Stanley Kubrick’s Britain

Stanley Kubrick was undoubtedly a child of the Bronx, but the great director – who died 25 years ago on 7 March 1999 – spent much of his creative life in Britain, in particular in the outer orbit of London. Moving here in 1961 to work on his Vladimir Nabokov adaptation Lolita (1962) with his then favoured collaborator Peter Sellers, the director stayed for the rest of his life, moving between houses close to Elstree Studios where he did much of his work.

Fragments of Britain are weaved throughout Kubrick’s films, sometimes used wholesale, sometimes appearing in the strangest of ways. The beyond-the-Stargate hotel room from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), for example, was based on a room the director stayed in at The Dorchester, while a rejected (and clear as opposed to black) prototype monolith from the film now sits in St Katherine’s Dock as an unusual celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 1977 Silver Jubilee. 

Even the airport seen in The Shining (1980) is none other than Stansted Airport – the original terminal to be precise. Clearly, nothing is what it seems in the director’s films. Kubrick’s locations were often illusions, with many of his films quietly haunted by Britain, even when their settings are far away.

Here are some of the UK’s most notable Kubrickian locations.

Kubrick’s adaptation of Nabokov’s controversial novel was his first project shot in the UK, despite being set in New Hampshire. Kubrick shot the vast majority of the film at Elstree Studios not far from where he moved in 1961. Even in the handful of non-studio locations, Kubrick resorted to trickery. The house where Humbert Humbert (James Mason) initially becomes the lodger of Charlotte (Shelley Winters) was in Gerrard’s Cross, while the final house that the adult Lolita (Sue Lyon) eventually lives in (seen in the images below), while pretending to be New York, is in fact Grover Road in Watford.

In what is undoubtedly his most London-centric film, Kubrick’s take on Anthony Burgess’s futuristic dystopia made the most of London’s new brutalist architecture. With locations including the underpasses in Wandsworth and the nightmarish buildings of Brunel University, Kubrick created a horrifying yet recognisable future. Most famous, however, was his use of brutalist Thamesmead.

Thamesmead is home to Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his family. It is also the location for his fight with his gang of Droogs. As the Droogs walk along, Alex begins his attack on them next to the area’s marina lake. Ironically, the lake was put there at the suggestion of architect Robert Rigg who believed the water to have a potentially calming effect upon social unrest in the area.

While the fight largely centres on the lake, one of the Droogs (Michael Tarn) is seen skulking away as Alex unleashes his vengeance on Dim (Warren Clarke) and Georgie (James Marcus), allowing for views of the nearby buildings.

These photos were taken on a visit in 2019, when the area was sadly closed off to the public by developers and work had started on the demolition of the estate. The buildings have since disappeared, slowly replaced by equally dystopian high-rises. Only the lake remains now to mark the location.

Kubrick’s classic historical drama, based on the William Makepeace Thakeray novel, probably takes in more stately homes across Europe than any other film. From Irish castles to German keeps, Kubrick used many lavish period properties to tell his detailed story of Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) and his rise from rogue to aristocrat.

Though many locations appear for only a few minutes at a time almost as large-scale, beautiful vignettes, several do stand out, in particular the use of Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. We see the location in the film twice, the first being when Lyndon is taking a walk with Lady Honoria (Marisa Berenson) through the gardens.

The property has a rich history, being the ancestral seat of Winston Churchill’s family and a gift to the Duke of Marlborough for his success in 1704’s Battle of Blenheim. The first set of shots look down into Capability Brown’s water terrace overlooking the River Glyme.

The other shot of Blenheim occurs later in the film at the birthday party of one of Lyndon’s children. The shot looks north across the vast lawns to the front of the house. Perhaps appropriately, the venue still holds tented events almost exactly where Kubrick’s characters held theirs.

Kubrick’s powerful Vietnam film may seem out of place in a British location article, but Full Metal Jacket is one of the director’s greatest illusions. In spite of being split between the US Marines’ boot camp and eventual action of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the film was shot entirely in Britain. With the Norfolk Broads standing in for many landscapes and Brassingbourn Barracks in Cambridgeshire playing the American military camp, Kubrick creates a more than convincing impression of both American and Vietnamese locations.

In fact, one of the film’s most effective locations was – surprisingly – in London. The film’s battle sequences were shot at filmmaker favourite Beckton Gasworks, a regular backdrop of post-war British film. Today, only one of the original buildings from the site remains though its architecture is recognisably the same as the buildings seen in the film. Everything else has been replaced by a rail depot, though palm trees used in the film remained there until only a few years ago.

In another of Kubrick’s recreations of New York, Eyes Wide Shut marked a perfect, eerie end to the director’s phenomenal career. Unlike in the case of Lolita, some real New York locations were used, but the director also shot many scenes around the south-east of England. For example, the main house of the film is Rothschild family home Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, and the country roads around it are shot near Bracknell. Even the toyshop seen in the film is actually Hamley’s on Regent Street in London. And in one of the film’s most effective and paranoid moments, Bill (Tom Cruise) thinks he is being followed along New York’s streets. In fact, the street from the following shot is not New York but Hatton Garden near Farringdon.

When Kubrick cuts to the man possibly stalking Bill, we see Worship Street not far from Moorgate rather than the opposite side of Hatton Garden.

As Kubrick was often filming at Elstree Studios, it made sense for the director to live close by, and from 1965 to 1979 he and his family lived in a 19th-century mansion called Abbots Mead in nearby Barnet Lane. Though he eventually moved to Childwickbury Manor in nearby St Alban’s, it’s at Abbots Mead that you can find his blue plaque today. I first came across it unexpectedly during a separate visit to a location at a hotel called The Manor in an adjacent road. In fact, it’s at this hotel, close to Kubrick’s long-term home, that Alex the Droog is seen jumping from the window to avoid listening to Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange.

As Kubrick worked on his film edits largely from home, Abbots Mead was also (like his other properties) a de facto studio and undoubtedly his base during what was his most important period of creativity. Because of this, it must surely rank as one of the most important buildings in British film history.

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