Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
Hangars, stages and sets.
An introduction to Leavesden, near Watford in Hertfordshire, where a wartime aerodrome became one of Britain’s film studios.
On this page
Read the site
Leavesden began as an aerodrome in 1940. Its hangars became film stages in 1994, and the studio has grown around them since.
A guide can give context without turning a place into a backdrop. Notice how working studio buildings sit beside the Studio Tour.
The soundstages
The Studio Tour fills Soundstages J and K, built for it and kept separate from the studio’s production facilities, with about 14,000 square metres in all.
Begin with a detail and ask who made it, how it was filmed and how it has changed. A photograph alone cannot tell you that.
Watford and the railway
Most visitors without a car arrive at Watford Junction, about 20 minutes from London Euston by direct train, and take the Studio Tour’s electric shuttle bus.
Look at the journey as part of the visit: from a mainline station to a studio on the edge of a Hertfordshire town.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the history of the studio and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
- Wikipedia: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter
- Warner Bros. Studio Tour London: Getting here
Links lead to the original publishers.
