Thamesmead has been used as a filming location for several movies. One of the most iconic examples is Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange," which featured several scenes filmed in the area's housing estates and streets.
Also, the iconic music video for Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin directed by Chris Cunningam and the TV series "Misfits" were shot there. As obvious as it sounds, I had to visit that place.
The area was developed in the 1960s and 1970s in south-east London as part of a large-scale urban renewal project and was designed to be a self-contained town, with a mix of residential, commercial and community facilities
I went to the estate on a cloudy summer day, and what struck me at first was the vast scale of the estate as well as the emptiness of the streets and the astonishing silence.
Unfortunately I realised that a relevant part of the estate - the one featured in "The Clockwork Orange" - had been demolished to make room for a new hosing project.
Nevertheless it was a really striking experience.
What happened to the cockney riviera? The botched regeneration of brutalist utopia Thamesmead
