The abandoned house frozen in time where one of Britain's best-known comedians fell to his death from the roof while trying to adjust his TV aerial during a Man Utd game

By NICK CRAVEN, SENIOR REPORTER Published: 09:54, 4 July 2026 | Updated: 09:58, 4 July 2026 It remains one of the most widely-discussed deaths of any British celebrity ever – perhaps because of the combination of the strange way it happened and the strange person it happened to. During the Seventies and Eighties, Rod Hull – accompanied by his violently anarchic puppet 'Emu' – was one of the best known comedians in Britain. And even though by the time of his passing, in 1999, he had become less ubiquitous on TV, Hull remained a household name, so there was widespread shock when he died at the relatively young age of 63. And this shock turned to incredulity when the manner of his passing emerged: he had fallen from the roof of his home while trying to adjust the aerial of his TV so that he could get a clearer picture of a Manchester United Champions League match. Now, in a curious footnote to the story, the Daily Mail can reveal that the house where the fall occurred has been uninhabited ever since and is now derelict, an eerie reminder of Hull's strange death. The property, Shepherd's Cottage in Winchelsea on the south coast, has been largely reclaimed by nature. Hull decided to adjust the aerial while trying to watch Man Utd playing Inter Milan in a Champions League quarter-final – on their run to what would be a trophy win in a dramatic final against Bayern Munich in May. More than a quarter of a century later, the property has become a ghostly memorial to that night. Rod Hull's property, Shepherd's Cottage, in Winchelsea on the south coast, has sat empty since he died in 1999 The comedian died in bizarre circumstances, falling from the roof of his home while trying to adjust the aerial of his TV so he could get a clearer image of a Manchester United match Parts of the roof have now caved in while most of the doors and windows are boarded up inside  The property has been largely reclaimed by nature with overgrown weeds and trees  Hull, accompanied by his violently anarchic puppet 'Emu', was one of the best-known comedians in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s Once the scene of Hull's happy memories with grown-up children and his grandchildren, it now stands derelict, with weathered walls, crumbling masonry and creeping ivy. The doors and windows are all boarded up, parts of the roof have caved in and weeds abound inside and out. On the chimney, only the bracket which once held that TV aerial is left from the fateful night in March 1999. Hull had rented the cottage from the National Trust for a peppercorn £20 a week. On the night of the accident, Hull sat down with his son Oliver, 19, to watch the much-anticipated Champions League fixture at the bungalow. But, according to the subsequent inquest, Hull quickly became frustrated due to the poor sound quality and decided to try and fix it by climbing the roof, something he had often done before. Oliver said he had offered to make the climb, but Hull was adamant he would sort out the issue. 'Obviously, now I feel terrible that I didn't go up,' he said. Oliver then heard a 'light thud', followed by a 'much heavier thud'. The 19-year-old rushed outside and desperately called out to his father but received no reply. After running outside to check on him, Oliver climbed on to the roof, at which point he found Hull lying on the concrete beside their greenhouse. After calling an ambulance, Oliver phoned his mother in Australia. She said: 'It was dreadful. He was just saying "Dad's fallen, I can't get a pulse".' Describing the moment paramedics arrived and attended to his father, Oliver said: 'It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world to behold.' The comedian was rushed to Conquest Hospital in Hastings, but was sadly declared dead on arrival, having suffered a badly fractured skull and chest injuries. The incident took an even more bizarre twist two years ago when TV personality and writer Gyles Brandreth claimed that he had advised Hull to go up on the roof, and claimed he felt responsible for his death. He told John Cleese on his Rosebud podcast: 'I killed a man – it was Rod Hull, the emu man.' Brandreth said he had been at the theatre with Hull on the day of his death and told him he'd fixed his defective television himself by using a ladder and climbing on to the roof to carry out DIY repairs. But Joanne Miller, the former Countess of Bradford, then said it was she who was liable for his death, and that former MP Brandreth had 'pinched' her story. The former Countess said that Brandreth, godfather to her third son Ben, had not been present when she had suggested to Hull someone climb on to the roof to fix a TV aerial – adding that his memory seemed to have 'appropriated' the story. 'I don't recall Gyles being with us at all that night – I think I would have done,' she told the Daily Mail. 