Page 14 - Oundle Life A5 March 2023

MOVIE
MANSION
Cotterstock Hall
It has played host to literary giants, starred in a blockbuster movie, and was home to a famous, and allegedly mad, society beauty. Welcome to Cotterstock Hall.
needing to star in a gothic horror movie. Built in the 17th century by parliamentarian John Horton, the house had a very special and
Eel Marsh House, the crumbling mansion occupied by the mysterious Woman in Black. Set amongst dank, misty marshes and served by a causeway that is completely submerged at full tide, the decaying gothic building lies just 2.2 miles from Oundle.
John Dryden often stayed and worked in the attic of Cotterstock Hall
frequent guest over the last two years of the 17th century.
In keeping with the gothic theme, John Dryden often stayed and worked in the attic of Cotterstock Hall – which was owned by the husband of his cousin, Elizabeth Steward - from 1698 until his death in 1700.
Well, at least, Cotterstock Hall does,
and it was used as the exterior of Eel
March House in the 2012 movie ‘The Woman
in Black’ starring Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe. After a nationwide search, the hall was chosen for its dramatic gothic style and CGI effects were added to give it an overgrown and heavily decayed look as befits the film.
But the hall has a history of its own without
Dryden is considered second only to Shakespeare in the canon of English literature and was England’s first Poet Laureate.
The south-west attic room he lived in has been carefully preserved as ‘Dryden’s Room’ and is still in very much the same condition as the famous writer would have known it over 300 years ago.
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Such was Dryden’s reputation as a poet, a