How the nuclear attack locations from Peter Watkins’ The War Game look today

Peter Watkins was arguably the most controversial director to emerge from the BBC in the post-war period. He combined biting political comment with a startlingly believable documentary style of filmmaking, much to the alarm of the broadcaster and even the government. One of Watkins’ earliest projects was one of his most provocative. Made by the BBC in 1965, at the height of the Cold War, The War Game was eventually deemed so disturbing that its broadcast was withdrawn. Instead, it was shown in a separate run at the National Film Theatre (now BFI Southbank) in 1966.

The War Game follows the fallout of a nuclear attack on unsuspecting suburban Kent. In pseudo-documentary form, it initially presents some of the potential responses to a coming nuclear attack, but then the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam by the US triggers an actual attack on the UK. A bomb hits an RAF site near Canterbury, triggering mass evacuation, civil unrest, radioactive fallout and, eventually, military rule.

Though notorious for its controversial subject matter, Watkins’ hard-hitting drama is also an unusual portrait of post-war Kent. Using its coastal towns and filming in an unusual array of suburban areas, Watkins had an eye for locations that had dramatic potential but also the kind of ordinariness that worked with his documentary style.

Here are some of the locations from Watkins’ film as they stand today.

One of the film’s early sequences is shot in Chatham. In a brilliant one-shot take, Watkins follows a motorcycle messenger driving down Dock Road.

In this shot, the motorcyclist is getting closer to the destination, the old town hall on the right. This is just at the junction with Whiffen’s Avenue, which has since been blocked off.

He parks up outside the town hall ready to deliver his message. The distinctive building straight ahead has survived and is appropriately an Armed Forces recruitment office.

Finally, the driver makes his way into the building. Today, this building is a theatre and, though the shot continues as the messenger walks up the stairs and into a meeting room, as the building is currently undergoing renovation those shots cannot be recreated.

Some of the most dramatic sequences of the film are shot in Dover, specifically at the Grand Shaft Barracks that sat on the hillside overlooking the coast. As can be seen from the modern photos, these barracks have long since been demolished. However, as several subtle features survive on the now rural site, and with the help of detailed maps of the old barracks, the location can be recreated quite accurately.

These long barrack buildings ran along the hillside, with their west side finishing near a set of surviving steps, so even these quite abstract shots can be recreated.

With this shot, we can see the end of several barrack buildings. Due to their size and height, these are likely the first large barrack buildings north of Grand Shaft. The growth of vegetation roughly follows the footprint of the buildings.

Finally, the space in this shot suggests it is the first of the barrack buildings, likely just further on from Grand Shaft itself, looking north.

Watkins also filmed on various streets around Gravesend, possibly in the Milton Road area, though there is scant specific information on which streets were used. Several of them were evidently used as they were approaching demolition, so the following shots are equivalents rather than the specific roads themselves. In a shot early on, we see a car issuing a public warning. After researching all the roads in the area, the closest street surviving is Norfolk Road.

Some of the film’s more dystopian images are captured around the streets behind Berkley Crescent. Many of these have since been demolished, but several survive, including Wilfred Street. Technically, it could have been any of this row of roads, however, and the shooting script in the BFI National Archive sadly has no definite information either.

Watkins films several shots in Tonbridge, used as a fictional version of suburban Canterbury. In particular, the housing on Vale Road is featured throughout sections of the film. We first see it when passengers on the buses are getting off and walking alongside a distinctive railway wall.

The passengers line up along this wall, which is still standing today.

Various quaint houses are then used throughout. However, today, the majority of these have been demolished, and where they stood is now a road and an industrial estate. But as the numbers on the doors give a relative location, like the barracks, they can be mapped with relative accuracy.

This shot, showing the wall and the houses on Vale Road looking east, reveals how the demolition of the houses has since been used to widen the road. Only the last seven houses at the end of the street now survive, and they still show the road’s original width.

This shot looks west along the road, again showing just how stark the changes are in the location today.

One of the few buildings from the film to survive the years of demolition and rebuilding is in Tonbridge. Not far from Vale Road, Watkins used a building on Priory Road for a brief sequence.

In one of the few examples of continuity, the building then and now is used for supplies.

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The War Game shooting script is held in the BFI National Archive.

System Critical: The Radical Films of Peter Watkins is at BFI Southbank in August.