WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS

WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS, EALING GREEN

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1389250
Date first listed:: 26-Jun-2001
List Entry Name:: WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS
Statutory Address:: WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS, EALING GREEN

User submitted image — Uploaded by Brian Mawdsley This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1389250
Date first listed:: 26-Jun-2001
List Entry Name:: WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS
Statutory Address 1:: WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS, EALING GREEN

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: WHITE HOUSE AT EALING STUDIOS, EALING GREEN

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Ealing (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 17675 80213

Details

TQ18SE EALING GREEN 962/2/10056 Ealing Green 26-JUN-01 (West side) White House, Ealing Studios

GV II

Former house, now offices. Early C19, much remodelled in c.1931 as the main offices for Ealing Film Studios by Robert Atkinson for Basil Dean and Sir Gerald du Maurier. Brick, rendered white. Two storeys with main rectangular block to front, and long wing to side. Symmetrical faÎade with central pediment and large projecting porch. Metal casement windows. Pedimented gables and bow window to rear. Interior retains 1930s metal staircase and some cornices.

Included for historic interest as the most prominent and well-known building on the Ealing Studios site, the centre of its office activity.

Ealing Film Studios are the most historic surviving film studios in England, both architecturally and for their associations with our film-making history. The first studios were erected here in 1908, Ealing being chosen for having the most smog-free environment close to London. In 1928 legislation demanding a `quota' of British films be shown in cinemas encouraged a revival and reorganisation of the film-making industry, and Basil Dean and Sir Gerald du Maurier in 1929 founded a company, Associated Talking Pictures with an American distributor, the Radio Keith Orpheum Corporation. The partnership of Atkinson and Anderson was brought in to rebuild the site with new studios between 1931 and 1934.

Ealing Studios' greatest importance, however, is for the films shown there. The site enjoyed a successful if unspectacular era under Dean, for it was here that most of Gracie Fields' and George Formby's most popular films were made. The most famous era, however, was that between 1938 and 1958, when Michael Balcon invested the films with a new social vision. His wartime films were notable for their good characterisation and plot, but it was in the post-war period that the sense of social mores truly came out, with `Passport to Pimlico' (1948), `Whisky Galore' (1948), `Kind Hearts and Coronets' (1949), `The Lavender Hill Mob' (1950), `The Titfield Thunderbolt' (1952) and `The Ladykillers' (1955). No other British studio has so strong a history or firm sense of its place as the maker of a distinctively English, indeed London, kind of film.

Sources Architects' Journal, 16 December 1931 The Builder, 26 February 1932 Ealing Building Control Records, E6119 Paul Spencer-Longhurst, Robert Atkinson, 1989

Kinematograph Weekly, 4 October 1951 Ealing Local History Library, Ealing Studios Scrapbook, various dates The British Journal of Photography, 30 January 1976, 12 March 1976, and 9 April 1976 Ealing Local History Library, The Story of Ealing Studios, nd Charles Barr, Ealing Studios, 1977 Rachael Low, The History of the British Film 1929-39, Film Making in 1930s Britain, 1985

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 487885
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Barr, C, Ealing Studios, (1977)
Low, R, The History of the British Film 1929-39, (1985)
Low, R, Film Making in 1930s Britain, (1985)
Spencer Longhurst, P, Robert Atkinson 1883-1952, (1989)
'Architects Journal' in 16 December, (1931)
'The Builder' in 26 February, (1932)
'The British Journal of Photography' in The British Journal of Photography: 9 April, (1976)
'The British Journal of Photography' in The British Journal of Photography: 30 January, (1976)
'Kinematograph Weekly' in 4 October, (1951)
'The British Journal of Photography' in The British Journal of Photography: 12 March, (1976)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.