Grim’s Dyke is the name of a mock Tudor house and estate in Old Redding, Harrow Weald, in north-west London, England. The house was built from 1870 to 1872 by Richard Norman Shaw for painter Frederick Goodall and named after the nearby prehistoric earthwork known as Grim’s Ditch.
The house is best known as the home of the dramatist W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, who lived there for the last two decades of his life. He died while attempting to save a girl from drowning in his huge lake. Lady Gilbert lived there until her death in 1936. The house was then used as a rehabilitation centre until 1963.
From 1963, the house was used mainly as a location for films and television. It was converted into Grim’s Dyke Hotel in 1970, but continues to be occasionally used as a film location.
Horror and thriller films shot in the house and its grounds were mainly Tigon productions such as The Blood Beast Terror (1967), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), The Haunted House of Horrors (1969) and Cry of the Banshee (1970). Others include Naked Evil (1966, re-worked as Exorcism at Midnight in 1973) and Agatha Christie adaptation Endless Night (1971).
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
Cult television series filmed at Grim’s Dyke include: Doctor Who: “The Evil of the Daleks” (1967), The Avengers, The Saint, The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Department S.
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