Television House

Television House is the former name of a building on Kingsway in London. From 1918, it was the base of the Air Ministry. From 1955, the building was the headquarters of Associated-Rediffusion/Rediffusion London, Independent Television News (ITN), TV Times magazine, the Independent Television Companies Association and, at first, Associated Television. Later, it was the initial base for Rediffusion's successor, Thames Television. After Thames moved out, it was the headquarters of the General Register Office for England and Wales and subsequently of ExxonMobil. In 2025, the building was acquired by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). It is now known as 61 Aldwych.

The Kingsway area had been redeveloped at the start of the 20th century from slums and tenement housing into a broad avenue with grand office buildings and expensive townhouses.

After the formation of the Air Ministry in 1918, its headquarters was on Kingsway; one of two identical buildings opposite Bush House became Adastral House, the name being derived from the RAF motto. This remained the home of the Air Ministry through World War II, and the roof of the building in 1940 during The Blitz is where, while fire-watching, Arthur Harris, made the remark about the bombing to a companion, "Well, they are sowing the wind...". The building became known to the public after the war as it was announced during BBC weather forecasts that the Met Office had measured the temperatures and wind speeds in central London from its roof.

During WWII, a Jamaican teenager called Billy Strachan sold all of his possessions and travelled all the way from the Caribbean to Adastral House, incorrectly believing that this was where he should go to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). When he arrived he was racially abused by the guards, before being rescued by sergeant who gave Strachan correct instructions on how to join the RAF. Strachan then went onto become an accomplished bomber pilot and a pioneer of black civil rights in Britain.

In 1954, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) awarded the first two contracts for the imminent ITV commercial television network. Because the BBC had previously held a monopoly on broadcasting, there were no non-BBC television studio facilities in the UK. Associated-Rediffusion, as one of the two contractors, needed to build from scratch a whole new facility. The company had hired Thomas Brownrigg as General Manager, partially due to his extensive knowledge of planning and project management, which would be needed in simultaneously building a new company and its studios and headquarters.

British Electric Traction, the majority owner of Associated-Rediffusion, bought the freehold on Adastral House from the government. Brownrigg engaged Bovis Limited (later Bovis Construction) to gut the building internally and build a new suite of offices, technical facilities, and studios to be called Television House. This was begun in early 1955 and, with a planned start date for ITV of 22 September 1955, was worked on at great speed, virtually 24 hours a day.

Four small studios (numbered 7, 8, 9, and 10) were built inside the building, mainly for current affairs and continuity use (the main large studios, later the Fountain Studios, were based at the former 20th Century Fox studios in Wembley in Middlesex). Additionally, office space and dining facilities for over 1,000 people were created. A suite of management offices, replete with an oak-paneled boardroom, was built.

The original headquarters and studio facilities of ITN were located on the seventh and eighth floors of the building.