On This Day, 1991: Lime Grove Studios remembered

On 26 August, 1991, the BBC marked the closure of the Lime Grove Studios with a series of programmes. The studio in Shepherd's Bush, London, had closed a month before after being used by the BBC for more than forty years. The studios were bought by the BBC as a 'temporary measure' until Television Centre was ready.

The special programming began with a Children's Compilation which included programmes such as Muffin, Bunter, Toytown and Bill and Ben.

The schedule also included The Wicked Lady, a "classic melodrama" starring Margaret Lockwood, the Doctor Who pilot or first episode An Unearthly Child, and a compilation of the most memorable films filmed in the studios.

The evening continued with reminiscences of Nationwide ("was Nationwide tea-time trivia, tabloid television or the BBC's first and last truly populist current affairs programme?") and episodes of soap opera The Grove Family (who were named after the studios), Dixon of Dock Green and This Is Your Life.

The day of memories finished with the airing of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, which was filmed in Lime Grove Studios in 1935, when the studios belonged to the Gaumont Film Company.

Update, 27/08/2015: We just wanted to include two very interesting comments left on our Facebook page. Paul Burton shared: "I still have those programmes on video! That year also saw the BBC move out of BBC Television Theatre (Shepherd's Bush Empire) and BBC Ealing (which is once more called Ealing Studios). Then in 1995, the BBC moved out of the Paris Studio, Lower Regent Street (it's now a swimming pool)."

Meanwhile, Aidan Lunn added some more information about the cameras on the photograph of Studio E below: "The cameras are Link 110s. Introduced in 1977, IIRC, and installed in Lime Grove in 1981, to replace the EMI 2001s that had been there since 1970."

Remember the Lime Grove Studios with this small collection of stills from the BBC Archive: