Thamesmead · Uxbridge · Borehamwood · Chelsea · winter 1970–71
Kubrick built only a handful of sets. The future was already standing round London, brand new and made of concrete, and Burgess had already written the way its teenagers talk. Learn the words and the buildings open.
Nadsat · a glossary in twelve words
Nadsat is Russian for teen. Burgess learned basic Russian before a working holiday in Leningrad in 1961. Burgess wanted readers to pick Nadsat up from context and resisted a glossary. Glossaries appeared anyway, starting with the 1963 Norton edition.
You know none of the twelve words yet.
Viddy
Hover or focus a word to see it in English. Press it to learn it, and the real place it belongs to opens here.
From Russian: moloko is milk, droog a friend, viddy to see, deng money, devotchka a girl, veck a man, horrorshow good, starry old, gulliver a head, malenky little and goloss a voice.
Moloko · a set near Borehamwood
The Korova Milkbar, the prison admission area and the writer’s bathroom and entrance hall were sets, built in a warehouse a few minutes from Borehamwood because nothing like them could be found on location.
0° round the room. Every light in view is a bulb in the set’s own fittings; no film lamp stands in shot.
Drag the room, or focus it and use the arrow keys. A plain drawing of the idea, not the set.
The milk bar was lit by clusters of bare Photoflood bulbs in futuristic fittings, part of the set. John Alcott added light Lowel quartz lamps bounced off the ceiling or umbrellas, so the camera could pan a full 360 degrees.
Liz Moore, who had made the Star Child for 2001, made the bar’s sculptural tables and milk dispensers.
Where it stood · Elstree Way at Bullhead Road, Borehamwood
The Elstree Museum puts the milk bar set in a disused factory on the corner of Bullhead Road, where the Shell petrol station now stands.
A petrol station on a main road. Nothing of the factory is left.
Droog · Thamesmead · 1967–2019
Kubrick filmed at Binsey Walk on Southmere; it fills about two minutes of the film. The first phase of the estate, low- and medium-rise housing by the Greater London Council’s architects, went up between 1967 and 1972. The architect Robert Rigg suggested the lake, believing water could calm social unrest.
Binsey Walk, March 2015. Press a block to take it down.
Over the lake: Binsey Walk, Thamesmead, in March 2015, four years before demolition. Chris Whippet · CC BY-SA 2.0
In 2019 the area was closed off and demolition had begun. The buildings have since gone and been replaced by high-rises; only the lake remains.
Filmfixer London and Peabody manage filming in Thamesmead, and since 2018 the location fees have gone to the Thamesmead Community Fund.
The lake and its paths are open. The new buildings on the Binsey Walk site are homes.
Deng · Stratfield Road, Borehamwood
A flat at the top became Alex’s home, Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North. The couple who lived there moved out while £5,000 went on redecorating it. After they moved back, Kubrick had them move out again for a few close-ups.
Building began in October 1966. At 18 floors and 55 metres it is the tallest building in Borehamwood. The block was refurbished in 2004–06, and a plaque now marks the filming.
Homes. Look at the tower and its plaque from Stratfield Road.
Horrorshow · the future, already built
Filming started in the winter of 1970–71. Choose a building and see how new it was.
Under 2 years old · Nettlefold Hall, opened 1969, when Kubrick arrived in 1970.
As built, as far as anyone can prove.
Viddy · Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge
The Lecture Theatre Block was designed by John Heywood and built in 1965–66. It is listed at Grade II. The ASC account calls Brunel recently built when Kubrick used it for the Ludovico Medical Facility.
Other parts of the campus played a police interrogation room, a hospital ward and the lobby of Alex’s block. A campus legend says it was built back to front. In 2017 it was in SOS Brutalism, the Frankfurt exhibition of concrete buildings.
A working university building. See it from the square in front; the halls are for staff and students.
Horrorshow · Norwood High Street, West Norwood, London SE27
West Norwood Library and Nettlefold Hall, a modernist building, was opened by Princess Margaret in 1969 and appears in several scenes of the film. It played the hall where Alex’s cure is shown to the press.
Lambeth Council and Picturehouse Cinemas reopened it in October 2018 with a library, four screens, a community room, a restaurant, a café and a bar.
A public library and a four-screen Picturehouse cinema, with a café and bar.
Devotchka · 49 King’s Road at Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London SW3
Kubrick shot the record boutique scene in the drugstore on the King’s Road. It had been open less than a year. It was modelled on Le Drugstore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris, with a mirror-glass front. For the scene Kubrick used a 9.8 mm Angenieux lens at f/0.95: a 90-degree view, lit by daylight.
