'I'm not misogynistic, the bitch just won't LISTEN!' by Kara
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 10:03 AM

I've some extremely distressing news.

It's a nightmare, I tell you, it's a nightmare.

As you may recall, towards the end of my trip to Engrand in December '07, two friends and I hiked up to Sleddale Hall, probably the most famous filming location for the film Withnail & I. I've mentioned it, but not in detail, and I think it's time to.

It was a horrible damn hike. Why? Well, our web-guide said it was an easy-to-medium hike. But we were going through Wet Sleddale (yeah, that shoulda been an indicator, never mind the actual scenes in the movie) in December, after rain, freezing weather, and then more rain. You have to park two miles away, and then you have nothing but dirt paths. I'm sure in warm, dry weather it's a little less daunting. But we went anyway.

I mean, I fell through ice knee-deep into frozen mud and ... it was just a terror. We could sorta-kinda see the house way up there at a distance ... I mean, there was only one ... and we passed another filming spot along the way, as well as signposts with notes and quotes from other movie-fan hikers. So we knew we were generally going in the right direction. Probably. At any rate, I felt like I could trust the others before us who were equally foolish enough to go up there. It was oddly reassuring, notes from total strangers who were doing the same thing. Whether they were leaving notes with future hikers in mind, or just felt like leaving their mark, I'll never know.

When we got to the gate, the angle we were at didn't look at all familiar. But several people had written SHUT THIS GATE AND KEEP IT SHUT on the outside, and Kev gave said gate a little push to see if it'd open. We really hoped it would. I mean, we figured it was interesting enough to see it from the outside -- unfamiliar as it looked from where we were -- but it would have been better ...

Aha, good. The gate opened. We went through and around the back, thinking maybe we could almost see it, but still vaguely underwhelmed and about to (at least in my case) try to refrain from calling it a wasted hike.

Then we came around into the courtyard and saw this. The inset screencap should give you an idea of just how much it hit us between the eyes to realise that we were in the right place, after all.

After a fair bit of time spent feeling damned relieved, we ran around having a look at the place. This wasn't where the interiors were done -- these interiors were fairly useless -- but those weren't quite as memorable visually to begin with. This is the place fans of the movie actually think of. So we had a bit of a poke around, as hikers before us had ... scoping out the bits from memory where various scenes were filmed. Then we saw the doors.

There are a couple of wooden doors there, and each one was covered with scrawls from previous visitors. Movie quotes and the like all over.

And yes, we left our mark.

So now the water board is auctioning it off. I mean, it's been theirs since the 1920s. It's been abandoned since after the film came out. But it bothers the hell out of me ... though it shouldn't ... that they're now going to sell it off as a charming fixer-upper that 'would make a lovely family home.'

Silly. Very silly of me. But ... I don't know. You've no idea, unless you're a fan of the movie, just how proud I am that I made that hike. What an amazing surprise it was to see those doors covered in other people's writing when we were mostly sure it was going to be nothing more than a half-recognisable pile of rocks. It's a sense of accomplishment getting there in the first place, and then seeing that you're part of a group who did it.

What kills me most is that if this goes to someone who wants to make it a family home, those doors will be the first things to go. And where will they go? Bonfire. No renovator is going to want to save a pair of doors with fannish scrawlings all over. Years of hikers going out of their way, just to have it burned or trashed.

Well ... whatever happens ... at least I left my mark for a little while. I know a lot -- a lot -- of people will be sad to see what happens to it. Since I doubt any fan's gonna have that sort of money.

Cry moar, manga-ka.

If you have been, there must and shall be aspirin.