Secrets of the Witchcraft Safe House - Tinker Tailor Location

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One of the aims of this website is to provide a glimpse behind the camera at the making of these extraordinary series. In this article we can take you back to a freezing January night in Islington in 1979, through the eyes of our BBC insider. On top of this, we have meticulously constructed a map of all the filming locations in the area and uncovered a wealth of never before published information about the shoot in Noel Road.

With Smiley about to unmask the mole, we reveal the secrets of the Witchcraft safe house. Join us…

In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the identity of the mole is revealed within the first ten minutes of episode seven. We spend almost all of those ten minutes in and around the Witchcraft safe house at 5 Lock Gardens.

Lock Gardens doesn't actually exist but the location le Carré had in mind when writing the novel is St. Mark's Crescent near Camden Lock. The BBC picked a location with similar features - Noel Road, Islington. The recent image below shows the back of the properties in Noel Road and the canal behind them.

The exact location of the house has always been a bit tricky to pin down and we will see why as we explore the surrounding area in detail.

Noel Road is certainly worth a visit as there is plenty to see. Let's start with a notorious address - 25 Noel Road is where the playwright Joe Orton lived and was murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, on the 9th August 1967. 

Orton and Halliwell's story was told in Stephen Frears' film 'Prick Up Your Ears'. Noel Road doesn't actually appear on screen as the filmmakers chose nearby St. Peter's Street for the location of the flat.

Orton's flat isn't in the part of Noel Road we are going to focus on though. Here is the opening shot of episode seven...

...and we helpfully see a better view of the road when Smiley puts out the milk bottles.

This photo below is taken from a similar location...

This is match for the general location, remembering that in the series the use of a long focal length lens makes things in the background seem closer to the camera than they actually are. But which house - as you can see below they all look quite similar?

In an earlier article, I was able to narrow it down to two properties. I felt only a visit would separate them. 

In the end, the spikes on railings and tiles on the steps clinched it! Take another look at this screen cap below and notice the number of level spikes on the railing of the safe house - it's six. And the house where the camera is positioned has seven. 

Houses further down near the junction with Danbury Street have wider front steps and up to eleven spikes. There are only two houses in the street with six spikes along the top step.

When I visited the location, the property below had recently replaced it's tiles on the steps but an older street view shows us this...

Notice the way the tiles are cut on the left hand side and compare that with the screen capture below...

It looks exactly like what we see on screen. For me, these two pieces of evidence confirm that the exterior scenes were filmed outside the front of the third house to the right of the school.

Let’s consider the rest of the location - here is where it gets interesting!

This satellite view shows the back of the house described above...

Unfortunately, the back of the house does not look like the back of the property we see on screen...

I did wonder if the extension might not have been there when filming took place in 1979. However, this establishing shot in the series proves that it was.

Whereas, the back of one house in Noel Road is a match for what we see on screen - the house next-door!

So let's think about where Peter Guillam was waiting for Smiley's signal. Here we can see him taking up position by the lock gate nearest to us...

You can see his position below relative to the window Smiley signals from...

There was a clear line of sight which made the signal and response possible.

Guillam now sets off running along the bank of the canal and up the slope to join Danbury Street.

And here is how the slope looks today from the direction he would have been running...

We pick up Guillam as he rounds the corner from Danbury Street into Noel Road... 

By comparison, this is how the corner of the street looks today - we will be coming back to this property on the corner later. 

As Guillam turns into Noel Road you can see the work of the BBC props department on the corner - a street sign for Lock Gardens.

In his enthusiasm to get to the front door, Guillam actually runs past the house and has to come back on himself before he is joined by Mendel...

Let's deal with one more location by the canal before we move on - the tunnel Guillam looks down before he takes up position by the lock.

It is here that we see Jim Prideaux emerge from the shadows later as Bill Haydon is driven away...

And, once again, here is how the tunnel looks today...

One thing is clear from our external investigations so far - the safe house is a composite of at least two locations. 

John Rundle has some observations about the exterior scenes filmed in Noel Road:

I think that the exterior scenes at the front of the house and road (where Smiley places the milk bottles on the step and Guillam joins Mendel) were shot on a different day to the set up at the rear of the building (where Guillam keeps watch and we see wide shots of the canal and lock area). These were both big lighting set ups and would have each been costly to achieve. If they had tried to do both on the same day there would have been the potential for one set up to compromise the other.

Our BBC insider, Source Merlin, confirms that John is quite right in his assessment. The scenes at the front of Noel Road were filmed on Wednesday 31st January 1979 and those at the rear were shot nearly two months later on Wednesday 14th March.

Adam Sisman's biography confirms John le Carré and his wife, Jane, were present for filming on Monday 29th January.  Le Carré was back two days later on the 31st January and, on this occasion, Source Merlin was also there...

I was asked to do some overtime work - fairly unusual in those days. So one evening in late January 1979, I had been told to drive a member of production to the Island Queen Pub. A seemingly ordinary pub but with a sweeping staircase to an upper floor, where I found a large dining room and the crew of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sitting down for their evening meal break.

