Yellow stock brick Georgian terraces around railed garden squares, with the British Museum's Ionic colonnade and Senate House's Portland stone tower a few streets apart. Batman Begins shot the Senate House lobby as the Gotham courthouse.
What Bloomsbury looks like
is Georgian on all four sides, and the terraces date from the 1770s and 1780s. The houses are yellow stock brick over basements, three storeys with attics behind slate mansards. Round-arched doorways sit in Coade stone surrounds under radial fanlights, and iron railings run the length of the pavement. The two centre houses on the north side are stuccoed, with Ionic pilasters under a pediment. Most of the houses are offices now.
a few streets north is mostly yellow stock brick over stuccoed ground floors, with one terrace stuccoed and painted white the whole way up. Cast iron balconies sit at first floor level there and black railings run at the pavement. has a fountain in the middle of a public garden, with plane trees around the paved surround. The gardens are railed and the streets between them are wide and level.
The 's front on Great Russell Street is a Greek Revival colonnade of forty-three Ionic columns, set back behind iron railings and a line of plane trees. rises over the roofs on Malet Street, Portland stone over brick, stepping back as it goes up. UCL's Wilkins Building faces Gower Street behind a deep portico, with the Flaxman Gallery under the dome behind it.
is a short pedestrian street of black bow-fronted shopfronts dating from 1822. Sixteen of them face each other across the paving. St George's on Bloomsbury Way has a columned portico under a tower that steps up in stone stages, with a statue of George I at the top and stone lions and unicorns fighting below him.
Shot in Bloomsbury
Senate House takes most of the credits on these streets, and rarely as itself. No Time to Die used its Macmillan Hall as the inside of the Ministry of Defence, and Inception shot the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre in UCL's Wilkins Building as a Paris academy. The BBC series Sherlock put Watson back in touch with Mike Stamford on a bench in Russell Square gardens.
Batman Begins, 2005
Senate House
Played the City of Gotham State Courts, Gotham City
Christopher Nolan filmed the lobby of the City of Gotham State Courts here, in the scene where Joe Chill is shot. The main entrance is on Malet Street and there is a second one at the back onto Russell Square.
Wonder Woman, 2017
British Museum
Played the Louvre, Paris, France
Gal Gadot's Diana walks through the gallery of winged Assyrian bulls, standing in for the Louvre. The arrival outside was shot at the real Louvre courtyard in Paris.
The King's Speech, 2010
Played the theatre where Lionel Logue auditions
Lionel Logue's unsuccessful audition for a stage production of Richard III was shot in the Bloomsbury Ballroom, the Art Deco room inside Victoria House on the northeast side of Bloomsbury Square. The BBC series The Apprentice used the same room for the two finalists' business launches in its tenth series final.
Bridgerton, 2024
Woburn Walk
Played Madame Delacroix's modiste shop
The Netflix series Bridgerton used the walkway in its third season as the street of Madame Delacroix's modiste shop, redressing all sixteen shopfronts for episodes three and four. The show's locations leader Tony Hood said of the choice, "We don't do anything small in Bridgerton. So we changed the whole street. We occupied all 16 shop fronts on the whole walkway." The black bow fronts date from 1822.
What Bloomsbury can double for
Merrion Square in Dublin, Ireland
Merrion Square is a Georgian garden square of the same generation, redbrick townhouses on three sides with a railed garden in the middle and most of the houses in office use. The doorcases and radial fanlights are close enough that a doorstep scene matches. Dublin's brick is red where these terraces are yellow stock, so a long view down one side is the shot that gives it away. The garden inside the railings there is a public park, where Bedford Square's stays locked. Try searching redbrick Georgian townhouses now.
Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts
Beacon Hill is Federal brick rowhouses at the same scale, and Louisburg Square gives it a private railed garden the houses look onto. Close work on a doorway or a run of railings holds up well. Beacon Hill's streets are narrow and its sidewalks are brick, where these streets are wide with cars along the kerb. Gas lamps and British road markings are what a wide shot has to solve. Try searching Federal brick rowhouses now.
Palais Galliera in Paris, France
Inception used the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre and the Flaxman Gallery in UCL's Wilkins Building on Gower Street as a Paris academy. Only the academy's entrance was shot in Paris, at the Palais Galliera. The match is interior only, because Gower Street outside is London in any wide shot. The Flaxman Gallery sits under the dome of the main library, which is the room to scout first. Try searching lecture theatre now.
