Locations of Dorian Gray

Staff Writer: Samuntha Mackenzie

Gone location hunting while on vacation near where your favorite movie was filmed? Here's your chance to go sight-seeing in and around London for the upcoming film: Dorian Gray.

The locations selected for filming on “Dorian Gray” very much reflect the evolution of Dorian, from his arrival in the big city as a naïve young man (Smithfields in the City of London was turned into London’s King’s Cross Station); to the carefree innocence of Dorian as he’s introduced into society by Henry Wotton, attending sophisticated parties in opulent London residences (the sprawling Witanhurst on Highgate Hill in London and Basildon Park in Berkshire); through his descent into debauchery as he frequents the dens of iniquity in the East End (the Café de Paris near Leicester Square became the Casino de Venise for the shoot and Crocker’s Folly in St John’s Wood became a gin palace and an opium den).

Location manager Pat Karam and his team were responsible for finding over fifteen locations in and around London and the south east. The first weeks of the schedule were spent at Witanhurst in leafy Highgate, north London. Witanhurst is a listed mansion built in the Queen Anne style and is London’s second largest private residence after Buckingham Palace. With its 25 bedrooms, 70 ft grand ballroom, eight bathrooms and eight reception rooms, it was recently snapped up by the richest woman in Russia for £50million.

Major London landmarks used include the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, Wilton’s Music Hall in the East End, Bell Yard near the Royal Courts of Justice, Carlton Terrace and the British Academy, Highgate Cemetery, the Royal Exhange Building in the City and Chiswick Town Hall.

The all-important “attic” scenes, where the monstrous painting is kept, were filmed on sets built at Ealing Studios and a section of London underground tunnel and platform were constructed on Ealing’s Stage Two.

Source: Momentum Pictures