Like all the properties that the Worldwide Church of God originally owned, the Bricket Wood campus is being turned into a housing and wildlife estate. While that work is still in progress the property is being used for filming, just like the Pasadena campus is.
A new movie is being filmed in Bricket Wood called "Plastic." Part of it was filmed on the old Ambassador Campus. I also found it interesting in the news article that "A Clockwork Orange" was filmed in the local woods. I wonder if it was in the Ambassador woodlands.....too funny.
The spotlight shone brightly on Bricket Wood recently as production got underway on a feature film starring Downton Abbey’s Ed Speleers and Game of Thrones’ Alfie Allen.Plastic, which has been described as a cross between Catch Me if You Can and The Italian Job, wrapped filming last month. Based on various true stories, the picture follows a gang of friends who manage to infiltrate one of the biggest credit card companies in the world and pull off “one of the biggest and most audacious diamond heists ever committed in British history”.
Producing the movie took its team and actors all over the world, with filming hotspots including Miami, Brunei and Manchester. But it was Bricket Wood which became the backbone of making the film and offered an ample canvas for a whole host of integral scenes for the fraud-based film.
Film crews set up camp in Hanstead Park – the site of the old HSBC training centre – which proved a fruitful location for production, with woods, an office block and a university-style building readily available. This is not the first time Bricket Wood has been on the silver screen; a scene in A Clockwork Orange is said to have been filmed in woodland near the village.
It is interesting that most of the movies being filmed on both campuses involve criminal activity in their film subjects. I don't know much about life at Bricket Wood, but there was certainly enough criminal activity in Pasadena over the decades that would put these films to shame. What a legacy we have left behind!
For more information on the redevelopment of the Bricket Wood Campus and it's future check this site out: Bricket Wood Portfolio.