere MP James Clappison to commemorate the completion of the works and the restoration of the Clockwork Orange mosaic.
    The film's anti-hero Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell, had an apartment at the top of a block of flats in Canterbury House, near Elstree Studios, where the production was based. At the time of filming the owners were put up in a hotel. Some sequences from the film were also shot in Shenley and Radlett. Former builder Bob McClintock, 64, has lived at Canterbury House for the past eight years.
    He said: "I cannot believe the difference the work has made, it is absolutely marvelous and you wouldn't know it was the same place. At night the building looks so much better all lit up, and when you walk into the reception, you would think it was a high-class hotel."
    Ian Morrison, asset manager at Ridgehill, said: "The unveiling of the commemorative plaque next to the mosaic signals the completion of the first phase of Ridgehill's 12 million investment in the Stratfield Road estate. "Works are programmed to continue until 2010, by which time the whole estate will have benefited from considerable investment to bring the properties up to modern standard."

    The main campus, Uxbridge, was the film set for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Fortunately, it's no longer a vision of futuristic dystopia: the brutal architecture has been softened somewhat by landscaping and greenery. Osterley and Twickenham have a mixture of modern and historic buildings and Runnymede, out on the other side of the M25, has acres of parkland, ancient trees and handsome buildings.
    Thirty years ago, the (then) modern campus at Brunel was the backdrop for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. John Bates, currently television-unit technician at the university, was on campus when filming took place in the summer of 1971.
    "I remember that all round the building you could hear Malcolm McDowell screaming, shouting out his lines." The main location was lecture theatre E, which became the Ludovico institute, where McDowell's character is taken for brainwashing. "They were here for three weeks, with a couple of hundred people on site - carpenters, electricians, make-up. It all went very well until, while editing the film, Kubrick became unhappy with something and they had to come back and rebuild the whole set and reshoot some of the scenes. It was quite a mammoth task." Does he have any idea why the cinematic genius chose Brunel's concrete monoliths? "I suppose he wanted somewhere that was lifeless and devoid of any character."

Clockwork pub to be converted
By Tom Spender | 10/23/02
    The former Old Leather Bottle - which appeared in A Clockwork Orange - will be turned into flats. The Bottle and Dragon pub (formerly the Old Leather Bottle) in Stonegrove, Edgware, was the setting for the brief Duke of York scene in Kubrick's film. But it later fell on hard times, serving its last pint on October 8.
    Developer Pinecal plans to build 20 flats and a medical center on the site it is said to have paid 2 million for. Bob Hallett worked at the pub in 1971 and now runs the Cock and Dragon pub in Cockfosters. He said: "It's rather sad. It didn't take off as a pub-cum-Thai restaurant and it was hard to justify keeping it open for one or two regulars." According to Mr. Hallett, the pub was popular as a steakhouse in the 1970s but later became associated with drug dealing "the demise of many a pub". Some residents were dismayed to see Stonegrove's last pub close.

Thanks to Alexis for the call sheets, DPRs, Cat Lady's house, Nettlewood, underpass, satellite, Alex's Flat & Skybreak scans.
Thanks to Mitzi for Thamesmead 2005 scans and more. Thanks to Paul for Ascott Rd.
© 2004-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net