Catford Studios
The Windsor Film Studios (AKA Catford Studios) was based in SE6 (at Southend Hall) between 1914 and 1921. It released some notable films including early adaptations of Edgar Wallace and Tom Brown's Schooldays. In 1918 it was bought by Walthamstow-based rivals and served as a satellite studio before closure. Despite being leased to the Britannia Film Company which had Italian money behind it they were generally known as Windsor Films.
The confused ownership is one reason for the growth of several legends around who was actually funding it. Marquis Guido Serra di Cassano is cited as owning it but others including the Forster Family who own the site plus a number of other contenders appear in different ownership deeds. The output of the studio included a number by Anglo Italian Producer and Director, Arrigo Bocchi but ownership only appears clear when it was bought out in 1920 by Walter West’s firm BroadWest. What is also confusing is which films in the last period were produced in Catford or Walthamstow as posters, prints, and records are lost. In addition, a number of independent films by Bocchi-Foss films were made in Catford and at Italian locations despite an attempt by new owners that “everyone employed there would be exclusively British”.
The very top of the British establishment visited with both future Kings Edward (7th) and George (6th) visiting the Windsor Studios – their father was responsible in 1917 for rebranding the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to that of Windsor. So here we a film studio with confusing accounts of ownership, foreign money, and royal connections all in SE6. As a side note, King George 6th was the focus of an award-winning film about his stutter and the curing of it called the King’s Speech shot largely in Walworth SE17.
