BBC's iconic Television Centre reduced to a carcass

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Shepherd's Bush might lack the cultural cache of Covent Garden, Shaftesbury Avenue and the South Bank but for more than 50 years it was a powerhouse of popular entertainment.

The unglamorous west London suburb gave birth to some of the greatest moments in a 'golden age' of television.

The BBC moved to W12 in the 1950s, taking over a ramshackle collection of former film studios in Lime Grove a theatre on Shepherd's Bush Green.

But it was the purpose-built Television Centre in Wood Lane which became the beating heart of BBC TV. Much of Television Centre is now being reduced to rubble.

Five of the eight main production studios have been bulldozed. The 'Spur', a late addition to the site and for many years the home of television news, has also gone.

The restaurant block has been demolished and the famous Blue Peter garden has been dug up. Soon the grey, grubby and unloved East Tower will be pulled down.

Television Centre is being turned into luxury homes along with offices, a hotel and a branch of the Soho House members club. The iconic circular building known as the Doughnut is listed and will stay.

Three of the studios, TC1, TC2 and TC3 have survived the wrecking ball to be refurbished and leased back to the BBC.

And the redbrick 1990s news centre, known as Stage Six, is now the home of the corporation's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

The pictures below show the site in February, at the start of demolition.