From EastEnders to The Muppet Show: The Elstree Centre programmes

With the news the BBC is selling off the BBC Elstree Centre to help boost their finances, let’s take a look back to the site which opened as a film studio in 1914 and became home to television production in 1961.

It’s been greatly underused in recent years but there was a time BBC/ATV Elstree was home to some of the biggest shows on TV. There are far too many productions from the Elstree Centre to list, however, we can take a look at some of the more memorable series that have been part of over six decades of television from the site in Borehamwood:

EastEnders (BBC)

Launched in 1985, from studio C of Elstree (the first to be used by the BBC after Central left), the series was created by Tony Holland and Julia Smith. Set in the fictional town of Walford, East London, the saga was at its peak in the late 1980s as viewers were gripped with the love-hate relationship between Den and Angie Watts. (Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson.) EastEnders was the first BBC serial to be given a permanent backlot set. Albert Square, the iconic Queen Victoria Pub and its market street stand where once the ATV Honey Lane streets previously stood…