If someone told you there was a neighbourhood where the likes of Olivia Colman, Sir Tom Jones or Ariana Grande have all been spotted, you’d be forgiven for assuming it was some glitzy enclave of Los Angeles.
However, a small, unassuming British town that’s just a short train ride out of central London is fast becoming the UK’s answer to Beverly Hills – and is set to get a Hollywood-style studio visitor attraction later this year.
Borehamwood, in Hertfordshire, even has its own Walk of Fame running along the high street, dotted with names such as Simon Cowell and Alfred Hitchcock.
How do I know it’s such a celebrity hotspot? Because I lived there until I was 30.
Home to Elstree Studios since 1914, my hometown has, over the decades, helped create some of the biggest blockbusters in cinematic history including Star Wars, The Avengers and The King’s Speech.
More recently, Wicked was filmed at state-of-the-art Sky Studios, which opened in March 2023 and is just around the corner from the flat I was living in until two years prior.
During filming, Jonathan Bailey, who plays dashing Fiyero in the hit franchise, revealed in a BBC Radio 1 interview with Greg James that he treated Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo to fish and chips at local favourite, Golden Plaice.
It’s the same chippy where my parents would pick up our Sunday night takeaway when I was growing up: cod or haddock cooked in matzo meal, nearly every week. We were on first-name terms with the owner, George.
So I couldn’t quite believe it when I heard Ariana had been hanging out there too.
Who needs LA? Hayley Minn (pictured on the set of The Voice) reveals what it’s like to live in the UK’s answer to Hollywood: Borehamwood
Welcome to TV land: Hayley grew up close to Elstree Studios, where EastEnders is filmed. Right: Hayley and her mum pictured taking a tour in the Big Brother house, which was also filmed in Borehamwood
Ariana Grande ate at Borehamwood’s local chippy, Golden Plaice, when she was filming Wicked at Sky Studios
While it’s unusual to see such a huge A-lister, celebrity sightings are fairly standard in Borehamwood.
Alongside blockbuster films, Elstree Studios is also home to a long list of major TV productions, including Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice, EastEnders and The Crown.
For that reason, it’s never been unusual to spot a resident of Albert Square wandering along the high street or hopping on a train into London at Elstree & Borehamwood station.
In fact, before she landed the role of Stacey Slater on EastEnders, actress Lacey Turner was the Saturday girl at the hairdressers my mum went to.
My mum would come home with regular updates – having had her hair shampooed by Lacey – about the rising star’s excitement over auditioning to play Joe Swash’s on-screen sister, losing out to his real-life sister, and then eventually being cast as Stacey instead.
My own first celebrity encounter came in 2002, when I was 11 years old.
At the height of the Slater family’s EastEnders fame, I was sitting in McDonald’s when the entire soap clan walked in for a bite to eat.
I sat there, completely starstruck, watching Kat (Jessie Wallace), Zoe (Michelle Ryan), Big Mo (Laila Morse) and Dr Anthony Trueman (Nicholas Bailey) order Big Macs.
At the height of the Slater family’s EastEnders fame, Hayley was sitting in McDonald’s when the entire soap clan walked in for a bite to eat
My mum, unfazed, told me not to bother them. ‘They’re just going about their everyday lives,’ she said – a sentiment that stuck with me.
Because of that, I never approached the many stars I spotted growing up.
I have nothing to document the countless times I saw the late June Brown, who famously played Dot Cotton, doing her weekly shop in Tesco; or the time I chatted away with Steps star Faye Tozer in a nail bar while she was getting a manicure for Strictly.
One afternoon in Nando’s, I saw Nitin Ganatra and Nina Wadia, who played husband-and-wife Zainab and Masood Ahmed in EastEnders, laughing with John Partridge, who played the character of Christian – just days after viewers had watched the Masoods discover their son Syed’s illicit gay affair with Christian.
And I certainly don’t have photo evidence of stopping for Sir Tom Jones to cross the road in front of me – the Welsh superstar was in Borehamwood filming The Voice at the time.
Living so close to the studios does come with its perks, though. Throughout my teens and early twenties, I managed to nab several blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances on television.
This wasn’t through sneaking on set – Elstree doesn’t offer studio tours, not even for locals – but by applying for audience tickets like everyone else via websites such as Applause Store and SRO Audiences (although my mum and I did once manage to sneak into the Strictly Christmas special, thanks to my Tinder match who worked on the show!)
Thanks to those tickets though, I’ve been in the audience for everything from Dancing On Ice to Children in Need and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
Hayley (middle) made it onto Big Brother’s Little Brother during the Celebrity Big Brother 2010 final, screaming ‘Vinnie to winnie!’ at 2007 winner Brian Belo
Borehamwood local Hayley (far right) pictured in the studio audience for Children in Need one year
There was one show that truly took over Borehamwood in the Noughties: Big Brother.
Every Friday night, a queue of fans would snake down the side of the town’s Tesco and around the block.
The house was so close to mine that whenever friends came to visit, I’d take them around the corner to show it off – despite the fact the fences were so high you couldn’t see a thing.
On finale night each series, my entire road would spill out onto the pavement to watch the fireworks, which always went off five minutes before they appeared on TV.
And, from the moment we turned 18, my friends and I would queue in the bitter cold after school, clutching our (frankly terrible) homemade signs, ready to cheer or boo whoever was being evicted.
I was so committed that I even made it onto Big Brother’s Little Brother during the Celebrity Big Brother 2010 final, screaming ‘Vinnie to winnie!’ at 2007 winner Brian Belo.
Despite my die-hard Vinnie Jones backing, Alex Reid went on to win that year.
Because Elstree Studios is a working production site, security around its unassuming exterior is tight.
But there are still places around Borehamwood where you can catch a glimpse of the magic.
Pictured: Elstree Studios’ unassuming exterior – where your only way in is through applying for audience tickets via websites such as Applause Store and SRO Audiences
When The Crown was filmed at Elstree Studios, Hayley often caught a glimpse of the Downing Street set (pictured) through the trees, while walking her dog around Maxwell Park
She also got to sit in the Diary Room chair when she took a tour of the Big Brother house
Maxwell Park, where I regularly walked my dog, offered fleeting views of The Crown’s Downing Street set through the trees – although I never spotted any of the star-studded cast.
Some locals are even luckier. A few of my friends’ homes look directly onto Albert Square from their back gardens and they get to watch the Christmas decorations go up in August, when the festive episodes of the soap are filmed.
Every so often, the sets do open to the public, and over the years I’ve been lucky enough to tour both the EastEnders set and the Big Brother house – and even got to sit in the big red chair on the set of The Voice.
Last year, funding was approved for a permanent immersive Elstree Studios experience, set to open in December 2026.
Using holographics, virtual production and AI-assisted storytelling, the attraction could rival the Warner Bros. Studio Tour five miles west in Watford.
If it’s even half as exciting as growing up surrounded by film and television in Borehamwood, it’s sure to be something special.