'I can only think that my former husband must have told him some time later how we had urged Rod to fix his TV problem, which led to his really tragic death and, 25 years later, Gyles's memory has appropriated our instructions to Rod to himself.' The National Trust cottage that Hull moved into after his split from second wife Cher cost him a mere £20 per week in rent  The abandoned house sits derelict and dirty in an eerie reminder of Hull's strange death The house was once the scene of Hull's happy memories with grown-up children and his grandchildren but it is now crumbling with weathered walls and creeping ivy Whatever the truth, back in Australia, Hull's second wife Cher reflected on his death in a Channel 4 documentary: 'He had to go in some extraordinary way. Just getting sick and dying slowly wouldn't have been right for him.' Hull's rise coincided with terrestrial TV's golden age, when fans tuned in by the millions to watch the puppet's antics. The accident stunned fans across Britain and the world for whom Hull and his mischievous, demonic bird had claimed a place in their hearts. He famously attacked talk show host Michael Parkinson and his US counterpart Johnny Carson on air, and even snaffled a bouquet held by the Queen Mother at a Royal Command performance. The attack on Parkinson in 1976 has often been rated as one of TV's greatest moments – even higher than the wedding of Charles and Diana in one chart. But not everyone was a fan of the maniacal raffia ruffian whose singular schtick was to attack people by whatever body part he could reach. In later years, Hull himself was said to loathe the puppet, which he felt held him back from being the comedy writer he wanted to be recognised as. His career had begun on Australian TV after emigrating there as a '£10 Pom' with an assisted passage paid by the Australian government in 1960. He became a household name Down Under, starring in various shows, originally without his feathered friend. By 1972 he returned to the UK, and soon after walked out on his first wife Sandra and their children, eventually marrying commercial artist Cher Hylton. Hull couldn't throw his voice, so instead Emu attacked everyone, much to the delight of audiences. In 1986 Hull was asked by Princess Diana to make a private appearance at Prince William's fourth birthday party. The following year, Hull and Cher bought a magnificent 32-bed Elizabethan Restoration House in Rochester, Kent, for £275,000. Charles II had supposedly stayed there on the very night of his restoration to the monarch, and it was also said to be Dickens' inspiration for Miss Havisham's Satis House in Great Expectations. Home video footage showed Hull often fixed the aerial himself – both Gyles Brandreth and  Joanne Miller say they also advised him to do so  Hull died from a severely fractured skull and chest injuries after falling off his roof (Hull pictured on a previous occasion) Hull was best known for his performances with his puppet Emu, which had a penchant for attacking TV presenters He spent £500,000 restoring his Kent pile, but he was suddenly axed by ITV in 1988 and his finances were hit hard. He and Cher tried to sell the property amid the financial recession, but without success. Finally, while Hull was finding occasional work at clubs and private gigs, earning a fraction of his TV wages, he went bankrupt in 1994, facing a crippling unpaid tax bill and the house was claimed by the receiver. Cher and the children from his second marriage left for Australia and it was then that he ended up living in the cottage. He would make occasional appearances on TV, often without Emu, to the disappointment of audiences. Towards the end of his life he appeared on a chat show and the host, Esther Rantzen asked him of his bankruptcy: 'Your friends in showbusiness, did they stay with you?' His reply was candid but deeply poignant: 'No, that was an unfortunate thing,' he said sadly. 'You know, I've worked with a lot of people for a lot of years and given work to a lot of people as well, but once that happened, you know, the phone just went quiet.' Not all was doom and gloom for Hull in those final years. He reconnected with Oliver, his son from his first marriage, who then came from Australia to live with him in Sussex. Likewise, without the lure of showbiz, he spent much more time with his two daughters from his first marriage – and his grandchildren. There was also a trail of much younger girlfriends to the Shepherd's Cottage, according to family and friends. Nevertheless, his life was a far cry from what it had been a few years earlier. In 2003 his daughter Debbie Davidson told a Channel 4 documentary on his life, A Bird in the Hand: 'I think to never have had it might have been easier, but to have had it as he did and lost it and lose everything. I mean, his home… to find himself quite desolate at that age in life would have been extremely hard, and you could just see this sadness in his eyes. 'Everything wasn't as it should be, and he was quite sort of broken really.' As for Emu, in 2007, Hull's other son Toby, a trained actor, resurrected the act for a 26-part CITV comedy series simply titled Emu. But another version of the unloveable bird lives on – and, fittingly, has gone to live with fellow TV puppets Orville the Duck and George from Rainbow. The puppet was bought at auction in 2018 by the man behind CBBC's Hacker the Dog, puppeteer Phil Fletcher. Mr Fletcher, from Wigan, paid £8,680 including buyer's premium after it was originally forecast to sell for between £750 and £1,000. Mr Fletcher said: 'I'm 41 so I vividly remember seeing Emu on television when I was growing up. 'Rod Hull was one of the best puppeteers, but also criminally under-rated. Because audiences totally bought into the character of Emu, they forgot that Rod was operating him. He was brilliant.' A National Trust spokesperson said: 'The property Rod Hull rented from the National Trust in the late 1990s is part of a farmstead, or group of buildings, on Crutches Farm in Sussex.  'We have a large, wide-ranging nature conservation project underway at the Farm which includes developments to many of the agricultural buildings, but final plans for this particular property are yet to be finalised.  'We don’t traditionally put up memorials to a former tenant at a let estate property.' The photographs were taken by a Facebook photographer known as 'Urban Rot'. 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