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Keckwick and the Land of Sea and Fret

  Keckwick and the Land of Sea and Fret (An extract from 'Sound Haunting: The Making of Central Films' The Woman in Black') R obert Muller writes in his introduction to The Television Dramatist (1973) that “The great days of the television play are past.  But then Great Days always lie in the past. The golden age is never present.” (1) Muller goes on to contextualise this statement, which is relevant to its period, further discussing the issue that one off plays are never repeated and destined then (in perhaps one of the earliest mentions of such practice) to be wiped in order to allow recordings of future productions to take place.  His purpose of bringing together a collection of television plays is to produce something that stands as testament to the play that may never be seen again. Fast-forward some fifty years later, and we now live in an age where we can access surviving television by digital and physical formats that wouldn’t have been dreamt of back in the...
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Boating Pond Location - FOUND!!!







 One of the most elusive filming locations for The Woman in Black was that which closed the film as the Kidd family's holiday comes to a terrifying, shocking, and tragic end.  Having tracked down all the filming locations (which I will list in the finished book), the one that kept getting away was the boating pond.  Discussions with the production designer led to thoughts that it may have been Hampstead Heath although he was unable to confirm with any certainty.  

Hampstead Heath has been remodelled and regenerated many times so after much research, which failed to turn up anything concrete, I resigned to the idea that if it was here then the boating pond may have long gone and evidence of filming there would have to be relegated to a 'maybe' or 'thought to be filmed here'.

Pauline Moran contacted me earlier this year having listened to The Woman in Black episode of Bergcast ( a podcast dedicated to the life and work of Nigel Kneale) which I was invited on to speak about the film.  Commenting about how I was still convinced it was Hampstead Heath whereas she was convinced it was not but could not remember where beyond a memory of being driven through black, ornate iron gates to film the final scenes where the woman appears, standing on water, watching as fate eventually catches up with Arthur Kidd and his young family.

Spurred on by this, I went back to Google Earth/Street View and resumed a lengthy elimination of each park in London that appears to feature a lake or pond.  I had done this over the course of many years for nearly all the locations but I had given up all hope for this one...  until I came across a park in North London that I had somehow missed until now.  

And it looked very similar.  Google Images appeared to confirm this further.  I had to see for myself.

In April 2022, I visited Grovelands Park in the Enfield district of London, on a Sunday (filming for final scenes of The Woman in Black also took place on a Sunday in February, 1989) and as I walked toward the boating lake, I matched up screenshots and found identical treelines, walkways and fencing.  The park was gated in black, ornate iron just as Pauline Moran had described.  The last location had been found.  



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