Painshill Park
Rampant hyperfocus on a summer's day, and why living with me is sometimes an endurance event.
The Muse is a doer. An activities person. My darling wife does not enjoy a wasted weekend; her get up and go is ever present. This is in stark contrast to your faithful correspondent, a man who never met a lazy Saturday he didn’t love. In the few scant weeks where there is no football to contend with, the missus likes to get me up and doing, lest I melt into to sofa while doing my 478th fantasy draft. We had one such Saturday recently.
“We should do something today,” announced my beloved.
I looked up from my laptop. Looked at Peanut and Lola, both napping peacefully with a bellyful of breakfast. Oh, to be a dog.
“Okay,” I said. Then I busted out the big guns. “What do you want to do?”
I don’t mind doing things but if I’m being dragged into action, someone else can do the planning.
She consulted her phone and I went back to debating between Joao Pedro and Brian Brobbery for Gameweek 1.
A few minutes later, the light of my life piped up. “What’s Painshill Park?”
And I had to cough to another huge gap in my local knowledge. For, despite spending the vast majority of my life in the green and pleasant land of Surrey, I am remarkably ignorant of so much of it. There’s a lot of cool shit round my way but, as with so many other facets of life, it’s presented in a vaguely hectoring way.
For the overseas Ledgeheads, places of interest are signposted with brown road signs in the UK. I am not, and have never been, a Brown Signer1. They are the road trip equivalent of eating your vegetables; “On your way to Glastonbury, Lew? You should check out the Salisbury Steam Museum!” I don’t like the tone of a brown sign; it can be right on my doorstep, but if you even try to nudge me in that direction I’ll dig in out of pure bloody minded spite. Like Genesis, or your mate’s grumpy dad, I know what I like and I like what I know.
Because of this frankly childish character trait, I have wilfully ignored Painshill Park for about thirty years. But, whimsy has been in short supply recently (I’m still unemployed and gone way past enjoying it; when your local supermarket knocks you back for a role as a part time till jockey it’s hard to slap on that rictus grin), so The Muse and I jumped in the Holmesmobile and hit the road.
I thought I’d been sold a pup when we parked up. On the drive over I’d been promised a load of history and a grotto (not something any of us get to experience very often). This looked like your standard British stately-home-with-a-lovely-garden. You’re here now, Holmes, Inner Voice jeered2. You might as well enjoy it.
I was slightly mollified by The Official Greeter who took our money. TOG had had some lovely bants with a mother and son in front of us, and I saw an opportunity for mischief.
“One adult one child, please,” I said. “Just like them.” And I pointed at TOG’s previous customers.
“Well,” said TOG. “You can’t get in for a child’s price but if you’re really good you can hold the map, okay?”
Oh, my. He got game! I like that. You don’t normally encounter somebody who can handle the Holmes at a Brown Sign Site.
“Have you been to Painshill before?” asked my new best friend/nemesis.
“No,” said The Muse.
“There’s two routes,” said TOG, “The short, easy blue path or the longer, slightly rougher terrain red path.”
The Muse and I shared a knowing glance. We’re Red Path People. I bade a fond farewell to TOG, making a made a mental note to invite him to collab in future. Sass like his is hard to find.
While The Muse ducked off to get a bottle of water for our trek, I took in the history of the place thanks to some handily placed placards.
Painshill Park (it is officially mononymed as Painshill to make it sound cool, but I like the alliteration), was created by Charles Hamilton between 1738 and 1773, inspired by 17th century landscape artists and his own Grand Tours3 across Europe. He intended Painshill to serve as a living painting, evoking varied moods and emotions in visitors as they wandered the lands.
Hamilton was forced to sell Painshill in 1773 due to debt. It passed through multiple private ownerships up until World War Two, when it was requisitioned for agriculture and parcelled out into lots. The land fell into disrepair after the war, with many of Hamilton’s follies4 crumbling to ruin.
In the 1960s, local historian David Taylor brought the plight of Painshill to public attention, and later on set up the Friends of Painshill group. Things move slowly in the UK at the best of times, so it was 1981 before the Painshill Park Trust was founded. they intended to have all restoration works done by 1994; but it was 2010 before the Crystal Grotto was completed. Needless to say, Painshill is is great nick in 2026.
Right, that’s the history lesson done.
Something about Painshill was nagging me, tugging at a little fishhook in my mind. I’d definitely never been there, but it was familiar to me. I was getting brown sign deja vu. As we admired the Great Cedar (which was surely just a normal cedar in the 18th century), I turned around from the tree and saw the Gothic Temple.
