Tired of London, Tired of Life - A website about things to do in London

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8 March 2010

Check up on a Breakfast TV icon - 2 Lock Keepers Cottages

Bit of a niche one this, and not something that will be familiar to your author's readers abroad, but let's look at 2 Lock Keepers Cottages, Old Ford Lock, London E3 2NN, an East London house which was the centre of Channel 4 Breakfast TV for ten years from September 1992 until March 2002.


Built in 1947, as housing for the lockkeepers, toll takers, and navigation operators of neighbouring Old Ford Locks, the houses are Grade Two listed and had remained unused for about twenty years until the Big Breakfast acquired them in 1992.

They now sit in the shadow of the Olympic site, just 200m from the Stadium, and were purchased in 2005 by the Olympic project under a Compulsory Purchase Order for the Games, leading many to assume they would be demolished. However, they still stand and outline plans seem to show the cottages and gardens will remain.

Since the Big Breakfast finished, the house has been renovated, but some of the well-recognised aspects of the show remain, including the swimming pool at the rear. More recently the house has apparently featured in BBC Two's Neneh and Andi Dish It Up, BBC Three's Singing With the Enemy, and ITV's Too Fat To Toddle.

For more on the Big Breakfast, and the cottages, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Breakfast#Lock_Keepers.27_Cottages

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