Can anyone identify (preferably with a street name or Google Maps locator) where the building is located that was used for the publishing house? It was right on the Thames, presumably in Wapping somewhere.
I've had the chance to walk through the "nightmare tunnel" at Greenwich, which was fun!
The fictional Innocent House of P.D. James's novel was set on the Thames in Wapping, and was purportedly inspired by the Ca' Foscari in Venice. In the exterior shots of Innocent House in this adaptation of the novel, the filmakers have clearly used exterior footage of the actual Ca Foscari in Venice. It appears that some shots have been reversed, and that an alternative location has been used for some close-up exterior scenes. Here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Foscari
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45.434516,12.327034&z=19&t=h&hl=en
I've just been re-watching the film adaptation, and can give you a little supplementary information. The film-makers seem to have used the building adjacent (immediately west of) Pier Head Wapping as the basis for Innocent House. A Venetian-style facade appears to have been super-imposed on the building somehow, as it certainly hasn't got this facade in real life - it's a Georgian brick building. Nor is the large stone archway structure there. Another discrepancy is that the building in Google Earth appears to have a very large tree immediately in front of the facade, which clearly isn't there in the film - perhaps they've reversed the footage and filmed the mirror-image building on the eastern side of the Pier Head, which doesn't have the tree, superimposing the footage on the "correct" view of distant Tower Bridge in post-production. Both buildings have substantial chimney stacks which don't appear in the film.
Google Maps give the approximate address (on the road, rather than river side, obviously) as 16 Wapping High Street.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45.434516,12.327034&z=19&t=h&hl=en
I agree that the building used as the publishing house does look to have a facade superimposed, it does not look real, nor does the Portland stone archway.
Do you think that Dalgliesh's apartment was also filmed in the Docklands/Wapping? Tower Bridge does look quite far so presumably, you're looking at it downriver from the East of London going towards Central London. Then again the filmakers could have superimposed this to give the geographical impression and sense of place from the book that they were trying to achieve.