I recognised that view. I recognised it from what is probably my favourite TV show ever. Painshill had been in Taskmaster.
Taskmaster is brilliant. It’s easy, comfortable, and consistently hilarious. If I’ve had a bad day, I can often be found watching Taskmaster compilations on YouTube, such is its power to lift my mood. It is at its very best when the contestants are perfectly balanced, and few series are as perfectly balanced as series 19.
Fatiha El-Gorrhi, Jason Mantzoukas, Mathew Baynton, Rosie Ramsey and Stevie Martin (I don’t like @ing famous people on here, it feels a bit try hard, but I really want Stevie to tell the rest of them how great I think they are, so here goes) were consistently excellent across ten episodes; their wonderful chemistry and obvious friendship made series 19 one of my all time favourites. And here I was, suddenly walking in their footsteps.
I’ve had a grip (comparatively) on my ADHD for over two years now. One of the things that I fully understand, and can even harness, is hyperfocus. I’ve said it many times, ADHD is the worst name condition on earth. There’s no deficit of attention, there is an inability to harness attention. Hyperfocus is when you get a grip on that wandering focus, and suddenly you’re locked in like a sniper on whatever it is you’re dealing with.
Hyperfocus is great when you’re doing something you enjoy. Hyperfocus plus trivia turns me into an absolute machine. I am pub quiz gold. Right there in the middle of Painshill, hyperfocus kicked like a mule and I became a Taskmaster guru. All the fun facts rushed to the fore.
“Pealympics!” I squawked.
“What?” said The Muse, genuinely baffled.
“Taskmaster! Pealympics!” and I ran off up the hill like a tubby Jack and Jill5.
The die was cast. For the rest of that lovely sunny afternoon, The Muse took in the beautifully recreated park while I skipped along behind her, gleefully geeking out whenever we reached a folly that had been on telly.
Take the Crystal Grotto. A beautifully crafted little cavern that naturally encourages quiet reflection to such a degree that they hold sound meditation sessions in it6. Tourists wandered in silent awe, my darling wife looked around in quiet joy, and gang of students in period dress explored, looking for suitable locations to film their project.
Your idiot correspondent strolled confidently into the middle of the room and excitedly gibbered “This is where they filmed ‘Be the least annoying person round the campfire’!”
A less patient spouse might’ve bounced her head off a stalactite, but The Muse is made of sterner stuff. She just pretended she didn’t know me.
The Ruined Abbey was significantly quieter than the Grotto, so when I blurted out “Get the most pillows in the bin!” The Muse responded immediately with “Go on then.” I had no pillows, I had no bin - I still attempted to recreate the task.
My earlier apathy was gone, I was in my element. Full on Pokemon mode - gotta catch ‘em all! The Muse, bless her, started looking for a quiet corner so we could have a little sit down. Her big hairy idiot baby of a husband was clearly overstimulated; even non-Taskmaster follies had me getting giddy because if there’s one thing I love as much as cosy TV parlour shows, it’s history.
“Did you know that the Gothic Tower was completely gutted by fire in 1973?”
“Egg7, I just want a cold drink from the café inside it.”
I mean, this whole jaunt was her idea but probably a fair point - it was thirty degrees after all.
At the Temple of Bacchus, The Muse made me run through the whole sweaty afternoon in a video that clocked in at under one minute. Partly because none of her friends would believe her without proof, partly to demonstrate what ADHD hyperfocus and unchecked stanning looks like in the wild. I think we summarised the afternoon quite well.
(Yes, you could just watch the video and skip 1900-odd words of white hot prose. But you would hurt my feelings if you did so. Why do you think I put it at the end?)
On the way out, I spied my old friend TOG.
“How was it?” he asked.
“Amazing!” I beamed. “You didn’t tell me that Taskmaster filmed here!”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Honestly, that never seems important to me.”
Buddy, we’re no longer friends.
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If that doesn’t sound like some sort of filthy Victorian insult then what does?
My Inner Voice always jeers, the little shit.
Nothing to do with Jeremy Clarkson, the aristocracy in the 18th century just had rather lofty ideas about what you and I might call ‘a holiday’.
Not folly as in ‘an act of foolishness’, the other definition: a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose.
I know it’s an awful metaphor, shut up.
Yes, of course The Muse is booked in for one.
She calls me Egg because I’m a good egg, not because of any physical ovoid qualities.
I love this!!! The guy in the grotto gave me a bit of the crystal. I’ve forgotten what it’s called but I still have it on my windowsill at home - will pass this on to the s19 gang ❤️
You need a referral fee - just off to tell mark where we’re off to next weekend!!