This is the result of enhancing and stabilizing the “Driving through London (1950’s)” video that can be found elsewhere on Youtube. It demonstrates how modern videoprocessing tools (like Deshaker, Contrast and Brightness adjust and Enhancement) can really improve an old video. Four Virtualdub filters were used to obtain this result.
Lovely video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhuBZEZESU
Hat tip to Londonist for the discovery.
Free London Weekly Newsletter
A Little Bit of London In Your Inbox Weekly. Sign-up for our free weekly London newsletter. Sent every Friday with the latest news from London!
Incredible footage. What a trip back into time, into the years I was born into actually. Any chance your contemporary Londoners could identify those streets and locations.? I’ll bet unlike in America most of it still exists and would be recognizable. How about it?
Again, thanks so much for this.
In answer to your question, the high street in the film is Kensington High Street. The film runs from just past the tube station, down towards Phillimore Gardens. In the film you can clearly see a Martins Bank, as the car goes round a corner. This is now Barclay’s Bank, taken over in ’67 I think. Check it out on google street map.I hvae to admit it looks a much nicer run then than now. But that is probably my ‘rose tinted specs’ talking.
Further to my previous post, its taken a while but the beginning scene is Hammersmith Rd, from the centre of Hammersmith heading into London. At the beginning you can make out the Sacred Heart School building on your right as you are looking at the film. I have to say this area has changed greatly, with only a few of the buildings (now Latymer Court) a little further along the road still remaining.
Loved it, but the cars were parked in different directions. Is this the norm ?