Find peace... in a murder victim’s villa
The tranquil rural home where DCI Barnaby and his sidekick have been regular visitors
IF IT looks familiar, there’s a good reason why. Grade II listed Patchwicks is in a tranquil village called The Lee in Buckinghamshire that is one of the most used locations in the enormously successful, now 20- year- old television series Midsomer Murders. The house itself has featured as a backdrop to many episodes, and its interiors have had a starring role in three.
In the third-ever episode, Death Of A Hollow Man, Patchwicks played the home of the chief murder victim, Agnes Gray. Owner of the six-bedroom house, Judith Syer, remembers the efforts the production team went to in order to make the property look as if it had been ransacked.
‘It was fascinating to watch the film crew make a total mess of our house,’ she says. ‘They took off our back door and replaced it with a broken one to simulate a break-in, with furniture overturned and groceries scattered everywhere. To enable them to restore order to our home when they had completed filming, they took polaroid photographs of the rooms before filming, then put everything back exactly as it was.’
Despite the turmoil that was wrought on Judith’s home, Agnes Gray wasn’t actually murdered there. Also, as far as Judith knows, there has never been a murder – fictional or otherwise – committed in the house. But one of Patchwicks’ bedrooms was used in the first episode of the second series, Death’s Shadow, when Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, played by John Nettles, and Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy (Daniel Casey) burst in to find two men in bed together. And the downstairs of the house was also used extensively in a 2003 episode, Painted In Blood, in which an artist is murdered – filmed on The Lee’s green, opposite Patchwicks.
Judith and her husband Chris, who moved into Patchwicks in 1992, are now selling up, so it is apt that in Death’s Shadow the house appears with a For Sale sign outside. Savills are the real-life estate agents; in Midsomer Murders it was Badger’s Drift Estates, as The Lee was doubling up as the fictional Midsomer village of Badger’s Drift.
In Death’s Shadow a man is murdered with a bow and arrow during the Badger’s Drift fete, which was filmed on The Lee’s green. The killer is later revealed to be a vicar played by Richard Briers.
‘The most recent episode to be filmed in our village was Saints And Sinners in 2015,’ says Judith. ‘A parade of choristers can be seen moving slowly past our house.’ She adds that series 20 is filming this summer. ‘ We don’t think our house will be used but, as always, we willingly lend our drive for the parking of filming equipment. In exchange we are occasionally invited to visit the location cafeteria for lunch.’
Joan Street, who runs Midsomer Murders fan site midsomer murders. org, says: ‘ With pretty cottages and a pub surrounding the green, The Lee is a big draw for film-makers.’
Patchwicks is part of the Liberty Country Estate, created by Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder of the Regent Street store. Liberty was originally from Buckinghamshire and, in 1900, on the back of the store’s success, he bought the Manor House in The Lee, where he lived for the rest of his life.
OVER the years he bought 3,000 acres of the surrounding land, which included 12 working farms, some pubs, several large houses and many small estate cottages. He introduced water, drainage and mains electricity to The Lee, and planted avenues of trees along the village approach roads.
In 1907 he paid for a public telephone to be installed in the village and the same year he created the village green. He did this by demolishing a row of cottages and building six new houses for his existing tenants. Patchwicks, which is in the Arts and Crafts style, is one of those six houses.
The high ceilings in some of the rooms feature exquisite detailing, and the current owners have adapted the ground floor to create an annexe. The triple-aspect drawing room has views down the garden.
I n addition to t he t wo detached garages, there is a timber-framed carport. The gardens consist mainly of lawn, but there is also a grass tennis court. The Syers are both in their 70s and are looking to downsize.