Shot on Site: The Somerset House Film Tour

Somerset House is one of the most interesting buildings in London, with a long and rich history – in terms of the site itself, not just the existing building. It’s also been used as a film set on numerous occasions. I signed up to the Shot on Site tour to learn more about this aspect of the building’s history.

Our tour guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and I learned a great deal about the topic. Around 40 films have been captured here to a greater or lesser degree over the years, beginning with The Long Arm (1956) and The Day of the Jackal (1973), in which Somerset House effectively played itself, as the home of birth, marriage and death records that it then was.

Those films were unusual in that they used interior shots: this is rare as Somerset House, being designed as an office building, does not have particularly lavish interiors. For instance, the exterior stood in for the Devonshire residence in London in the film The Duchess (2008). In children’s movie Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), Flyboys (2006) – about a group of American pilots – and even Sleepy Hollow (1999), with the aid of some green screen, aspects of the Somerset House courtyard stood in for various locations, including a London street and a French hospital.

Somerset House has appeared in two Bond films, Tomorrow Never Dies and Goldeneye, standing in for a St Petersburg car park in the latter. It has “played” Buckingham Palace three times – in TV series Spooks, comedy The Worst Week of My Life and in children’s sequel Agent Cody Banks: Destination London (2004). The site has appeared in X-Men: First Class (2011) and in the 19th century-set romantic comedy Hysteria (2011) with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who apparently took several takes to cycle away wearing cumbersome Victorian skirts!

For me, the most fascinating part of the tour was the visit to the Lightwells and Deadhouse in the basement. The Lightwells, narrow passages running around and underneath the courtyard, are gloomy and atmospheric and acted as a prison in the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie. In the Deadhouse, so named because it is the last remaining part of the palace that once stood on the site and still contains graves of palace staff, we were informed that it stood in for a bunker below the Ministry of Defence in the World War II thriller Glorious 39.

Finally, we were shown some glimpses of forthcoming movies which used Somerset House for filming, including the soon-to-be-released Suffragette. I really enjoyed the tour and if it comes back next year – which it may well do as part of the Film4 Summer Screen season – it’s definitely worth getting a ticket.

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