Pebble Mill – Page 9 – What Was Pebble Mill?

David Frost on Pebble Mill

Copyright resides with the original holder no reproduction without permission.

I met Sir David Frost when I was a researcher on the lunchtime chat show, Pebble Mill. He was publicising the first volume of his autobiography ‘From Congregations to Audiences’ in the early nineties and I was lucky enough to prepare the interview. The book was a fantastic read, the thing that struck me the most was how young he was when he fronted That Was The Week That Was, just 23 and in his mid thirties when he interviewed Nixon.

I remember trying to arrange a chat with him before the interview so we could run through the questions and I had to phone him just before he boarded his flight to America on Concorde to present his weekly show there. Although I was a young researcher, he was very generous and gave me plenty of time to tease out the best anecdotes.

He arrived at the studios in Birmingham in a black cab and was an absolute pleasure to meet, a legend of broadcasting and I’m so sad he’s gone.

Caroline Officer

Plan of Pebble Mill Basement – John Madin

Negative, Basement Plan, 1971. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).

Plan of Pebble Mill’s basement from 1971, by architect John Madin.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook group about the basement:

Stuart Gandy: ‘We had an engineering store room down there. It was right beneath studio A, and quite a trek to get to up some steps and down some others. It was quite an Aladdin’s cave of stuff that had been pensioned off never to be seen again. Every now and again attempts were made to sort it out and it was at it its best just before we moved out!’

Peter Poole: ‘The echo plate room was down there. Also two sub-stations to ensure mains power. If this failed batteries would give a limited supply until the generator started.’

Andrew Hewkin: ‘I went down, with permission, after most staff had left, to see if there was anything worth salvaging. There were literally thousands of sound effects discs, some 78s, many 7-inch. Enough to fill several skips, which is probably what happened.’

Diane Reid: ‘Used as a music location on more than one occasion’

Charles White: ‘it was always rumoured there was a nuclear bunker down there, and a shooting range, true or false ?’

Peter Poole: ‘I fully explored the basement and found no evidence of a nuclear bunker.’

Giles Herbert: ‘The range was not purpose built: It was the passage that ran under to corridor from the bottom of the goods lift by Studio A scene door and ended up near the steps up to the approach to the loading bay outside the security office.’

Pebble Mill site plan 1963 – John Madin

Negative, Site Survey, 1963. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).

This is the site plan for the Pebble Mill building by the architect, John Madin. It dates from 1963, although the building was not opened until 1971.

Pebble Mill building – newly completed

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Photo, February 1971. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).

This photo of the newly finished Pebble Mill studies, was taken in February 1971, just as the building was finished. It was taken as a record by the architect John Madin’s company.

Architectural model of Pebble Mill

Photo, Model, February 1962. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).

This architectural model dates from 1962. John Madin was the architect for BBC Pebble Mill, and his practice was based on the Hagley Road. Notice that behind the office block is the helix car park and outside broadcast garage, which was never built. Apparently Birmingham City Council had insisted on ample car parking provision in giving the building planning permission. I understand that it wasn’t built due to costs, at a time when the BBC was being hard hit by ITV, and when the Licence Fee wasn’t increasing much.