How south London has changed since 1980 cult classic Babylon

Babylon is a British cult classic that was shot in Deptford and on the streets of Brixton, where riots and unrest gripped the area just one year after filming. Directed by Franco Rosso, and co-penned by Martin Stellman, the writer of Quadrophenia (1979), it follows a group of young black men known as the Ital Lion crew. The crew are completely immersed in soundsystem culture, their daily lives marked by reggae records, racist bosses and supersize spliffs. One minute they’re enjoying the booming bass of their beloved dub records, the next they’re taking a brutal beating from police.

You could pin the film’s cult status to its irresistibly danceable dub soundtrack (not least ‘Warrior Charge’, written for the movie by British reggae act Aswad), or its timely tale of social unrest under Thatcher, or the way in which it captures the capital’s little-documented soundsystem scene. Part of its cult status, though, is surely attributable to its striking use of London locations.

Sections of the film, which will receive its first ever US release from 7 March at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), were shot in Piccadilly, Soho and west London, but its heart lies in Deptford, Brixton and New Cross, where its characters populate pool halls and smoke-shrouded dancehalls that play “hard rhythm”. Babylon is a beautiful time capsule that shines a light on the vibrant underground culture that existed in early 80s south London. Here’s how the original locations have changed since Rosso filmed there.

The camera pans down with the opening credits. We see one of the Ital Lion crew, Beefy (Trevor Laird), loading speakers into a van, his mates speeding off as he gives chase. This is the sublet garage where the crew store their sound equipment. The railway viaduct, still in use today, is right by Deptford station (just to the left). Most of the arches, including where Blue (Brinsley Forde) and his mates’ sound system was stashed, are now bricked up and sit on a business estate. On the other side of their garage you’ll find the Deptford Accident Repair Centre, and to the south The Old Police Station, an Edwardian station that’s now an arts centre, which should give you an idea of how the face of Deptford has changed.

Just south of there, Beefy continues to chase the van down Payne Street, alongside the Maple House flats. On the right, there are some distinctive shabby storage shacks. Astoundingly, they still exist 40 years later, only more rusty and shrouded in buddleias. The bright red doors on the flats, meanwhile, have been painted a drab brown, and the tree on the corner has since shot up. The biggest change here, though, is dead ahead. Not the old VW van, which obviously you don’t see many of now, but a new high-rise that’s currently under construction to accommodate the demand for new housing. Of the luxury kind, of course.

“We gonna rock down to…” The best-known south London location is on Atlantic Road, practically underneath Brixton Station, right next to Electric Avenue of Eddy Grant fame. In the film, the friends’ blue van whizzes past red phone boxes, an old Mercedes, and a shop called K Shoes. Whereas now there’s an Argos, a Marks & Spencer, and just through the market a Franco Manca where there’s an almost permanent queue for a table. Welcome to 21st-century Brixton, gentrified and teeming with chain stores.

One location that was strikingly different back then is the street corner where Errol (David N. Haynes) tries to sell a TV and a video camera from the van. Burning rubble, crumbling houses with no windows – it half looks like a war zone. The location was right in front of the Bramcote Arms, which you see in the following scene, on Barkworth Road. Google shows the same spot now with new residential housing and a clean, fenced-off park where the burning rubble has long gone. The pub, just out of shot, closed in 2012 and remains boarded up. Another lost pub, more new homes – you win some, you lose some.

Another closed down pub is The Mechanic’s Arms, which Blue walks by in the early hours before he’s harassed and beaten by police. It’s on Deptford High Street, right opposite Deptford Station. The pub, which opened in 1851, closed three years after the film was made. Today you’ll find Tomi’s Kitchen in its place, a fun-looking Euro-Afro fusion food joint with yellow windows. Where the Smarties poster was pasted under the railway in the film, you’ll now find posters for the latest Field Day festival. Yet another sign, perhaps, of the influx of hipsters and hedge-funders to Deptford.

In the scene where Beefy and Spark (Brian Bovell) paste posters for their grand soundsystem battle, they stop at the Astoria cinema on Old Kent Road. The cinema, which was already boarded up during production, was demolished in 1984, having stood here as a single-screen cinema since 1930. Significantly less beautiful now – architecturally speaking – it’s a “b&m bargains” retail unit where you’ll find “Big Brands Big Savings”.

Towards the end of the film, Blue returns to the garage where the sound equipment is stored, only to discover someone’s broken in and nicked it. The shot above gives you a glimpse of Deptford Station, from where Blue walks. Lawler Motors, in the background, has since gone out of business, and most of the units on the right have been painted a kind of Swedish blue and yellow, and fenced off as part of the new business estate. Not a sound system in sight.

The Kingswood Halls in Blackheath appears towards the end of the film, when Dreadhead drives the group after losing all their equipment. You can briefly glimpse the Dacre Arms, opposite the church, where pints are still being poured today, presumably to local churchgoers. The Halls, you might be interested to know, host a wide range of regular groups, including morris dancers, playgroups, badminton and judo. No mention of reggae aficionados or soundsystem battles.