London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Ashlee Family Films: Changing Scene, Barbican (1961)
Terrific footage from 1961 of the demolition and reconstruction of the City around the Barbican.
From the collection of:
Overview
This features wonderful film of the demolition of Cripplegate, an area almost entirely razed by German bombs, and the beginning of the construction of the Barbican estate. Includes some lovely footage of the old streets and buildings before they are knocked down, and numerous scenes of building work – hard hats rarely in evidence – with the site looking something like a film set. Part of the Ashlee Family Films collection.
Cripplegate was devastated in the Blitz – the film shows a plaque on Fore Street marking the location of the first bomb to fall on the City in the Second World War – and after years as a festering bombsite was eventually demolished and replaced by the Barbican. Includes footage of architect plans and a rather wobbly model of the Barbican estate. Bexley Local Studies and Archives
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