UNITED KINGDOM – London, Ornamental Canal & Tobacco Docks // The World Is Not Enough (1999)

The Ornamental Canal in Wapping, London looks pretty plain. Luckily, James Bond came around to add some spice to the waters.

Why Bond was here
In the pre title sequence of The World Is Not Enough, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) recovers ransom money from oil tycoon Sir Robert King (David Calder). But the money is booby-trapped, King gets killed in an explosion at MI6 in London. Bond sees the assassin and chases her with a Q-modified speedboat in the canals of river Thames.

Bond takes a turn at the Ornamental Canal…

How you gonna get there
The speedboat chase looks like it is a straight hunt from Vauxhall to the Millennium Dome in East London – but scenes had been filmed at numerous locations on the southern and northern banks and canals of Thames and even at the Isle of Dogs and the Royal Victoria Docks.
Wapping is one of them. It’s the scene where Bond turns the boat around a corner, soaking two poor traffic wardens, before jumping up the stepped canals and launching through a boathouse.

…that looks much more quietly on regular London days.

The part had been filmed at the Ornamental Canal on Wapping Lane and then at the Tobacco Docks. The canal steps are real, but the boathouse was prepped for the movie. After it, the canal has a dead end – so in reality, a chase wouldn’t continue there.
You can take a tube to either “Wapping” or “Shadwell” and then walk along Wapping Lane towards the Tobacco Docks. The boathouse had been built at the Ornamental Canal in front of the Docks. Take a little stroll further west along the canal to get to the corner, where the scene with the wardens had been filmed.

Good to know
Make sure to check the homepage of the Tobacco Docks before you visit the location. The docks aren’t a tobacco warehouse like in the 19th century anymore – but a hub for food markets and festivals. There is always something on, so you might spend an enjoyable afternoon there.

It is always funny, when you visit a movie location in real life – and realize, that things just couldn’t go like in the movie. The canal has a pedestrian lane, but no real street. So there is no way, the policemen could have been at that corner and get splashed. So the filming crew put a car there on purpose – and for the laughs.

© 2015 Huntingbond (1,3,4,5), © 1977 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation (2)