Beyond the Brochure: That’s the spirit

So my attention drifted as Fred Batt, resident “demonologist” (what does it say on his passport application form?) on Most Haunted, presented by the glamorous ghostbuster and former Blue Peter star Yvette Fielding, was telling me about the most disturbing manifestation he’d ever experienced. An abandoned monastery in the Czech Republic, villagers wouldn’t go near it, satanic apparitions, a Nazi connection, Latin incantations, a darkened chapel at midnight... yadda yadda, sorry, where were we? Fascinating, I’m sure, but the reality of Fred’s exceptional house and, indeed, his life story are far more riveting.

Though I did approach the electric gates of the grade II listed Clockhouse, near Horsham, feeling a bit trepidatious — I’d seen the pictures of the suits of armour in the heavily beamed entrance hall, obviously the perfect setting for weird goings-on. But the sight of four bigger-than-life-size verdigris horses rearing up in a corner of the grounds brought me up short. They looked just like the ones that used to adorn the front of Caesars, on the stretch of Streatham High Road that was south London’s apologetic answer to Las Vegas.

Well, turns out they are the same ones: Fred used to own Caesars, London’s biggest purpose-built ballroom, and the Forum club next door. A veteran of the nocturnal world — in the 1960s, he ran the Whisky a Go Go club, in Soho, and he says he invented go-go dancing — he sold his Streatham establishments a few years ago to property developers.

He had the usual negotiations with the conservation authorities, to be expected with a house of such antiquity, with a priest’s hole (now in the corner of a bathroom) and original Georgian frescoed panels on one wall. He brought in the people who fitted out his London nightclubs to do it all; apparently, they easily picked up historic building techniques.

While they restored each part of the house to the style of its own period, including wallpaper printed from original Georgian and Victorian wood blocks, Fred was busy buying up stuff from auctions to furnish all 21 rooms: the rather unsinister explanation for the suits of armour. One of his many careers — there’s also fairground roustabout, actor (EastEnders) and trader in posh cars — was as an antiques dealer. So any of the contents “could be for sale”.

The grounds also got plenty of attention, as he detangled the walled garden, cleared the lake and put in fountains and classical statuary (though it turns out a lot of that’s from Caesars, too). There’s a large Elizabethan brick barn that’s currently a multi-car garage with a fairground-themed party space above, but Fred reckons that could be a separate house, with its own driveway.

What I know you really want to know is, where are the ghosts? Over to Fred: “This house is so friendly, it’s not really haunted [though that’s not what a 2003 episode of Most Haunted claimed]. I’m so glad to get back here for peace and tranquillity after what we do on the show. It’s just a nice feeling. Yvette comes here to relax.”

Brian Cox and the second law of thermodynamics would be safe, too.

The Clockhouse, Horsham, Surrey, £2.95m

What you get A six-bedroom country house with a restored Elizabethan barn — and 4.5 acres of landscaped grounds

Who to call Foxtons; 01483 400000, foxtons.co.uk