A WALK UP TO FISHER LANE FARM
Surrey, England, 29th of July 2003
by ahand83
This is me. I’ve been a Genesis fan since I remember breathing. This is a page with stories, some of them are mine and some are told by older fans who discovered the band long before I did, even before I was born. I was born in 1983, the year Genesis released the Mama album and their continuation of becoming mega stars. You could say I was unlucky, not been born 10 or 20 years earlier, and missing out on the early years of Genesis’s career. So, during the past 30 years I have done everything to recover from this lack of nostalgia, and I took every opportunity to experience the music of Genesis and all of the individual members to the max.
I encountered various events like my first Phil Collins concert in ’97 and the Turn It On Again dress rehearsal in Brussels in 2007. Also in 1997, aged 14, I went to London for the first time. Calling All Stations had just been released and I remember standing next to the CAS poster near to Portobello Road that was (unintentionally) featured in the movie Notting Hill with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Believe it or not.
At the end of July 2003 I went on a short holiday to England to see The Farm, Genesis’s recording studios near Chiddingfold in Surrey. Having read much about The Farm and seen lots of photos and footage, I just had to see this place with my own eyes. I’d done my homework: I read Simon Funnell’s article on Genesis The Movement about his trip to The Farm many times and I’d figured out how to get there, looking through maps and photos. Besides a visit to The Farm I had no real plans for my trip to England. I was 20 years old, I lived by the day and therefore I was a man without a plan.
I took the train to Rotterdam and Brussels, got on the Eurostar and arrived in London in the afternoon. I didn’t have a clue what to do in London so I got on the first train to Guildford, arriving there at nightfall. Looking for a place to stay I entered a dodgy youth hostel and managed to get a private room with a shared bathroom. I remember the bed was terrible, but still I was happy to have come this far.
Next morning, after a traditional English breakfast, I took the train from Guildford to a small town called Witley. The Witley railway station was featured on the MTV’s Most Wanted episode with Phil Collins in 1993. Phil’s actually waiting for a train to get him to London, because his car had broken down and he was late for his feature on the show with Ray Cokes. You can watch this episode, which is quite entertaining, right here.
Anyway, I arrived in Witley, got out of the railway station and asked some passing strangers how to get to Chiddingfold on foot. A lovely woman showed me a public footpath at the end of the road. She said it would bring me to Chiddingfold, just within an hour’s walk through the countryside. It became a lovely walk through meadows and cow shit. Having reached Chiddingfold I didn’t know exactly where to go. I asked several people directions to Fisher Lane. Everyone I talked to was very friendly and helpful. I came accross The Crown pub on Petworth Road (where, as the story goes, Tony and Mike agreed that Phil would leave Genesis for Canada to safe his marriage to Andrea Bertorelli in 1978), crossed the lawn and continued my walk onto Pickhurst Road. I very much preferred the public footpath from before, but considering I knew nothing of the surroundings I decided it would be best to follow the main roads instead of wandering off.
Following Pickhurst Road for quite some time, I found the turn onto Fisher Lane. Finally, I was nearly there. While my expectations were getting higher, it felt like it took me ages to get there. Then finally, after having passed several houses and farms, there was the wooden sign that said: “Fisher Lane Farm, private entrance”. I remember filling up with anxiety and euphoria. There it was: The ‘sacred’ place where my heroes had lived, breathed and had written great music since they purchased The Farm in the early 1980’s. Many promotional photos of the band were taken here throughout the years.
I think at the time I was there Genesis had put the house and barns up for sale, or it had just been sold to a new owner. Feeling like a thief in the night, I took some photographs of the house, not wanting to disturb anyone’s privacy. I found a break in the hedge from where I could see the house a bit clearer. I walked further down the road, saw the barns and the studio, took some photographs and tried to make conversation to a gardener. Opening up the conversation with something like “I believe these are the Genesis studios…” he replied with a brief “There’s no-one here…” basically telling me to f*ck off.
That’s why I sat down, ate my sandwiches and enjoyed the surroundings for a while. An everlasting wish was finally fulfilled. Then, I got up back on my feet and walked all the way back to Witley railway station in the direction where I had come from.
After my visit to The Farm I could have visited Charterhouse in Godalming, which is quite close to Guildford, or even look for Old Croft in Shalford, the house Phil Collins owned in the early ‘80s. But as I said, I was a man without a plan and I didn’t really know what to do next. That’s why I took the train back home the next day where I arrived late in the evening. That was that. I’d seen Fisher Lane Farm and I was happy to have done so. If I had the chance to do it all again I would surely make a longer road trip and visit several places in the Surrey area that have a Genesis connection in history. Maybe I’ll do so when I’m old and grey.