The store closed in 1971, reopened the next autumn and closed for good in the late 1980s. The building is now a McDonald’s.
A shop on the corner of Royal Avenue. Look up at the building from the King’s Road.
Goloss · Britain, 1973–2000
At Kubrick’s request, Warner Bros withdrew the film when its British run ended in early 1973. Nobody noticed for over five years. The Burgess Foundation says it stayed out of circulation until Kubrick’s death in 1999.
1973: Early 1973. The British run ends and, at Kubrick’s request, Warner Bros withdraws the film. Albert Bridge closes for strengthening the same year.
Hold the button and the years run; a single press moves one year.
Goloss · 275 Pentonville Road, King’s Cross, London N1
In 1979 the National Film Theatre was refused permission to show it in a Kubrick season, and the withdrawal became public. In 1992 the Scala, then a repertory cinema, showed it without permission. A year-long court case followed, which the cinema lost; by June 1993 it was also losing its lease.
The film came back to British cinemas on 17 March 2000 with an 18 certificate. The Scala is now a club and live music venue.
A club and live music venue; doors open for shows.
Starry · Chelsea Embankment at Oakley Street, London SW3
The Studio Tour lists Albert Bridge, at Chelsea Embankment and Oakley Street, for a scene after Alex’s release. Rowland Mason Ordish designed it to his own patented system; the public first crossed in 1873.
Its toll booths still carry signs telling troops to break step as they march across. When it closed for strengthening in 1973, two concrete piers were added under the centre.
Open to walk across, day and night.
Veck · The southern underpass between Trinity Road and Swandon Way, Wandsworth
The Studio Tour places the night scene with the old man in the southern underpass between Trinity Road and Swandon Way. The BFI counts Wandsworth’s underpasses among the places that gave the film its concrete, futuristic look.
Photograph: a 1969 subway at the York Road roundabout, at the north end of Swandon Way, not the one in the film.
Pedestrian subways under the Wandsworth roads. The exact subway is not marked, so it has no pin.
Gulliver · Barnet Lane, Elstree WD6 3RE
The Studio Tour lists the Edgwarebury Country Club on Barnet Lane, now The Manor, for the window scene after Alex’s treatment. It stands next to Abbots Mead, where Kubrick and his family lived from 1965 to 1979 and where he edited at home. Its blue plaque is still there.
Kubrick wanted every location within an hour and a half of his house; the production bought 20 VW minibuses as offices and prop trucks. The house dates to the mid-16th century, became a country club in the 1930s and a hotel in the 1960s.
Barnet Lane, Elstree
The old Edgwarebury Country Club, where the window scene was filmed, next door to Kubrick’s home. 49 rooms in the Tudor house or the newer wing.
Check roomsNadsat · Cambridge Street, Manchester
Burgess began the novel in early 1961, after teaching in Malaya and Brunei, and it was published in 1962. A 1973 recording suggests the narrator’s voice owes something to Manchester voices from Harpurhey and Moss Side.
The Foundation keeps the Burgess archive and runs events, exhibitions and concerts in a converted mill.
Open for events and pre-booked archive visits; the Reading Room is by appointment. Five minutes’ walk from Oxford Road station.
Cambridge Street, Manchester · Reading Room by pre-booked appointment
Book a Reading Room visit to the papers of the man who wrote the novel and invented Nadsat.
Ask for a visitLondon College of Communication, Elephant and Castle · Monday to Friday, by appointment only
Scripts, set plans, props and costumes from his whole career, including a 1971 Clockwork Orange iron-on patch. Weekdays, by appointment.
Ask for a visit
10 places you can visit on the map. The Wandsworth subway is not marked precisely, and Skybreak is a private home, so neither has a pin.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The lake and its paths are open. The new buildings on the Binsey Walk site are homes.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working university building. See it from the square in front; the halls are for staff and students.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A shop on the corner of Royal Avenue. Look up at the building from the King’s Road.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public library and a four-screen Picturehouse cinema, with a café and bar.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Open to walk across, day and night.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A club and live music venue; doors open for shows.
droog · Binsey Walk, Southmere, Thamesmead, London SE2
Kubrick filmed at Binsey Walk on Southmere; it fills about two minutes of the film.
The lake and its paths are open. The new buildings on the Binsey Walk site are homes.
viddy · Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge
The Lecture Theatre Block was designed by John Heywood and built in 1965–66. It is listed at Grade II.
