Elstree Way was constructed in the early 1930s and has contained the municipal centre of the town with Hertsmere Borough Council’s Civic Offices, the Police, Fire and Ambulance Stations, Library, the Venue Leisure Centre, Oaklands College and the Job Centre.
This end of Borehamwood originally had three farms and all the roads that linked them were just paths and tracks.
By 1938, development on both sides of Elstree Way had commenced. Through the following decades in a number of small individual building clusters sprung up. Notable along Elstree Way at various times were Elliots/GEC/Marconi, Sellotape, Carl Zeiss Scientific Instruments and Christian Salvesen.
Elstree Way was best known though for its film studios. Amalgamated was being constructed in Elstree Way when the developer went bankrupt and Lord Rank purchased the facility and 120 acres of land before it opened and then leased it to the Government at the outbreak of war.
In 1944, MGM were looking for a European base and purchased the studio and in 1946 began its completion and opening. The first MGM production to be made their was Edward, My Son starring Spencer Tracy. MGM was a going concern until 1970 having made 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Ivanhoe and many other movies. MGM created a huge backlot by buying the adjacent Thrift Farm. To the north of Elstree Way – huge sets were built during those decades becoming a feature of living in Borehamwood including castles, Wild West towns and more.
Today, nothing is left other than the base of the wall that ran along the front of the site and an electricity sub power station built in 1947. The MGM white clock tower continued to stand until 1986.
The Elstree Way Hotel was built around 1935 and was a pub, pub training centre and for a while the Borehamwood terminus of bus routes coming out of London. The Elstree Way Hotel was demolished in the 1980s to make way for new road layouts. Those new roads were built on the site of MGM with roads being named after movie stars and other notables in the film industry.
A surge in the population came with compulsory land purchasing by London County Council after the Second World War to cater for the baby boom families and roads to the south of Elstree Way were constructed along with housing.
Elstree Way covers the length of the route designated the A5135. The A5135 gained its number in the 1960s.
