Lime Grove Studios was a film studio complex built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915 situated in a street named Lime Grove, in Shepherd's Bush, west London, north of Hammersmith and described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put up in this country solely for the production of films". From 1949 to 1991 the complex was used by the BBC.[1]
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In 1922, Isidore Ostrer along with his brothers Mark and Maurice, acquired control of Gaumont-British from its French parent. In 1932 a major redevelopment of Lime Grove Studios was completed, creating one of the best equipped studio complexes of that era. The first film produced at the remodeled studio was the Walter Forde thriller Rome Express, which became one of the first British sound films to garner critical and financial success in the United States (where it was distributed by Universal Pictures). The studios prospered under Gaumont-British, and in 1941 were bought by the Rank Organisation and became a home on many occasions to the Ealing comedies. The famous British film The Wicked Lady (1945) was also made at Lime Grove.
In 1949, the BBC bought Lime Grove Studios as a "temporary measure" – as they were to build Television Centre at nearby White City – and began converting them from film to television use, reopening them on 21 May 1950.[2]
Lime Grove would be home to many BBC TV shows over the next forty-two years, including: Nineteen Eighty-Four, Quatermass II, Steptoe and Son, Doctor Who, Nationwide, Top of the Pops and the 1950s soap opera The Grove Family took the name of its title family from the studios, where it was made. The last live programme was The Late Show on 14 June 1991 from studio D. A children's magazine style programme Studio E was broadcast live from the studio of the same name from 1955-ca.1958 hosted by Vera McKechnie.
In 1991, the BBC decided to consolidate its London television production at BBC Television Centre and close its other studios including Lime Grove. On 26 August 1991, a month after the studios were closed forever, the BBC transmitted a special day of programming called The Lime Grove Story featuring examples of the many programmes and films that had been made at Lime Grove in its 76 years as a place of film and television production.[3] Television Theatre close by, near Shepherd's Bush Green, closed the same year.
The studios themselves were put on the market and eventually were bought by a development company which demolished the studios in 1993 and redeveloped the area into a housing estate. The streets in the housing estate were named Gaumont Terrace and Gainsborough Court, in memory of the past owners of Lime Grove Studios.