page_title: Oakley Court
section_title: Film set
hierarchical_section_title: Oakley Court / Film set
caption_attribution_description: English: Oakley Court Windsor
context_page_description: Oakley Court is a Victorian Gothic country house set in 35 acres overlooking the River Thames at Water Oakley in the civil parish of Bray in the English county of Berkshire. It was built in 1859 and is currently a luxury hotel. It is a Grade II* listed building that has been often used as a film location.
context_section_description: In August 1949 Oakley Court became home to the famous British film production company Hammer Films. Hammer shot five films there, including The Man in Black and The Lady Craved Excitement, before moving to the adjacent Down Place - what subsequently became Bray Studios—the following year.
  While the bulk of Hammer's most famous horror movies were filmed at Bray in the late 1950s and early '60s, the studio continued to make occasional use of Oakley Court as an exterior location, for example in The Brides of Dracula (1962), The Reptile (1966), and The Plague of the Zombies (1966).
  Other films shot there over the years include Witchcraft (1964); And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973); the William Castle horror-comedy The Old Dark House (1963) (a remake of the original The Old Dark House, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff); the cult independent horror film Vampyres (1974); the classic 1976 mystery farce Murder by Death; and the 1978 Peter Cook and Dudley Moore comedy, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Freddie Frances was inspired by Oakley Court's exteriors and long wished to set a film there; his 1970 Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly was written specially to take advantage of the unique landscaping and architecture. 
  It is perhaps best known as Dr. Frank N. Furter's castle (called The Frankenstein Place) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). During filming, actress Susan Sarandon who played Janet Weiss came down with pneumonia because both Oakley Court and Bray Studios had no heat or bathrooms and also because at the time Oakley Court was in horrible condition. 
  In 1995, it featured as the "Laxton Grange Hotel" in the British television series Pie in the Sky starring Richard Griffiths.
  On many web resources it is erroneously credited as being St Trinian's School in the original St Trinian's film series, but a comparison between the films and the actual building show a quite different architecture and overall design. Historical notes available from the hotel, however, indicate that some parts of the St Trinian films were filmed in the grounds,  especially The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980).
caption: Recent view
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