The Gate Studios, Boreham Wood

When opened in 1928, having been built on the lines of an aircraft hanger, problems soon appeared.

Sound movie-making had arrived and the noise from passing trains of the nearby LMS Railway spoiled the film.

A lookout had to be posted on the roof of the building so the cameras could be stopped while trains passed by!

Only a few films were made at the studio, noteably "Odette" starring Anna Neagle in the leading role as the real-life heroine of the wartime SOE organisation who was captured and brutally tortured.

The studio spent much of its life as part of the Rank Xerox photocopying business and as a factory for the manufacture of world-renowned Harkness Cinema screens.