Surrey

Sax Rohmer, creator of the character Fu Manchu, built Little Gatton between Reigate and Redhill in Surrey. Ornamental oak panels, furnishings and other woodwork were installed in the house from the Mauretania which was Rohmer’s favourite ship. In conversation with Peter Underwood, Rohmer explained that in bad weather the woodwork would creak and groan exactly as if it were an old ship in heavy seas. Even frequent visitors found it somewhat disturbing.

The house had a sad and doom-laden quality about it. Sax’s wife, Elizabeth, recalled that a maidservant (who had in fact commented on first coming to the house that the garden reminded her of a cemetery) had been killed by a lorry outside the gates. In the same lane two other boys had been killed, fire had killed a young girl, a man had committed suicide in the neighbouring house and a gardener had hanged himself in the garden. The property was sold to speed-ace Sir Malcolm Campbell who once remarked to Elizabeth that the windows had been blown out and that he would not buy the house now if he could change matters.

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