A working university building. See it from the square in front; the halls are for staff and students.
devotchka · 49 King’s Road at Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London SW3
Kubrick shot the record boutique scene in the drugstore on the King’s Road.
A shop on the corner of Royal Avenue. Look up at the building from the King’s Road.
horrorshow · Norwood High Street, West Norwood, London SE27
West Norwood Library and Nettlefold Hall, a modernist building, was opened by Princess Margaret in 1969 and appears in several scenes of the film.
A public library and a four-screen Picturehouse cinema, with a café and bar.
starry · Chelsea Embankment at Oakley Street, London SW3
The Studio Tour lists Albert Bridge, at Chelsea Embankment and Oakley Street, for a scene after Alex’s release.
Open to walk across, day and night.
goloss · 275 Pentonville Road, King’s Cross, London N1
At Kubrick’s request, Warner Bros withdrew the film when its British run ended in early 1973. Nobody noticed for over five years.
A club and live music venue; doors open for shows.
Stay
The country club from the window scene is a hotel now, beside the house where Kubrick lived and edited.
Barnet Lane, Elstree
The old Edgwarebury Country Club, where the window scene was filmed, next door to Kubrick’s home. 49 rooms in the Tudor house or the newer wing.
Check roomsGo there
Two archives open their boxes if you ask ahead: Burgess’s in Manchester and Kubrick’s in London; or find a film walk in Chelsea.
Cambridge Street, Manchester · Reading Room by pre-booked appointment
Book a Reading Room visit to the papers of the man who wrote the novel and invented Nadsat.
Ask for a visitLondon College of Communication, Elephant and Castle · Monday to Friday, by appointment only
Scripts, set plans, props and costumes from his whole career, including a 1971 Clockwork Orange iron-on patch. Weekdays, by appointment.
Ask for a visitLondon
Live marketplace results for film-location walks and drives in London. None is a Clockwork Orange tour; Chelsea routes pass the King’s Road and the river.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
No dated screening or talk for the film was listed when we checked on 8 October 2026.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
Original posters from our store, the restored novel with its glossary, and the soundtrack on vinyl.
An original 1972 poster, 27 × 41 inches, art credited to David Pelham. Linen-backed, mint.
In stock
View posterA small original French poster from 1980, 40 × 60 cm, with art by Philip Castle. Near mint.
In stock
View posterThe big French poster from 1981, 120 × 160 cm. Rolled, previously folded, near mint.
In stock
View posterAnthony Burgess, ed. Andrew Biswell
Burgess’s text as he first wrote it, with a Nadsat glossary, edited by the Foundation’s director.
Find the bookAnthony Burgess
The American Norton edition; Norton printed the first glossary, in 1963.
Find the bookVarious artists · LP, Warner Bros. Records (UK), 1971
The British soundtrack album on Warner Bros.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyWendy Carlos · LP, Columbia (US), 1972
The complete electronic score, released in 1972 under the name Walter Carlos.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
12 of 12 places · 12 of 12 Moments
Elstree Way at Bullhead Road, Borehamwood
The Korova Milkbar is built as a set in a factory near Borehamwood, lit by its own bulbs.
Binsey Walk, Southmere, Thamesmead, London SE2
Alex walks home along Binsey Walk; the lake beside it plays the Flat Block Marina.
Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge
The new lecture block at Brunel plays the outside of the Ludovico Medical Facility.
Stratfield Road, Borehamwood
A flat at the top of Canterbury House becomes Alex’s home in Linear North.
49 King’s Road at Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London SW3
Alex browses the record boutique, filmed in daylight through a very wide lens.
The southern underpass between Trinity Road and Swandon Way, Wandsworth
The first night scene, in a Wandsworth subway.
Norwood High Street, West Norwood, London SE27
Nettlefold Hall plays the hall where the cure is presented.
Chelsea Embankment at Oakley Street, London SW3
A scene after Alex’s release, on Chelsea Embankment by the bridge.
Barnet Lane, Elstree WD6 3RE
The window scene after the treatment, at the country club next to Kubrick’s house.
Radlett, Hertfordshire. A private home
The writer’s house is two houses: rooms in Radlett, a front in Oxfordshire, a bathroom and hall in a factory.
275 Pentonville Road, King’s Cross, London N1
The film leaves British screens in early 1973; the Scala shows it anyway in 1992; it returns on 17 March 2000.
Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester M1 5BY
Burgess writes the novel and its slang, Nadsat.
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