Strange Days Out #1 (The Little Britain sketch)
I urge everyone to visit Hammerwood Park (the website is quite interesting also - for internet historians, the ‘web designer’ uses the <blink> tag and the pages haven’t been modified since 1999! A real piece of internet history…).
Where to start?
We were out for a drive near East Grinstead having looked at a couple of houses. We met up with my mother, had a horrible pub lunch at a promising looking but ultimately dreary country pub. Mum suggested that we stop at a country house she’d seen a sign for - the sign mentioned cream teas.
The first indication that all was not as it should be was a sign on the entry road warning drivers that the road was private and ‘unmade’ and that you proceed at your own risk. OK.
We finally reached the tumble-down grandeur of your basic Greek revivalist 18th century stately home. There were a number of abandoned cars in the drive, some agricultural machinery and a couple of mini Unimog type vehicles (which looked cool).
I was scared - but mum saw a sign that pointed to the cream teas. We went round the back of the house, where we found a small group of people being shouted at by a grey haired posh bloke. The moment he saw us he shouted “Your late!”.
My first instinct was to run. Run all the way back to the safety of South East London. But it was to late, he seemed to think we were part of a some pre-arranged tour.
As it turned out, we weren’t the only people to get shouted at for being late. A couple more small groups arrived in short order, got shouted at and joined the tour. We discovered later that they too had just seen the sign and driven in. The posh guide/owner seemed to think that we had all seen the website and journeyed to Hammerwood. He is of course, insane.
There then followed a tour, during which he leapt around like a clown on acid - randomly playing the various pianos, organs and harpsichords that filled every room. These musical interludes punctuated his many rants and diatribes on 1) the nouveaux riche 2) identity cards 3) modernity and 4) how lucky we all are that he is renovating this country house and single handedly saving classical music for an ungrateful world.
This guy is rude, arrogant, unpleasantly posh and completely uninterested (to the point of distain) in answering any questions about his house or engaging with any of the people who are paying £6 to be shouted at.
I recommend it - it is genuinely like some kind of performance art, improv comedy sketch.
The Elgin room - where tea is served
Mental posh bloke, resting on his organ.
Hammerwood park is on the A264 near East Grinstead.
Written by exmonkey on August 5th, 2006 with
17 comments.
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Other houses open to the public don’t bother - they just give you a boring book to go around with or a pre-recorded machine. 
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#1. August 5th, 2006, at 10:17 PM.
Great post, hilarious. You’re right about the site too.