UK The Underwater Ballroom

Since visiting the ballroom in 2012 the owners have redeveloped the estate and have moved in, how lucky for them that that this ballroom is now in their back garden, I feel lucky to have seen it while I did as it is no longer abandoned and so would be wrong to go an see it now that it is on someones land. As much as I would love to go back, it would be unfair to be going on such a trip while the owners sleep in their house. Now they will be able to enjoy the ballroom themselves and these photo I feel will immortalise it forever for those that never got to see inside. 

It was late in 2012 at 4.30am we drove to the ballroom, all the way I kept thinking it was the stuff made from fairytales, I wasn’t even sure if it could actually even exist, an underwater ballroom, lying deep beneath a lake on an abandoned estate, built in Victorian times. You cant get to the ballroom by land as we would never break an enter any building and the door to the hut that takes you to the ballroom is locked and alarmed, it left no option but to make it across the lake to an island where the door was open, in the pitch black we made it through the trees and to the lake bank where we blew up a boat, and rowed towards the island. Soon we were inside the ballroom, being underneath water felt strange like being in one of those underwater aquariums or a glass bottom boat, but nothing really could prepare you for being in a room, where the entire ceiling is made from thick glass and nothing but water above you, a long tear shaped corridor connected to a spiral staircase which I believe takes you to hut which is the entrance from the outside. It was truly the stuff from fairytales. 

The sun started to come up and light came through the glass for the first time, despite the algae that had obviously been growing for years, it looked very beautiful, the whole room glowed green, we photographed for an hour or two before decided to make our exit, seeing things like this is just so special and I cant believe how lucky I am to have such incredible experiences as this. ‘Britain may play second fiddle to Italy or France when it comes to producing beautiful buildings. But when it comes to playful, quirky constructions, we are world-beaters. Britain is the global home of the folly and the people behind these architectural eccentricities — extravagant creations built primarily for decoration and which often appear to be something that they’re not — are frequently just as fascinating as the buildings themselves. None more so than the man who created Witley Park in Surrey. 

The tale behind it involves not just a staggeringly ambitious, wildly over-the-top folly, but also a tragic Victorian morality story of speculation, corruption, disgrace and suicide. Deep in Surrey, near Godalming, lies the village of Witley. A mile and a quarter west, in a ramshackle wood, next to a walled kitchen garden, you’ll find a holly tree wrapped around a hut with a door in it. Go down the spiral concrete steps, and there, 40ft beneath the surface, lies a teardrop-shaped tunnel that leads to Britain’s most extraordinary folly — a ballroom, built of iron and glass, beneath a lake. Leading off it, an aquarium-cum-smoking room was added, where guests puffed on their cigars and admired the passing carp. Above the domed, glazed ceiling of the underwater ballroom, a yellowish natural light shines through the murky lake water. A giant statue of Neptune stands at the dome’s peak, poking above the surface, apparently walking on water. This underwater ballroom is the last, mad, magnificent fragment of a Victorian fantasy world that made Michael Jackson’s Neverland look like a dull municipal park. 

To create it, 600 workmen dug out four lakes, swept aside hills that got in the way of the view, and built a 32-room neo-Tudor house which was packed with treasures from across the world, including Italian statues and a dolphin’s head so big that it got stuck under a bridge on the way from Southampton. (They had to lower the road to get it out.) Most of this architectural fantasia has gone now. The house, gutted by fire in 1952, was later demolished. A few forlorn lodges and some stables survive. No one dances in the underwater ballroom any more. And the man who built it lies in Witley churchyard — killed by cyanide poisoning, by his own hand, after he was exposed for a mammoth financial scam that ruined him and dozens of investors.