James Bond fans have endured a rough few years. Ever since No Time to Die walloped off Daniel Craig, we’ve been stuck in a weird kind of limbo. There will eventually be a new James Bond film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, the most exciting director in the franchise’s history. But we don’t know when it will come out, or who will play Bond, or if 007 under Amazon will even be recognisable.
In summary, we need something tangible to ground our anxieties. What we need is to pack up our things and head to north Swindon, to the site of the former Motorola manufacturing facility, where a new housing estate has just named a bunch of roads after James Bond.
The BBC has reported that streets on Taylor Wimpey’s Robin Gardens development bear the names of figures close to the franchise. There is of course Bond Place, but also Desmond Crescent and Llewelyn Road, both named after the legendary actor who played Q. The BBC also reports that there is a nod to Pierce Brosnan, although the main draw seems to be Dench Close, which seems more like a warning than a residential address but never mind.
Why Swindon? Well, it could be because Ian Fleming is buried nearby, in the parish church of St James’s, Sevenhampton, or because he wrote Quantum of Solace just a 10-minute drive from the town centre. But no. It’s because, 25 years ago, the exterior of the Motorola building was passed off as a Turkish oil refinery in the film The World is Not Enough.
On one hand, this is all very sweet – for all anybody knows, the new estate will outlive Bond, and this will become a charming piece of local folklore, plus god knows Swindon could use a bit more glamour – but also: is that it? An entire estate has been named after the fact that a location scout decided that a phone factory looked enough like an oil refinery to fool cinemagoers?
Realistically, any number of locations have a similar claim to fame. The World is Not Enough was shot across the globe, with filming locations including Chamonix, the Bahamas and Chatham Dockyard. Perhaps they all deserve a Dench Close too.
And, remember, this is only one Bond film. The previous one, Tomorrow Never Dies, was shot in Feltham and Surrey Quays and the fourth level of Brent Cross Shopping Centre’s multistorey car park. The one that came after, Die Another Day, was filmed at the Eden Project and the Beyond Retro shop on Stoke Newington Road. In fact, if you go back as far as 1985’s A View to a Kill, you might notice that Zorin’s underground warehouse is actually a Renault distribution centre in, you guessed it, Swindon.
If an estate is to be developed anywhere near these locations, it has just as much right to be named after James Bond. Fortunately, in the case of A View to a Kill, there could not be a Dench Close, because Dame Judi Dench wouldn’t join the series for another decade. But what it could boast is a Moore Street and a Walken Way – maybe even a Grace Jones Boulevard – which actually sounds quite nice. The only possible point of contention would be Desmond Llewelyn, who was Q in both Swindon-set 007 outings. But surely you can’t name enough streets after Desmond Llewelyn.
In fact, maybe this is how we solve the housing crisis. The Robin Gardens development has been so warmly received that there is now a good argument for tracking down every single mundane establishing shot in the entire Bond franchise and building a new estate there. The tank chase sequence from GoldenEye that was filmed in Peterborough. The Shanghai swimming pool scene from Skyfall that was filmed at a Virgin Active in Canary Wharf. The climactic cargo plane scene from Die Another Day that was filmed at an abandoned Kent airport most recently used as a post-Brexit overspill lorry park. All of these could become homes for people who like James Bond slightly too much.
Until the next Bond film finally rolls around, this is the best we’ve got at keeping the flame alive. After all, what’s more in keeping with the Bond spirit: a road in Swindon named after Judi Dench, or that godawful James Bond gameshow Amazon made three years ago?