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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Pinner - 1926 - Osborne Personal Film
Evocative film capturing the suburb of Pinner succumbing to modernity, as we watch roads being constructed and the countryside retreating.
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Overview
This fine film shows John Betjeman’s Metroland in the process of its construction, as we watch a road and houses slowly appear in the formerly rural suburb of Pinner. This is the onset of suburbanisation, and the cameras show how the area’s rural nature – there are several shots from farms and fields – succumbs to inevitable suburbanisation, with cars and buses replace horses and carts on freshly tarmacked streets. A huge change, carefully chronicled.
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