7. Wanstead Flats, via Ferndale Road, E11. The forest land around Wanstead Flats was Alfred Hitchcock’s boyhood playground and he was an enthusiastic visitor to the travelling circuses and fairgrounds which regularly visited the area. Circus imagery became firmly embedded in Hitchcock’s psyche and would feature prominently in films such as ‘Strangers on a Train’, ‘The Ring’ and ‘Saboteur’. More than a century later, fairgrounds still occasionally pitch up at the site.
3. The Academy Cinema, 362 Leytonstone High Road, E11. The elegant Academy Cinema was where the teenage Hitchcock spent many happy hours immersed in the world of silent film. Originally opened as a 650 seat venue, it proved so popular that it was expanded to cater for audiences in excess of 1000. The building was later absorbed into the Granada chain and remodelled as the Century Cinema in 1955. At the height of his Hollywood career, Hitchcock would fondly reminisce about his visits to the Academy. The building was demolished in the early 1980s and the site is now home to a housing development called Paramount House.
8. Leytonstone Tube Station, Church Lane, E11. At the beginning of the 21st century, Alfred Hitchcock finally received a worthwhile memorial in Leytonstone when a series of colourful mosaics were unveiled at the local underground station. The mosaics depict many of his famous film scenes as well as the Hitchcock grocery store and the original Green Man public house where his family were regular customers. The mosaics attract tourists from around the world who can often be found enthusiastically taking photographs in the station’s dimly lit tunnel.
4. Fire Station, 458 Leytonstone High Road, E11. This distinctive fire station opened during Hitchcock’s early teenage years to great local excitement. As Leytonstone was then suffering from wartime bombings, the fire station provided much reassurance to nearby residents and quickly became a local landmark. Despite being considered for listing by English Heritage, Waltham Forest Council has scheduled the building for demolition later this year.
The opening of the original Leytonstone station in the 19th century led to the area’s transformation from a sleepy rural settlement to a busy London suburb. Hitchcock’s childhood obsession with railways would later be expressed in films including ‘The 39 Steps’, ‘The Lady Vanishes’, ‘Number 17’ and ‘North by Northwest’. A 500seat cinema called the Gaiety was located a few steps away from the station during Hitchcock’s teenage years.
5. Premier Electric Theatre, 615 Leytonstone High Road, E11. The Premier Electric Theatre was part of a small chain of cinemas operated by London Picture Theatres Ltd. and another regular haunt of the young Alfred Hitchcock. The Premier Electric chain employed their own in-house orchestras to perform during silent film screenings. This Leytonstone cinema opened in 1910 and had a seating capacity for around 700. In the 1960s it was renamed the State Cinema and became a venue for films of an ‘adult’ nature. This is the only Leytonstone cinema building which still exists. It is now a banqueting venue called Ivory Mansion. No photos are known to exist of the original Premier Electric Theatre. 6. Police Station, 470 Leytonstone High Road, E11. As a very young boy, Alfred Hitchcock was found guilty of misbehaviour at home and his family elected to punish him in a somewhat unorthodox manner. His father wrote a letter which he ordered his son to deliver to the nearby police station. The officer on duty read the note and promptly locked the bemused boy in a cell where he was left to contemplate his fate. After five long minutes the policeman returned and freed the young Hitchcock, informing him “that’s what we do to naughty boys”.
Photographs courtesy of Vestry House Museum and Stan Osbourne.
10. Worldwide Film Company, 696 Leytonstone High Road, E11. During Hitchcock’s teenage years this site was home to the Worldwide Film Company, a store which supplied cameras and other equipment to the numerous professional filmmakers working around the area at the time. No photographs are known to exist of the original store. 11. Whipps Cross Road, E11. Whipps Cross Hospital was still under construction when Alfred Hitchcock was born but the adjacent forest land was regularly used as a film location during his childhood. The ambitious 1913 silent film ‘The Battle of Waterloo’ was shot locally with the forest standing in for the battlefields of Belgium. A number of early film companies were located nearby including the Precision Film Company, Fitz Films, Broadwest Films, the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company and Tiger Films. These studios were responsible for the production of around 400 early British films before the gruelling years of war prompted their gradual decline. Screenwriter Eliot Stannard worked on numerous scripts for these local film studios and would become Hitchcock’s long-term collaborator during the following decade. The Sir Alfred Hitchcock Hotel can now be found at 147 Whipps Cross Road. The new documentary ‘Alfred Hitchcock in East London’ will premiere as part of the Mayor’s Story of London Festival. It will be screened on Saturday 27 June at the Heathcote Music Venue, 344 Grove Green Road, E11. For further details visit www.london.gov.uk/storyoflondon
Stan Osbourne
The incident would ignite a lifelong terror of police officers and any kind of enforced confinement. Hitchcock often described the event as the pivotal experience of his life and referred back to it many times in his films. Leytonstone Police Station has recently closed and now stands empty.
9. The Rink Picture Palace, 829 Leytonstone High Road, E11. Located next to St. John’s Church, the Rink Picture Palace opened in the summer of 1911 with a capacity of 1000. In the 1920s the cinema was renamed the Rialto and extensively refurbished by the legendary Russian theatre designer Theodore Komisarjevsky (who would create Walthamstow’s Granada-EMD Cinema shortly afterwards). In later years the cinema was further adapted to cater for nearly 2000 people as cinemagoing continued to thrive. The venue was used as a film location for the 1963 movie musical ‘What A Crazy World’ which starred Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Freddie and The Dreamers and Harry H. Corbett. The cinema has since been demolished and the site is now home to a Matalan store.
Oppositive page, right to left, top row Alfred Hitchcock blue plaque. Mayville School. Academy Cinema Harrow Green. Middle row Leytonstone Fire Station. Leytonstone Premier Electric Cinema. Leytonstone Police Station. Bottom row, Wanstead Flats. Rink Picture Palace. Rialto Cinema Leytonstone. ISSUE 9 2009 THE STAR 13