Filming at Rainham Hall

Guy Pearce as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, filmed at Rainham Hall, London | © BBC

Rainham Hall, a striking Georgian townhouse on London’s eastern fringes, has featured in films, music videos and TV programmes. The hall and courtyard provided the backdrop for the BBC's adaptation of A Christmas Carol, starring Guy Pearce and Andy Serkis.

A Christmas Carol at Rainham Hall

Rainham Hall proved to be the perfect backdrop for the BBC’s 2019 adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic tale. Once home to an early 18th-century merchant, Rainham stands in as the home of Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly and cold-hearted moneylender who finds himself haunted by ghosts on a freezing Christmas Eve.

Stars including Guy Pearce, Stephen Graham and Andy Serkis were frequently on set for the filming, which mostly took place at night. Film studies students from a local school also came to visit the site and meet the production team.

Why Rainham Hall was chosen

Rainham Hall and garden was chosen as a setting for A Christmas Carol due to its versatility as a site and its impressive appearance. The Hall is perfect as Scrooge’s house due to its grand and imposing demeanour but also an appropriate size to be a London townhouse.

A Wintery scene outside Rainham Hall for the BBC's A Christmas Carol using artificial snow and shrubbery — A Wintery scene outside Rainham Hall for the BBC's A Christmas Carol | © BBC

Built in 1729, Rainham Hall has been home to nearly 50 different families and inhabitants which means that the hall does not have an indigenous collection of furniture relating to any era in its history. As such there is a changing exhibition programme in the hall. This makes it a very adaptable site for filming where it is possible for rooms and outdoor areas to be dressed in a way which suits the filming company.

The main entrance of the hall was transformed into Scrooge’s sitting room and the beautiful mahogany staircase came into its own. The area outside the front of the hall, the exterior of the stable block and the courtyard was covered in artificial snow and wintery shrubbery. During the filming the courtyard was filled with carts, barrels and even artificial horse manure for a street market scene.

Made in Dagenham at Rainham Hall

Rainham Hall also makes an appearance in the 2010 film Made in Dagenham. The community garden doubled as the garden of No. 10 Downing Street where the character Barbara Castle, played by Miranda Richardson, meets with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, played by John Sessions. The area of the garden at the back of the stable block where the café is situated can be spotted throughout the scenes.

Supporting special places

As well as showing off beautiful locations, filming directly benefits the places in our care that star in the production. The income from location fees goes straight back into conservation work to care for historic houses and landscapes, so that we’ll all be able to see them both on screen and in real life for years to come.