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- Jul 30, 2012
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It's been a pretty slow year for me this year, apart from my mad two and a bit week dash to America there hasn't been a huge deal going on here for me which is disappointing but that's just what happens sometimes I guess. So when I saw this place pop up a couple of weeks back and it's imminent demise I knew I should make an effort. So on a scorchio day as part of Landie Man's slightly delayed birthday celebrations we ventured just beyond the M25 and went for it, without knowing anything about access, possible security or much else. Driving past we were immediately disheartened to see a multitude of large skips outside, and the ground floor windows along one stretch of the frontage completely removed, as well as glimpsing the sight of heavy demolition equipment out back. We also saw at least one person and a car on site, at the far end, whether or not there is some small business operating out of a building on site I don't know but it put me on edge a little.
As far as history goes, this place is steeped in it. Constructed in 1936, it was one of only five buildings in the UK designed by the founder of the Bauhaus movement Walter Gropius for film producer Alexander Korda. The film processing laboratory - formerly Rank before being taken over by Deluxe - is the last surviving building from the original Denham Film Studio complex, it's one of the only surviving examples of industrial architecture from the Modern Movement of the 1930s and was Grade II listed in 1985. During it's heyday it was the most expansive and advanced film processing facility outside of Hollywood processing more than 500 million feet of film a year which was distributed to cinemas all over the world. Films processed and edited on site included Brief Encounter, The Great Escape, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Tomorrow Never Dies, ET, Superman 1,2 & 3, GoldenEye, Eyes Wide Shut, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. After Avatar was released in 2009 the film industry shifted hugely towards digital rather than film, and the resurgence of modern-day 3D didn't help at all. In 2014, Deluxe shut down with the loss of around 70 jobs, at it's peak there had been over 1200 people working in the facility.
After a walk around and a quick scramble to scope out the access and deciding it was very doable we scampered back to the car to grab our gear and headed inside. We caught it just in time, large areas of the listed building are completely stripped bare ready for conversion, but it's a massive place and there is still a lot to see that hasn't been touched by the contractors yet. If you want to see it though you had better be quick, as things look to be moving at pace.
Thanks for looking, more on my Flickr 