In fact, the Island Queen was across the road from the famous Noel Road safe house where Smiley places the milk bottles on the front steps.

Back then mobile caterers and dining buses were only used when filming in more remote locations. So crews often had their meal breaks in hotels, restaurants and pubs close by the location. The Tinker Tailor  crew occasionally dined out in style- at Simpson’s of Piccadilly, The Royal Hotel in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.

It transpired my job was to look after John le Carré and his teenage son, Timothy, along with the producer Jonathan Powell. I remember Timothy being quite shy but then he was a 16yr old boy!

It was extremely rare for John le Carré to visit the production/set as Sir Alec preferred him not to.

Towards the end of the meal Sir Alec wandered in wearing the trademark Smiley overcoat and thermal long-johns!! After chatting to Jonathan Powell and John le Carré, he departed to go to the wardrobe department to put on the rest of his costume, ready for the milk bottle scene.

Merlin is also able to help us with the interior location - they recall another property in the road being utilised for the scenes of Smiley, Guillam and Mendel confronting Haydon and Polyakov. Remember that house on the corner that Guillam ran past - all these scenes were filmed there on the 29th and 30th January.

Next we come to the scene in the attic room with Smiley, Lacon, Esterhase, Alleline, Bland and Fawn. Which means that we have arrived at one of the very few continuity errors in Tinker Tailor. If you look out of the skylight you can see daylight outside. In a few minutes time, when Haydon is taken away, it will be dark again! (Incidentally, Merlin confirms that the attic room scene was filmed on the 13th March 1979.)

The presence of a skylight throws a spanner in the works as from the satellite view, there doesn't seem to be one present at any of the houses we have looked at so far. It is possible there was a skylight at one of these addresses and it's not there anymore, but we have to consider the possibility that there is a fourth location for the Witchcraft safe house. 

And there must be at least four locations as there is no driveway present for any of the houses at this end of Noel Road. The scene of Haydon getting into the van was definitely shot elsewhere.

There is a clue to the location of this driveway in the houses opposite. We can see the properties a little more clearly in the shot below:

The first thing to notice is that we can see brickwork on the house opposite and not the white plaster cladding typical of the area. Both the door and downstairs window have crescents over the top of them and there are railings or window boxes on the first floor windows. 

The only houses in the area that look like this are round the corner from Noel Road in Danbury Street. 

And from the street view they look like this...

These houses are a pretty good match right down to the position of the windows and the white border between the ground and upper floors. If we look at what is on the opposite side of the road, we can see a garage that looks like it joins up with an older existing wall...

I'm pretty confident that originally there was a sloping driveway and a gate there so I think this is where Haydon got into the van. (Source Merlin was able to confirm that the scenes of Haydon leaving the house were shot on the 14th March 1979.)

There are really only two scenes here where we can't be certain of the location - the scene in the attic room where they are listening to the tape and the scene below outside the back door as Bland, Lacon, Alleline and Esterhase watch Haydon taken away. 

Both scenes could have been shot at a property backing on to the driveway where Haydon leaves but there is not enough to go on so we must leave a question mark next to them for now. 

If we put all of this together we can see just how well the BBC utilised this location. (If you click on the photo below you can view a clearer image.)

When you visit the area armed with this knowledge, it feels a little bit like stepping on to a film set - everything is there, just as it appeared on screen.

One thing that is apparent from the above satellite image is that from where he was standing, it would not have been possible for Prideaux to watch Haydon driven away. It is conceivable the van drove past him over the bridge though.

And there you have it. Next time you are in the vicinity of Angel tube station why not visit the Witchcraft safe house (all four of them!) in Lock Gardens.

POSTSCRIPT

There is a small coda to this location visit. The scenes at Lock Gardens are intercut with those of Mendel watching the outside of The Circus to see which of the suspects gets away first. 

On the day I visited Noel Road, I needed to come back into Central London afterwards. I took the opportunity to see if it might be possible to access Mendel's lookout at 138 Shaftesbury Avenue. (Chris has already covered the surrounding Circus locations in great detail here.) At one time this was a branch of HSBC and no access to the upper floors was possible but today it is a fast food restaurant.

The top floors are private flats but I was at least able to get a photo from the first floor window that we can compare with Mendel's view...

It is as close as we are going to get unless the owner of the top floor flat is reading this article!

According to Source Merlin, these scenes have the distinction of being the very last ones shot for Tinker Tailor on the 18th March 1979. They were originally due to be shot on the 7th February but were moved to the end of the schedule at short notice to accommodate cast illness. 

My thanks to John Rundle and Chris for their invaluable contributions to this piece. Special thanks must go to Source Merlin, who has delivered some of their most spectacular and topical material for this article.

If you have any information about the filming of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Smiley’s People that you’d like to share with visitors to this website then do drop us a line at guinnessissmiley@icloud.com  

Screencaps (c) BBC 1979

Most contemporary photos taken by the author