Debenham House, 8 Addison Road, Holland Park, W14
It's not often that the location inspires the movie. The striking, peacock blue-tiled mansion of Debenham House cries out to be a film location, and that’s exactly what US ex-pat director Joseph Losey thought as he drove his son to school.
It became the setting for the impenetrable psychodrama Secret Ceremony, with Elizabeth Taylor and a black-wigged Mia Farrow playing disturbing mindgames. The house also supplied the bathroom of Queen Elizabeth (Annette Bening) in Richard Loncraine’s Richard III, and was seen in Henry James adaptation The Wings Of The Dove and colourful backstage period drama Trottie True.
The Grade I listed house – built in 1906 for the founder of the Debenham’s department store chain, Sir Ernest Debenham, but later used as offices of the Richmond Fellowship, a care and rehabilitation charity – was designed by Halsey Ricardo at the fag-end of the Arts and Crafts movement. It's now a private home.
Trivia: it’s rumoured that the tiles, by the William de Morgan company, who also supplied the tiles for nearby Leighton House, were overstocks originally made for the Tsar’s yacht and P&O liners.
Secret Ceremony (1968, dir: Joseph Losey)
Richard III (1995, dir: Richard Loncraine)
The Wings Of The Dove (1997, dir: Iain Softley)
Trottie True (1949, dir: Brian Desmond Hurst)
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