The Bill’s Sun Hill sign sells for £670

With 27 bids on an online auction site placed over a week the former main sign to the fictional Sun Hill Police Station in ITV’s cop drama The Bill went for nearly £700. A last minute bid saw just £20 difference grasp it.

Following the decision to dismantle parts of the former The Bill police set to increase studio space, the piece of television history was placed up for sale by Wimbledon Studios.

The decision was made to sell off some of the sets and props from The Bill, and other programmes, due to productions at the facilities requiring the space taken up by the set and prop storage.

“It may sound like a strange thing to do but we are expanding so fast that we have simply run out of space to store them!” – Wimbledon Studios.

Recently sets from ITV’s The Bill, which ran from 1984 to 2010, consisting of a courtroom and prison set were sold off alongside a virtually scale replica of the ground level House of Commons.

The House of Commons set was created in 1986 for First Among Equals for Granada TV. The Granada studio tour used the set for many years, before it was bought by award winning writer, Paul Abbot, who wrote State of Play for the BBC. He stored the set in a barn fully constructed before being bought by Wimbledon Studios.  When making the set, the designers tried to use materials similar to the actual House of Commons for authenticity and ensured the wood carvings were as exact as possible.

The Prison set is made up of a 40 foot communal corridor area bordered by cells, security gates at both ends, with a warden’s office, and a flight of stairs up to the mezzanine level and the governor’s office. Hollywood stars Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weiz filmed scenes in the Prison for the 2011 drama thriller 360, while Dizzee Rascal, and Rita Ora have both spent time behind the set’s bars filming music videos.

The 1000 square foot Courtroom set includes a Judge’s bench, Jury seating, waiting chambers and docks for the accused. The three combined sold on Ebay in March this year for £123,400.00 with over seventy bids.

Wimbledon Studios Managing Director Piers Read said, “Selling the sets cements our new future as an exclusive hub for creativity in South West London. High demand and upcoming productions require more floor space currently being taken up storing the House of Commons, Courtroom and Prison sets. While it will be sad to see such iconic creations go, our clients need the extra space to deliver their productions on time, so we need to make changes to accommodate their needs.”

The sign was first seen in 1990 when the production moved to the studios, complete with its police station exterior setting. It sold today on Ebay for £670.