Tim's Tiny Tour 5

TUESDAY 29th JUNE

Dusk was falling and dark clouds were wallowing on the horizon but it remained warm. A group of eight men and one lady gathered at the gates of a roadside tavern in olde Addlestone ready with their trusty steeds and eager to hunt for the House of Horror.

Casting aside any doubt that the skies may open hoods were thrust back and the horse power unleashed as they set off across the highways in the direction of Her Majesty and the outskirts of Windsor. One of our number surprised us by unleashing 260 horses from beneath his canopy under the name  of the ZT260. Having just completed 500 miles of running in it was time to exercise the right foot and listed to the 4.6 litres of V8 rumble. 

Don who had arrived in his humble Mondeo , the F still awaiting repair after shattering it's cambelt tensioner on the Martello tour , grabbed the opportunity to ride shotgun in NeilW's new beast. He was later seen arriving at Windsor white knuckled and with a cheesy grin.

AndyBates turned up in his ZR diesel to provide the other one of the non Fs to actually do the run - his F being fitted with a new front splitter and a respray to boot.

The miles quickly evaporated as the gallant band skirted the common land at Chobham and accelerated down the "mad mile" before skirting the edge of Windsor Great Park to arrive at Bray.

We could feel the air grow colder as we drew into the carriage waiting area (probably because it was now nine hours past midday and the dark was falling).

Having tethered and covered our steeds we ventured towards the gothic gloom of the House of Horror, in it's current guise of The Oakley Court Hotel. Above us on tall pedestals a myriad of  Hell Hounds perched watching. We safely negotiated the gryphons guarding the doorway and the gargoyle heads on the walls to find a very fine 4* hotel with lawns rolling down to the River Thames. A union jack flew from the turret and as the light diminished  a wash of green light illuminated the gentle ripples of the surface of the river and amber light shone up at the ridges and turrets of the house casting eerie shadows.

An ideal spot for an SEF meeting - all members received a short history of the house explaining it's association with horror - it was the location for over two hundred films made by the Hammer film company at the adjacent Bray Film Studios with such great titles as Dracula, The Reptile and The House in Nightmare Park and even the innocuous Half a Sixpence starring Tommy Steele ! Not only has it featured monsters of the horror variety but was also the setting for the little monsters in the St Trinians series of films. Famously it was also the setting for The Rocky horror Picture Show - "Was that a Castle I saw back there" .......No it was the Oakley Court Hotel !.