The Broadway is a South Asian high street signed in Punjabi and English, with a gurdwara topped by a gold dome a short way off it.
What Southall looks like
Southall is a suburban town in the London Borough of Ealing. Uxbridge Road runs through the middle of it, and changes its name to The Broadway through the main shopping stretch before briefly becoming High Street. Sacks of onions and potatoes are stacked on pallets outside the supermarkets on South Road, under a covered stall built onto the pavement.
Shopfronts along the Broadway carry signs in Punjabi and Hindi as well as English. The railway station's own sign is set in English and Gurmukhi, the script Punjabi is written in. , a sweet shop chain, has a branch at 156 The Broadway. Its window is stacked with boxes of mithai. , an Indian clothing shop with its own tailors, is a short walk away at number 58.
Guru Nanak Road holds the largest of Southall's ten gurdwaras, , which dates from 2003. Cream stone walls rise to a gold central dome flanked by smaller white domes on the corner turrets, with a flagpole flying the Nishan Sahib out front.
On South Road, the has been a cinema since 1912 and still shows Bollywood, Punjabi and Tamil films behind its Chinese style front. The Grand Union Canal marks the edge with Hayes to the west, and the River Brent marks the edge with Hanwell to the east.
Shot in Southall
A petrol station and convenience store on The Broadway at the corner with Saxon Road appeared in the 1995 Hindi film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge; the site was demolished and is now retail space. Patiala House, a 2011 Hindi film, was shot on the streets of Southall among its temples and corner shops. A set built in Mumbai stood in for a closer view of The Broadway.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, 2007
Southall railway station's frontage appears in a close up shot in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, filmed mostly around Waterloo station elsewhere in London. The station's ticket hall and entrance were rebuilt in 2021, after the film was shot, so the frontage on screen is the one this replaced.
What Southall can double for
Green Street in Newham, London, United Kingdom
Green Street has the same run of sari shops, gold jewellers and sweet counters as Southall's Broadway, with fascia signs in English and South Asian scripts side by side above similarly scaled two and three storey terraces. Green Street's terraces run straighter and more uniform than Southall's mixed frontages, so a tight shopfront frame holds the match better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching sari shops gold jewellers now.
Belgrave Road in Leicester, United Kingdom
Known locally as the Golden Mile, Belgrave Road is packed with sari shops and gold jewellers along closely set redbrick Victorian terraces, the same density and building age as Southall's own shopping streets. It is a South Asian high street away from London. Belgrave Road's pavement runs wider and its shopfronts more evenly spaced than Southall's Broadway, which shows in a wide shot. Try searching Golden Mile sari shops now.
