The Nick

Published on 19 June 2004 in London, Television, TV Programmes, Ealing, London, Merton, television

In Ealing Common is a road – it cuts through the common, although is a dead end. Quite often in the morning, there will be a series of film crews and trucks wandering around.

Ealing has been used as the location for all manner of programmes including Dead Ringers and Monty Python for the BBC, William and Mary and Hardware for ITV and Smack the Pony for Channel 4. Indeed one day I remember walking past the trailers on my way to the tube station and seeing them marked ‘Doon’, ‘Sally’ and ‘Fiona’. It took me a while to twig.

And best of all, Ealing was the proud home for almost every MacDonalds advert for quite a few years. They especially liked using the branch at West Ealing for some reason.

But all of that pales into insignificance as to what we found sitting about 2 minutes away from our new home in South London.

Sunhill Police Station.

Although I’ve not watched The Bill for over five years, I’m pretty sure they have another location for shots when someone is stood outside the place or storms out and crosses the road, for the actual place the studios are positioned are in a small industrial estate, but the outside of the studios is clearly used for close up shots of the front door – it’s even got a Metropolitan Police Station sign that has been badly covered up and you can peer in and see what must be the canteen set.

And if that wasn’t good enough, next door is the set for St. Hugh’s Hospital…