Goodbye BBC Television Centre Page 4

I think it used to be called Bush House and was the BBC main Admin building (still is I expect). The new extensions make it massively bigger than it used to be.

You can see that front edifice from Oxford Street.

Quote: billwill @ March 19 2013, 11:03 PM GMT

I think it used to be called Bush House and was the BBC main Admin building (still is I expect). The new extensions make it massively bigger than it used to be.

You can see that front edifice from Oxford Street.

It's always been called Broadcasting House - although the new extension wings are referred to as New Broadcasting House, or NBH, which has in some circles become interchangeable for the name of the building as a whole. But you're correct that Broadcasting House is and almost always has been the registered address and essential home of the BBC - although offices are retained at Ally Pally, but I'm not quite sure what they do. (Anyone?)

Bush House is an office development at Aldwych on Strand, which the BBC moved the World Service to in 1941 and gradually took over more and more wings of. They left in 2012. The BBC never owned any part of Bush House, the oldest wing of which predates BH by some 7 or 8 years, but leased the space they needed.

There are also offices at various other locations across London. I believe Comedy is now based in Grafton House, on the corner of Cleveland Street and Euston Road. And if anyone knows the significance of that name without Googling, they can have a gold star.

eek]

The Good Life, Are You Being Served?, etc. I will miss this place. Is there anywhere I can take a last look at the place and go round it? :'(

They used to run tours around the building George, but the last one took place last month I'm afraid.

The good news, in case you missed it, is that the main building is not being demolished, and some of the studios are in fact only being refurbished so will open again from next year.

I wouldn't be surprised if tours of the refurbished TVC resume, but not for another 5 or 6 years perhaps, whilst the rest of the site undergoes its redevelopment. And, of course, part of it will become a hotel - so you could even find yourself sleeping in the very room they first commissioned The Morecambe & Wise Show.

Of course, Googling something like 'Television Centre closed photos' will throw up numerous websites with pictures of the inside of the building.

Quote: Aaron @ March 20 2013, 12:04 AM GMT

you could even find yourself sleeping in the very room they first commissioned The Morecambe & Wise Show.

Or even in the same bed !

Quote: Aaron @ March 19 2013, 11:27 PM GMT

I believe Comedy is now based in Grafton House, on the corner of Cleveland Street and Euston Road. And if anyone knows the significance of that name without Googling, they can have a gold star.

Is it cos it's near Grafton Road?

*Awaits gold star/internet slap from Aaron*

Internet slap.

Quote: Aaron @ March 20 2013, 12:49 AM GMT

Internet slap.

Ow! Teary

It is really near Grafton Road though Whistling nnocently

Quote: keewik @ March 19 2013, 10:20 PM GMT

Call me an alien, but if you'd shown me a picture of this place before I read this thread, I wouldn't have had a clue where it was. Maybe it's only familiar to people further south.

Bloody Southerners ME, ME, ME Angry

They'd be better off keeping the non used studios as a museum of TV with exhibits wouldn't they? Or put them in the main building. Who's going to want to move into a huge out of date office block they can't alter?

Quote: Aaron @ March 20 2013, 12:04 AM GMT

They used to run tours around the building George, but the last one took place last month I'm afraid.

The good news, in case you missed it, is that the main building is not being demolished, and some of the studios are in fact only being refurbished so will open again from next year.

I wouldn't be surprised if tours of the refurbished TVC resume, but not for another 5 or 6 years perhaps, whilst the rest of the site undergoes its redevelopment. And, of course, part of it will become a hotel - so you could even find yourself sleeping in the very room they first commissioned The Morecambe & Wise Show.

Of course, Googling something like 'Television Centre closed photos' will throw up numerous websites with pictures of the inside of the building.

great to know they not knocking it down Cool they keeping it there you also could be sleeping in were they started steptoe you never know though

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ March 20 2013, 10:04 AM GMT

They'd be better off keeping the non used studios as a museum of TV with exhibits wouldn't they? Or put them in the main building. Who's going to want to move into a huge out of date office block they can't alter?

They can alter it, and indeed will be.

A TV museum is a great idea, but that presupposes the fabric of the building is stable enough that it doesn't need demolition anyway, which I understand is the case in a number of areas.

There's a really good museum in Bradford ... http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/ I've been there a couple of times.

I always wonder who decided Bradford was a good place for a museum about the media, and what they were smoking at the time.

I didn't see much of actual Bradford but the museum was good. Round about almost seemed a bit like a ghost town, but maybe I didn't find the shops. Rolling eyes