The Bond franchise is famed for its glamorous locations from around the world but the true home of 007 is in London, mainly due to the MI6 headquarters being located there. As well as the various places used for that role, the nations capital has also appeared in many other guises and Tokyo Fox made it its mission to find as many of the shooting locations as possible.
First up is one of the most iconic moments in the whole 007 series as its where Sean Connery delivers the line “The name’s Bond….James Bond” in the 1962 debut ‘Dr No‘. That place is supposedly the chemin-de-fer table in Le Cercle Club at Les Ambassadeurs (below) in Hamilton Place but don’t get too excited as the interior was actually filmed at Pinewood Studio’s.
Next is Brent Cross Shopping Centre and it’s car park (below); the 4th floor of which played the part of Hamburg in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies‘ (1997) starring Pierce Brosnan.
In the same movie the courtyard of Somerset House (below) at The Strand was used as MI6 HQ whereas in the previous Brosnan outing ‘GoldenEye’ (1995) it doubled up as St Petersburg.
Other “Russian” locations in London to feature in ‘GoldenEye’ include the Langham Hilton at Portland Place (below).
Brompton Cemetry (below) is the exterior of the St Petersburg church where Natalya meets Boris by chance.
The interior is St Sofia’s Cathedral (below) which funnily enough is on Moscow Road near Bayswater Station.
One final “Russian” location is Drapers’ Hall (below) on Throgmorton Street near Bank station. It is the St Petersburg council chamber in ‘GoldenEye’ where a General discovers that Natalya has survived the detonation. There was lots of scaffolding work while I was here so I had to zoom in close to cut it out. Update: the photo next to that one was taken in 2014.
We may as well stay with Brosnan-era Bond locations, so lets move on to Vauxhall Cross where 85 Albert Embankment (below), next to Vauxhall Bridge, is the MI6 HQ building in ‘GoldenEye‘ (1995), ‘The World Is Not Enough’ (1999) and ‘Die Another Day’ (2002).
A 20 minute walk along the river takes you to Westminster Bridge beneath which Bond finds the entrance to the fictitious Vauxhall Cross underground (below). This was used in ‘Die Another Day’ (2002) and is actually nothing more than a caretakers hut.
The Thames boat chase during the pre-oping credits of ‘The World Is Not Enough’ starts off near Tower Bridge (below).
It continues on to (and indeed under as only Bond can do) Glengall Bridge in the East End’s docks before moving along Ornamental Canal at Wapping Lane where he soaks a couple of traffic wardens at the right-angle bend pictured below.
He then crashes through a boatshed at the end of the canal alongside the Tobacco Dock pirate ships (below) and proceeds through a few streets before hitting the water again.
He ends up at the Millennium Dome (below), now the O2 Arena, which is a rather poorly scanned photo I took six years ago.
At 104 Pall Mall (below) is the Reform Club where Bond duels with Gustav Graves in ‘Blades’ in the rather poor ‘Die Another Day’ (2002) and it was also used in ‘Quantum Of Solace’ (2008) as the government office where M is summoned to explain Bonds behaviour.
The interior of 92 Stoke Newington Road in the Hackney area (above) is the ‘Cuban’ cigar factory where Bond searches for Zao in the 20th 007 film ‘Die Another Day‘.
In ‘Octopussy’ (1983) the world-famous Sotherby’s auction house (below) on the aptly named Bond Street at number 53 is where Bond cleverly switches the Faberge egg that was put up for sale
For Roger Moore’s over-due finale in ‘A View To A Kill’ (1985) the Old War Office Building on Whitehall (above) is the MI6 HQ. Two years later it was Malaysia House (below) at 57 Trafalgar Square which plays the same place for Timothy Dalton’s first outing as the secret agent in ‘The Living Daylights’ (1987).
George Lazenby only performed the 007 role for one film; ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969) and the College of Arms (below) on Queen Victoria Street is where he learns all about heraldry.
London made a brief appearance in ‘Quantum Of Solace‘ (2008) when Daniel Craig’s Bond is driven into the entrance of a high rise apartment (below) belonging to a deceased double agent where he and M realise the extent of the mysterious organisation. The flats are called The Water Gardens and they’re on Burwood Place close to Edgware Road tube station.
Update: The nations capital featured extensively throughout the awesome follow up ‘Skyfall‘ (2012) which you can see in detail here.
For other London filming locations click on the links below:
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Trainspotting Mission: Impossible Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Bourne Ultimatum Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone About A Boy Quadrophenia Bridget Jones’s Diary Goodnight Sweetheart Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels Basic Instinct 2 Batman Begins/The Dark Knight The Italian Job Snatch Rom-Com Special Skyfall Notting Hill The World Is Not Enough
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 