Stella and William's House - Smiley's People Location

In Smiley’s People almost all of ‘his’ people have some connection to the circus but William (formerly Villem) and Stella Craven are very much on the periphery of Smiley’s world of spies and secrets. They are just ordinary people trying to make an honest living. And yet without William’s contribution to the plot, Vladimir would have received no negatives, Smiley would be enjoying retirement and Karla would still be pulling the strings in Moscow Centre. (We also mustn’t forget poor Tatiana who would still be stuck in Bern with those awful nuns!)

When Vladimir demands that William collect a package for him in Hamburg he tells him, ‘in the making of history god uses some very strange and inappropriate people - you are going to be one of them.’ Stella would prefer that William not have any contact with Vladimir but William's father was martyred in furtherance of the freedoms he enjoys in the West and the man who became his father figure is asking for a favour. As he tells ‘Max’, ‘for the others I give nothing. For Vladdy, everything. I love this man.’

With these words William confirms he is truly one of Smiley’s people. As John Cobb noted of the novel, ‘ultimately Smiley's people are all those who choose humanity over ideology and individuals over institutions.’ 

I'll let Chris take up the story of where Smiley's encounter with William and Stella was filmed...

The scene begins at 17:45 in episode two as Smiley drives his Rover P6 2200 SC southbound, out of the Blackwall Tunnel on what was then the A102(M). It's long lost its 'M' suffix, the road being incompatible with any pretense at motorway standards. From its high vantage point, Kenneth MacMillan's tracking shot follows the Rover past the two gasometers of the East Greenwich Gas Works

They're both gone now, the last in 2020. Here it is behind the footbridge in 2010.

As the shot reaches the end of its pan there's the road gantry, with the sign in blue to emphasise its motorway status.

This time, rather than try to replicate that view, we're turning it around. From the A102 westwards, past Morden Wharf's offices, with the gantry to the right and looking back towards where director Langton positioned the camera. I've driven along that road countless times, walked over that footbridge too but I can't make out where the camera was located. It might have been that it was atop one of the BBC's Outside Broadcast Unit cranes.

Then the action moves to Woolwich, standing in for Charlton just a mile or so further upstream. (Both these areas, together with the A102 and Blackwall Tunnel, are highlighted on the map below.)

As highlighted on the map above the sequence starts on Church Hill and you can see 'then and now' comparison shots below... 

The P6 then ascends Greenlaw Street...

...and Smiley turns immediately right onto Sunbury Street and parks.

As you can see from the comparison shots above, Sunbury Street has hardly changed in 40 years, the flats in the distance on Kingsman Street and on the right (and enlarged below) the correct street name which Austen Sprigg's art department covered with one of le Carre's invention. 

The postcode SE7 on the prop sign below is for Charlton, whereas Woolwich (see the map below) would be SE18. You can see that the balcony on the left of the sign looks exactly as it did when the series was filmed.

At 18:44, Smiley walks across Greenlaw Street and we see St. Mary Magdalene Church. There's been some question concerning it's identity, not least from Richard Hutt, author of John le Carre's London.

At 18:54, as Ferguson arrives on his motorcycle, we look north across the Thames (below). 

That view is obscured now by Jigger Mast House and Mizzen Mast House off Mast Quay, but even if it wasn't you'd be unlikely to see a ship unloading these days. (The ships shown above are in the King George V dock.) As the map below illustrates, you'd be more likely to see an aeroplane as the London City Airport has been built in the last 40 years and marine traffic has migrated to deeper anchorages downstream.

And up to this point, the identity of the location used for William and Stella Craven's house has remained unconfirmed. You might assume it would be in the same general area but the trouble is that opposite Sunbury Street, Greenlaw Street looks like this, St Mary's Gardens to the left and the care home (now closed) to the right:

In my locations guide I went as far as to speculate whether the Corporation might have chosen to film in Kent, possibly Maidstone because they borrowed William's lorry from Lenham Storage.

I even visited Woolwich library, where their best assistant plowed through the electoral register for me calling out the name of any of their roads whose house numbers surpassed 144. Playing my hunch, I surveyed every one of them online but none matched. It is a rather economic property, could it have been demolished.

