(DOCTOR WHO THEME)
NARRATOR: Following the cancellation of a number of other stories
in Patrick Troughton's final season,
and the subsequent extension ofThe War Games to 10 episodes,
director David Maloney chose to spend nine days
out of his 10-day filming allocation shooting out on location.
Following its use as the Somme battlefield in the feature film
Oh! What a Lovely War only months earlier,
it was decided that the sequences set in the no-man's land of World War I
could all be filmed at the same location as used by Richard Attenborough,
Sheepcote Rubbish Tip, in Brighton.
Filming at Sheepcote Valley was spread over four very cold, very wet
and very miserable days, in March, 1969,
as the cast and crew negotiated the rat-infested rubbish tip.
The filming at Sheepcote Valley also attracted the attention of
the Brighton Evening Argus,
who reported that the actors kept themselves
wrapped in red flannel blankets and drank whisky
to try and keep out the cold.
Today, Sheepcote Valley has ceased to be a municipal rubbish tip
and has long since been grassed over and turned into
around 220 acres of public open space, where people can stroll
and walk their dogs.
Just a few miles up the road from Sheepcote Valley
is High Park Farm,
used for the brief sequence of the Confederate horsemen
galloping down the road in Episode Three.
A little further on,just over the border into West Sussex,
the production team spent two separate days
on the bridle path leading off from Underhill Lane in Clayton.
Friday, the 28th of March, was spent on the upper part of the bridle path
filming sequences for Episode Four
showing'Jamie's escape from the Confederate horsemen,
as well as the subsequent recapture of'Jamie and Lady'Jennifer
later in the episode.
The crew returned to the lower part of the bridle path location
the following Monday,
where the day was spent filming the Confederate attack
upon the World War I ambulance.
Moving eastwards, the meanders of the Cuckmere River
in the Seven Sisters Country Park
formed the backdrop to the scenes of the Doctor and his friends
crossing into a new war zone and encountering a group of Roman soldiers
complete with chariot.
The shots of the charging legion were filmed
from the BBC's usual camera vehicle,
a soft-suspension Citroen 2 CV,
with much of the camera work being done by assistant'John Walker,
under the auspices of senior film cameraman Alan'Jonas.
As with the filming at Sheepcote Tip, the scenes shot in the Cuckmere Valley
drew the attention of the local press.
With the Sussex Express & County Herald
reporting on the visit of a Roman legion on Thursday, April the 3rd.
Just a short distance away from the Seven Sisters Country Park
is the small, secluded village of West Dean.
With only a single road leading to and from the village,
this quiet location featured primarily in the Doctor's brazen commandeering
of an army staff car to take Zoe and himself to the prison.
The final day of location work took the crew further along
the A259 to Birling Manor and its outlying farm buildings,
owned then, as it still is today, by the Davis-Gilbert family.
The farm buildings were used to represent
the exterior of the French chateau,
where the Doctor faces execution by a World War I firing squad
at the end of the first episode.
The building that the sniper fires from to interrupt the firing squad
was the same one later used in Episode Eight,
when the British and French infantrymen attack the Crimean War Zone.
The main driveway into Birling Manor and the nearby pond
were used for the Doctor's view of the military prison,
through his telescope in Episode Two.
The War Games brought to an end
not only Patrick Troughton's time on the programme,
but also an end to the black and white era of Doctor Who.
When the programme returned in the opening week of 1970,
it would have a new Doctor and, for the first time,
be shot in colour.