On Location With SMK: The Mitre Pub from To Catch a Mongoose

From our London SMK location day out this last summer I am posting the pics of The Mitre pub first.  To get to this, we walked from Knightsbridge through Hyde Park to Lancaster Mews. On the afternoon we went it was really quiet inside (it may have been because it was the Notting Hill Carnival weekend), although people, as you will see, were sitting outside having a drink -just as they were when they filmed the scenes all those years ago:).  With the exception of the paintwork being changed from the dark blue colour, nothing else about the exterior appears to have altered.  All the doors into the pub still appear to be in use.

Exterior Shots:

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When Amanda disappeared off in the taxi with Conrad, I think they disappeared off in the direction we walked to the pub from Hyde Park.

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Interior Shots:

The one thing that struck me most about the interior of the pub was how small it was compared to what I actually expected.  Somehow in SMK it seemed slightly bigger?  But that may be just me.  The bar is still in the same place and the tables and chairs set out the same way, although they have done away with the hanging shelf that ran around the bar so it’s now more open. The decor is also different, as would be expected after thirty odd years.

It was a nice place to sit and have a drink, although a lot of my euphoria was no doubt due to actually sitting in the same pub where they filmed lol.  It had taken us so long to go and visit the place (I’ve been saying we should go for years) that it was pretty special to finally be there.  Not that Paul nor Matthew (who took the external shots and most of the other location pics I have because he wouldn’t let go of my camera lol) were half as excited (WHY NOT?!?! lol).  Instead Paul, even though he is very used to London prices, couldn’t help quipping that they wouldn’t have paid £5 odd for a glass of wine back in the time of SMK. No, they wouldn’t have done but that was besides the point 🙂

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On Location With SMK: St Katherine’s Dock

Back in 2013 my husband, son and I went up to London specifically to go and look around St Katherine’s Dock with SMK in mind (yes, I dragged them on a location scout lol).  I went armed with various screencaps on my phone from To Catch a Mongoose so that I could try and take some photographs of where certain parts of that last main scene were shot. However, since the episode was filmed there has, unsurprisingly, been a substantial amount of development in the area – all to the good as it is now a lovely place to walk around.  It took me a bit of time to get the photographs below together as I was trying to match the screencaps with an actual shot of what the place is like now.

I originally posted this on another site in 2013 and now that I have this blog it occurred to me that it might be a nice addition here too :). Hopefully, at some stage in the future, I can visit the other London locations and get some more pics – especially with summer (supposedly) around the corner.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little peek of then and now :).

Here we go then…

This is by the side of the Dickens Inn, the pub that is still there and was prettily decorated with flower boxes when we visited.

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This shows the Dickens Inn in the background so it was pretty easy to match up the shot below:

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Again, this is more or less taken in the same area as the last shot – the Dickens Inn to the left and Tower Bridge in the centre…

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This shot is taken at the back of the Dickens pub – it’s to the right and out of shot (I think) in the screencap.  These are two shots of the houses/flats in the background…

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As this was filmed either on a boat or from one of the walkways where the boats are moored, it was impossible to get an exact shot but I did find the flats:

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This was also tricky to find but the trees helped alot!:

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For this shot of Lee with Tower Bridge in the background, this is what I thought was pretty close (as you can see the Shard now looms up in the background, dominating the skyline):

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The car park and place where they had the fight are really difficult to locate because of all the changes to the area.  The photo below may have been the car park, although I am still not entirely convinced.  I will have to have another look at some point when we go up to this area of London next :).

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 Sarah x