HORROR IN ROYAL WINDSOR

Think of Windsor and what words come to mind?  Royalty? River? Castle?  These are the things that Windsor is best known for, but what may be less well known is the role the town has played in the making of some of the best-known horror films, particularly those made by Hammer Films.  The focal point for the filming was the gothic-looking turretted building called Oakley Court on the outskirts of Windsor next to the River Thames.  Oakley Court is currently a hotel, although it was reportedly put up for sale earlier this year.  Because of its dramatic, spooky appearance and its location adjacent to the Bray Studios Oakley Court came to be used for a large number of film productions, some 200 in all. 

In 1957 Peter Cushing was filmed at Oakley Court dabbling in science with monstrous consequences in The Curse Of Frankenstein.  The following year Cushing was joined by the other great horror supremo Christopher Lee in Dracula, in which Oakley Court portrayed Arthur Holmwood's house.  In 1960 the building's entrance became the entrance to Castle Meinster in The Brides Of Dracula.  Then it was a girls' school in Nightmare (1962).  In 1964 Frankenstein made another appearance in The Evil Of Frankenstein, with Oakley Court as the Frankenstein family castle near Karlstad.  The building appeared as Nahum Witley's house in Monstor Of Terror (1965) and Hamilton Manor in The Plague Of The Zombies (1966).  The building's castle-like appearance served it well again in And Now The Screaming Starts (1973) when the exterior of the building depicted Fengriffen Castle.  The musical comedy The Rocky Horror Show made use of Oakley Court in 1975.  At the time of filming the hotel was to all intents and purposes a decrepit shell of a building, with buckets dotted around for catching the rainwater coming through the holes in the roof.  The building was used for the exterior castle scenes, while parts of the interior were used for the criminologist's study, the dining room, Brad's room, Janet's room and Columbia's room. 

However, the making of films in the horror genre in Windsor was not exclusively confined to Oakely Court.  In 1955 The Quatermass Experiment made use of a number of locations around the town.  This horror classic featured a half-man half-monster called Carroon.  While mutating, Carroon steals drugs from a chemist's shop: the building used is the Woods Of Windsor shop on Queen Charlotte Street, incidentally the shortest street in Britain.  The scene featuring the discovery of a trail of slime was filmed in Goswell Hill, beside the railway station.   In 1966 the comedy Carry On Screaming featured a scene involving a police station which was filmed in St Leonard's Road.  The building used for the police station was a former fire station, but is now an arts centre.  Sergeant Bung's house in the film was on Queens Road.

So, on the occasion of Halloween lets turn down the lights, put on one of these classic horror films and give thanks to Oakley Court and to Windsor for their contribution to the horror film industry.

For tourist information on Windsor, follow this link.

Map of the town. 

Windsor sceptre.  Photo by Mark Furney, via Wikimedia Commons

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: THREE MEN IN A BOAT

I have a great affection for the River Thames.  I came to know every inch of the stretches of the river from the source up to Windsor some years ago when I set about walking sections of the Thames Path.  From the intermittent trickle of the source near the village of Kemble in Gloucestershire, via the wild meanderings beyond Lechlade, the bucolic stretches from Oxford to Reading, Henley to Maidenhead, and finally that amazing moment when Windsor Castle came into view in all its glory.  So it was with great enthusiasm that I embarked on reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, which tells the story of a boat trip from Kingston Upon Thames to Oxford made by three friends - the author, Harris and George - and an errant dog called Montmorency (the men were based on real people, the dog was fictional).  Published in 1889, at around the time that leisure boating on the Thames became fashionable, it provides a fascinating insight into the life and mores of the late 19th century, as well as a sense of humour which has stood the test of time.

Kingston Upon Thames, or Cyninges tun as it was known during its early days in the 9th century, got its name from the fact that the Saxon kings were crowned here. It is here that, on a "glorious morning" the three friends arrive by train from London Waterloo, having bribed a train driver to go off his designated route to take them there, and take possession of the boat that is to be their home for the duration of the trip.  Just around the first bend from Kingston is Hampton Court with its maze, which features in one of the most comic scenes in the book, in which Harris leads a group of tourists into the maze and gets them lost in it for hours.  Then on to Moulsey Lock, which the author describes beautifully, capturing the typical boating scene of the day with its "brilliant tangle of bright blazers, and gay caps, and saucy hats".  The trio spend their first night camping at Picnic Point, Runnymede, which is near Magna Carta Island (or Magna Charta Island as named in the book).  This is a location with huge historical significance, being where King John sealed the Magna Carta, hence the name of the island, which is one of the principal contenders for the exact location where this happened.

Magna Carta Memorial - geograph.org.uk - 943627. Photo by Andy Stephenson, via Wikimedia Commons

Windsor, surprisingly, gets short shrift in the book, while Maidenhead is dismissed as "too snobby to be pleasant".  However, the author is much more impressed with Marlow, where Montmorency has an undignified spat with a cat, and where the three friends replenish their supplies in the local stores, resulting in a procession of delivery boys taking baskets of food down to the boat.  Up to this point, the author has been effusive in his praise of the river's beauty, but at Reading the tone changes, describing the river as "dismal and dirty", and with the comment that "one does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading".  Some may say not a lot has changed, although the day I passed through Reading on my walk the riverside area seemed pleasant enough.  Beyond Reading, the neighbouring villages of Streatley and Goring are described as "a great fishing centre", which still seems to be true to this day. 

River Thames at Marlow - geograph.org.uk - 488905. Photo by Nigel Cox, via Wikimedia Commons

Wending their way towards Oxford, the friends arrive at Dorchester (Dorchester-on-Thames that is, not the one in Dorset!) where the countryside "grows more hilly, varied, and picturesque".  Dorchester is another historical highlight along the river: as its name suggests, it has Roman origins, and it was once the capital of Wessex, somewhat hard to believe now, looking at this sleepy little village. Then Abingdon, "a typical country town of the smaller order", and finally the stretch from Iffley to Oxford - "the most difficult bit of the river I know" declares the author, due to the nature of the currents.  Sadly, the trip comes to an abrupt end further back downstream at Pangbourne, where due to the fact that it is pouring with rain the trio decide to cut short their journey and head back by train to London, leaving the boat and its contents with a local boatman who they fool into thinking they will be coming back for it.

Iffley Lock - geograph.org.uk - 439741. Photo by Stephen McKay, via Wikimedia Commons

See here for a guide to the Thames, and if you feel like walking it, check out the Thames Path website.