Pebble Mill was a pioneer of daytime television in the UK. Back in the seventies, when television during the daytime in Britain consisted of a midday news bulletin, a couple of children's programmes and schools' television, the BBC introduced a new lunchtime magazine preogramme. Pebble Mill At One ran from 1973 to 1986 and was hosted for a long time by the late Donny Macleod, Marion Foster and Bob Langley.
The TV career of broadcaster and gardener Alan Titchmarsh was launched at the Mill, and many a new presenter cut his or her teeth on the perils of live television at Pebble Mill.
Pebble Mill at One was, unusually, not broadcast from a TV studio, but from the foyer (or at least, what was supposed to be the foyer) of the building. This meant that if you actually wanted to get into the building to work, you had to go in through a sort of 'workman's entrance'). The building's designers had included a lighting grid and camera points in the foyer and even audience seating, making it a versatile and unusual place from which to broadcast.
But Pebble Mill is more than just a collection of studios. It was also the BBC Midlands Region headquarters, and as such the base for a number of local radio stations and regional TV broadcasts. It also was the home of some of the BBC's most popular drama series including "All Creatures Great and Small", "Poldark", "Howard's Way" and, most recently, "Doctors".
Pebble Mill has also produced the popular TV dramas Dalziel and Pascoe and Dangerfield, as well as the long-running radio soap The Archers.
The BBC's answer to This Morning with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, Good Morning with Anne and Nick, also came from Pebble Mill. Nick Owen is now one of the main presenters of the BBC's regional programme, "Midlands Today".
So what was it like as a place to work? I spent a few months there working on a series of programmes starring Thora Hird and a couple of episodes of the evergreen "Songs of Praise". Our office was bright and sunny, overlooking the garden (which was jolly useful as we were able to film a few interviews there!) until it was bulldozed to make room for more office space for the "Good Morning" programme.
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