The Quatermass Xperiment

[agg221]

Saturday night is film night in our house, something which started during the first lockdown. Our daughters are now 14 and 16 which opens up some interesting film choices, going right back to the early 1920s through to the present day.

 

Last night we watched The Quatermass Xperiment, which was based entirely on the original Quatermass Experiment, the first of the BBC's Quatermass series and the forerunner to Quatermass and The Pit. The film version dates from 1955 and was the first Hammer Horror. It can be found on Youtube here:

 

 

From about 1:53 to 1:57 the setting is by a canal. The actors are Richard Wordsworth (great great grandson of William Wordsworth) and a very young Jane Asher. The location looks to be a canal leading off from the London docklands, but which one is it?

 

Alec

 

p.s. the title is not an Americanism, but rather a play on the then newly created X rating for horror films.

Edited April 13 by agg221

[5239]

Thanks for link,

I’ll watch that later.

 

what a line up of actors,

and Thora Hird amongst them  !

😃

[Pluto]

I always remember the Goon Show version where the discovery was made during excavations for the London County Council scheme for congesting traffic.

[magnetman]

Junction dock? was off Blackwall Basin with timber sheds.

 

 

Now filled in

Or one of the small cuts between Blackwall basin and West India docks. In fact I think the footbridge might still be there.

 

PLA launch tug Plaudit is still extant.

 

 

 

Edited April 13 by magnetman
rubbish keybord

[LadyG]

Omg, I remember that on BBC it was terrifying for a 12 year old, even the music!

[magnetman]

Or maybe it is here

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=19.6&lat=51.50468&lon=-0.00903&layers=260&right=osm

 

Yes I think its here. Poplar dock with the lighters and Blackwall with the ships.

 

 

In fact I am pretty sure there are still remains of the swinging bridge.

More detail: 

 

The cut between Blackwall and Poplar docks had a swingbridge and a draw footbridge. 

 

 

and the film shows what looks like the draw footbridge with the child on it.

 

 

So I think ships would have been brought into the main docks at Blackwall and West india then Lighters and launch tugs used to transfer goods to Poplar dock which was a railway transhipment dock. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 13 by magnetman

[Derek R.]

17 hours ago, LadyG said:

Omg, I remember that on BBC it was terrifying for a 12 year old, even the music!

Likewise. Gave me the shivers at age 8yrs, all through more 'suggestion' than actual effects. I still have an image in my head of a tarmac path that became like rippling water, or does my memory trick me!

[Ronaldo47]

The rippling path might have been from the later "Quatermass and the pit". 

 

Edited April 14 by Ronaldo47

[Slim]

18 hours ago, LadyG said:

Omg, I remember that on BBC it was terrifying for a 12 year old, even the music!

I remember the original 1953 BBC series as well. As a six year old I hid behind an armchair and peeped around the side of it to watch. I can distinctly remember pleading with my parents to leave it on when they went to turn it off. What amazes me is that I was allowed to watch it in the first instance. As for the armchair it had a makers plaque fixed to it with two round headed brass nails. I studied that plaque intently. 😱 

[magnetman]

So in my estimation the PLA tug Plaudit was moored here 

 

 

 

It looks narrower in the film but when the Canary Wharf development was put in there were huge changes to the layout of the docks and adjoining waterways so no reason to think it was not widened and bridges removed as part of landscaping. 

[Derek R.]

From the Reference Atlas of Greater London by Bartholomew, ninth edition 1954.

It doesn't show the details of footbridges, but does show the railway lines into Blackwell Dock.

 

(I have tried rotating this to the correct aspect, but it refuses to come out correct).

 

 

[magnetman]

Nice map. The little cut between Blackwall basin and poplar dock does look narrower on that map.

 

 

[David Mack]

Immediately before we see the girl on the bridge we have this view of a long straight dock with several ships. That doesn't look to me like Blackwall Basin. Perhaps in the Royals?

And also, this looks more liked a fixed bridge over a channel for tugs and lighters, rather than a moveable structure.

[magnetman]

Yes my initial thought was royal docks but there don't seem to be any small cuts. Maybe a better look on old maps will find one. 

 

If you look though the scene with the ships which you show, which seem to be in one of the royals, may be a different non connected film sequence to the part with the child. Also the police mention 'derelict boats' in the film so perhaps the draw footbridge was replaced with a fixed deck bridge at some stage. 

I think what may have happened is the poplar and blackwall docks became derelict while the main royal docks were still operating and the short sequence with the ships was for context and a different location to where the Plaudit was moored. 

 

 

 

 

 

Different ships and not as many traveling cranes. 

