Bottle of Fake Blood

A bottle of fake blood used in conjunction with vampire teeth, created by Roy Ashton (1909-1995) in about 1960.

Roy Ashton (1909–95) and Phil Leakey (1908–92) were master make-up artists who worked on many of the British cult horror films of the mid-20th century. A trained artist, Australia-born Ashton began his career at Gaumont-British Film Corporation in 1932 as a means of supplementing his passion for opera singing. In 1955, Ashton became the assistant to Hammer Films’ Phil Leakey, the first makeup artist to receive on-screen credit for ‘Special Make-up Effects’. Following Leakey’s departure from Hammer in 1958, Ashton took over as head makeup artist, where he continued his expert work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Fake blood was an important component in the work of Roy Ashton, especially in his work for Hammer Films on films such as The Brides of Dracula (1960) and Kiss of the Vampire (1963). 'Kensington Gore' has become a generic term for stage blood. Made by retired British pharmacist, John Tinegate or Tynegate, during the 1960s and 1970s, the name was a pun on the London place and street.