Eighty-seven years ago cameramen started shooting movie scenes on the plot of land now occupied by the BBC Elstree Centre after the opening of the village's first film studios.

Neptune Studios was launched on a site in Clarendon Road, Boreham Wood, in 1914, and, at the time, it was one of the most sophisticated production houses in Europe.

The company Neptune Films made dozens of silent pictures at the studios between 1914 and 1917, when it closed after many of its actors and staff had been called up for war service.

Despite the demise of Neptune, the studios continued to be used for film-making, and now, eight decades later, it has become the home of the BBC's most popular show, EastEnders.

Film historian Paul Welsh said: "Neptune Studios was the starting point for Borehamwood's film industry that is where it all began.

"Since then the studios on that site have been great employers and they have contributed a great deal to the town, in terms of its prosperity and its history."

Neptune Studios was founded by a consortium led by John East, a theatrical producer who travelled to Boreham Wood in 1913 in search of a suitable location for a film studio.

He chose Boreham Wood because it had a rail link to London, and because its surrounding countryside would provide good back-drops for filming on location.

The studios had one large stage for filming, which is believed to have been the first dark stage in Europe, a projection theatre, dressing rooms and laboratories.

Mr East, who lived in Theobald Street, acted in many of Neptune's pictures, which included feature films, plays, comic shorts and factual presentations.

The company's first movie, Harbour Lights, was released in the autumn of 1914, and Neptune was responsible for making Britain's first cartoons.

In 1917 the site was leased to Ideal Films, and it was later used by British Instructional Films, which specialised in documentaries, before it was converted to sound in the 1930s.

British National acquired the studios in 1938 and shot films there throughout the Second World War, despite the fact that the Ministry of Food had claimed part of the premises for storage.

The American heart-throb actor Douglas Fairbanks Junior leased the site in 1952 to make programmes for American television, and it was taken over by Lew Grade's ATV in 1960.

ATV produced television shows for British and American audiences, including The Muppet Show and Morecambe and Wise, there until 1983, and the BBC purchased the premises a year later.