 

 

 

Looks like timber sheds associated with the smaller docks. 

 

 

I think the bit with the ships, the long dock (Royal Albert dock I think) and the wharf cranes was for visual impact rather than where the scene was filmed. 

Edited April 14 by magnetman

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

 

I think the bit with the ships, the long dock (Royal Albert dock I think) and the wharf cranes was for visual impact rather than where the scene was filmed. 

I agree this may well be a different location.

With the stacks of timber in the background, I wonder if the scenes were filmed in the Surrey Docks, which mainly handled imported timber. There were many narrow cuts between the various docks in the Surrey system.

I don't think the bridge at the end of the sequence is a railway bridge. The way the man staggers over it would suggest a flat paved surface rather than rails and sleepers.

[magnetman]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I agree this may well be a different location.

With the stacks of timber in the background, I wonder if the scenes were filmed in the Surrey Docks, which mainly handled imported timber. There were many narrow cuts between the various docks in the Surrey system.

I don't think the bridge at the end of the sequence is a railway bridge. The way the man staggers over it would suggest a flat paved surface rather than rails and sleepers.

Yes. The old maps don't show it as a railway bridge just a swingbridge. No sign of any rails.

 

 

 

The film credits include the Port of London Authority.

[Pluto]

8 hours ago, Derek R. said:

From the Reference Atlas of Greater London by Bartholomew, ninth edition 1954.

It doesn't show the details of footbridges, but does show the railway lines into Blackwell Dock.

 

(I have tried rotating this to the correct aspect, but it refuses to come out correct).

 

 

 

Greenland Dock was originally built by one of the country's least-known canal engineers, but possibly one of the most important. Who is he and why Important?

[Derek R.]

27 minutes ago, Pluto said:

Greenland Dock was originally built by one of the country's least-known canal engineers, but possibly one of the most important. Who is he and why Important?

Thomas Steers & John Wells? Greenland Dock was formerly the Great Howland Wet dock, lined in wood and seventeen feet deep, which when enlarged was re-named Greenland Dock. The engineer J A Machonnichie responsible for the enlargement died before it was finished and the work was taken over by Sir John Woolfe Barry.

 

DOCKLAND, by NELP/GLC. And a bit from online Rotherhithe History.

 

But what is the importance?

[5239]

On 13/04/2025 at 12:51, agg221 said:

Saturday night is film night in our house, something which started during the first lockdown. Our daughters are now 14 and 16 which opens up some interesting film choices, going right back to the early 1920s through to the present day.

I reckon you ought to start a regular ‘agg21 Saturday night film spot’ on here!

Enjoying this film,

got the last half hour to watch this evening,

I always pick the same old stuff, nice to have different ideas 👍

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

Greenland Dock was originally built by one of the country's least-known canal engineers, but possibly one of the most important. Who is he and why Important?

Thomas Steers who also built the Old Dock at Liverpool and was Engineer for the River Douglas and Mersey & Irwell Navigations.

[Pluto]

22 hours ago, David Mack said:

Thomas Steers who also built the Old Dock at Liverpool and was Engineer for the River Douglas and Mersey & Irwell Navigations.

It might be Old now, but not when he built it.😀 He was one of the first to promote inland waterways as a way of developing the economy, which was probably his main benefit to inland waterways. He was involved with the Douglas and M&I during their early phases, though not the full-time engineer for the completed waterways. He was also the engineer for completing the Newry Canal, where on the summit locks he used ground paddles for the first time in the UK. He trained Henry Berry, who took over his role as Dock Engineer in Liverpool and who went on to build the Sankey Navigation. It was these early waterways, together with the A&CN and the Don, which influenced waterways support of the industrial revolution, and laid the foundation for Brindley's rise to fame.

[ditchcrawler]

On 13/04/2025 at 12:51, agg221 said:

Saturday night is film night in our house, something which started during the first lockdown. Our daughters are now 14 and 16 which opens up some interesting film choices, going right back to the early 1920s through to the present day.

 

Last night we watched The Quatermass Xperiment, which was based entirely on the original Quatermass Experiment, the first of the BBC's Quatermass series and the forerunner to Quatermass and The Pit. The film version dates from 1955 and was the first Hammer Horror. It can be found on Youtube here:

 

 

From about 1:53 to 1:57 the setting is by a canal. The actors are Richard Wordsworth (great great grandson of William Wordsworth) and a very young Jane Asher. The location looks to be a canal leading off from the London docklands, but which one is it?

 

Alec

 

p.s. the title is not an Americanism, but rather a play on the then newly created X rating for horror films.

Scared me as a kid