Now, the truth can be revealed. Except that it can't. The address used for filming, both for externals and internals, between the 9th-11th September 1981 remains a private address. I have been there, the following comparisons will prove the case but other than to confirm that it is in West London and that it really is number 144, the town and road name must remain in a two key archive on the fifth floor. 

Acting on a piece of information supplied by Control, only a few letters from the name of a town; like an Enigma decrypt, it was the work of hours spent poring over 'Google maps aerial view' looking for the right combination of road layout, house type and chimney arrangement.

At 19:10, we look south, past William's lorry and note the arched porch. Forty years later it's still there.

So that's four houses,number 129 with the porch on the left and 131, 133 and 135 to the right. Bear in mind that they are opposite the house Simon Langton's squad descended on. We're going to refer to them again.

Smiley walks across the road and we see Stella's house for the first time. That's it on the extreme left of shot and then we get the close up with Smiley's hand on the gate and the number on the porch. Number 144.

Unfortunately, the porch is now just an open one but so much else matches. There's little architectural detail to the property but the window layout and the brick columns on its extremities single it out. And of course there's the telephone pole and its wires. The fence and gate are gone, you can park a car now. In fact, I remember Don Turco, my old Controller, remarking in our youtube comments about the BBC parking a lorry outside a private house. I didn't appreciate back then in the early days of the first pandemic lockdown how right he was. We've remarked before how the lens distorts the image; it wasn't until I visited the site that I realised how narrow the street really is.

To the left of the property is an access road which we don't see in the episode. Unsuccessful at the front door, Smiley tries around the back. Behind him are numbers 133 and 135.

Smiley sees the little yellow duck on wheels before interviewing Stella played by Maureen Lipman and William, played by Paul Hertzberg. Incidentally, Guinness noted in his diary that he very much enjoyed working with Maureen Lipman. He described her as ‘a nice, direct, funny woman’.

We know that the interiors were really filmed at the house but we don't know the circumstances, whether it was vacant at the time or whether the BBC were accommodated. We can prove it too from looking at the episode. Firstly we can match the route that Smiley takes within the house to knock on William's bedroom door after William's brief appearance at the window viewed from the street. Secondly we can match up the houses opposite with this capture of William in the living room.

Behind him, on the other side of the road is numbers 131, 133 and 135, the differing colours of the properties being the same today. There's also the destinctive layout of the window frames. Since 1981 nearly every window in the country has been replaced with double glazed uPVC units but invariably the appearance of the windows were replicated. It was probably at that point that the enclosed porch was removed.

But let's not forget poor Ferguson. On a warm September afternoon in his leathers and crash helmet pacing up and down back in Woolwich at 28:35. And no 'Defeated Frenchman' where he could pop in for a pint..

I had to go back to 2018 to catch an autumnal streetview, where the branches afforded an unobstructed view. Not much to go on, the street furniture, including the distinctive cranked lamposts have gone and the building renewed.

Stella ventures into the back garden. Those runner beans suggest the property must've been occupied and we see the hill on the horizon. Shooters, Northwood, Stanmore, Horsenden? No none of those.

As their uninvited guest departs, Stella enjoys herself discouraging him from returning and from inside number 144 we see number 133 opposite.

And at that point, Guinness and the entire crew, through the magic of television, get transported back to Woolwich where the Rover turns left out of Sunbury Street on to Greenlaw Street closely followed by Ferguson. The vantage point being the entrance to St Mary's.

Behind the Rover is Sunbury Lodge Care Home, the fences shown on the most recent Google map (right) indicating its imminent demise. This article records what happened and here's the new building (below), nearly finished in 2021.

This article has been especially significant for the location hunter because it would not have been possible to complete it with reference to any online sources. Only Control's original research allowed us to locate Stella and William's house exactly. 

Dans notre prochain article original, après beaucoup trop de temps, nous retournons en France. Le célèbre cascadeur Remy Julienne et l'équipe de la BBC de Simon Langton étaient sur place pour filmer alors que la pauvre Madame Ostrakova était brutalement écrasée sur ordre de The Sandman. Nous allons revoir les événements de Smiley's People - Paris Locations (Part 6) et cette fois, vous n'allez pas croire ce que nous avons pour vous.