Vettelschloss, Germany (CNN) — Rolling hills, thick forests and the Rhine River whirling through it all – the region of Rheinland-Pfalz, or Rhineland-Palatinate, is textbook Germany. Nearby Bonn was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990, and before that, the Romantic movement descended on the castles and wooded landscapes of the region.
For many, this is Deutschland at its finest.
And yet one corner of it is not German at all. In the quiet village of Vettelschloss, half an hour south of Cologne, is a patch of land that, to all accounts and purposes belongs to Germany’s old rival: England.
“Welcome to Little Britain,” says a banner slung between two houses – a banner draped in the colors of the Union Jack, the UK flag.
The entrance is guarded by two huge statues of lions (like the ones in Trafalgar Square), grenadier guards and a line-up of classic British cars.
If that’s not enough, there’s also a life-size resin figure of the late Queen Elizabeth sitting on a bench beside the door, observing the comings and goings. Oh, and Prince William stands grinning behind a bench, next to those grenadier guards.
Welcome to the Little Britain Inn, a corner of Germany that shall remain forever England.
Step inside to a traditional British pub, where portraits of “Peaky Blinders” actors and lifesize Paddington Bears are your neighbors.
Through the doorway is the restaurant, frescoed with medieval-style images of Robin Hood and his merry men.
Upstairs, and across two buildings are the bedrooms – each themed with something British, from James Bond to her late majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, frescoed on the wall.
While outside, in a space open to all, is a magical mystery tour of all things British. There are two double decker buses and lifesize statues of characters from film, TV and literature, from Mr. Bean and Jack Sparrow to Alice in Wonderland and Shaun the Sheep. Benches have plaques dedicating them to parts of the UK. Lifesize British bobbies (policemen) stand to attention beside a red carpet leading past the queen. Actually, make that queens – because there are two Elizabeths, one for each building.
Wooden huts – which host the annual Christmas market and other special events – are bedecked with larger-than-life images of the royals: Kate and William, Meghan and Harry, Charles and Camilla, and the late queen with Paddington Bear, all superimposed on classic British landscapes.
Oh, and there’s a shrine to Princess Diana in a quieter part of the garden. Every year, members of a German fan club of the late princess gather here to pay their respects.
Because that’s the thing about the Little Britain Inn. Its biggest fans are German.
This little patch of land in Vettelschloss has become a place where age-old rivals meet and remember what they like about each other.
It sounds like a heartwarming tale of two cultures coming together – but it hasn’t all been plain sailing. In fact, the reason the Little Britain Inn exists is because of a cross-cultural argument.
A space to combat Brexit
The Inn is the idea of Gary Blackburn, a Brit who moved to Germany in 1985, aged 21, with 50 marks (around $27) in his pocket, a small bag of clothes, and the dream of staying a few months, working as a tree surgeon.
Nearly four decades later, Blackburn is still there. His tree surgery practice takes him all over Germany. He has brought up six children in the country and married twice: first to a German woman, and, for the past 22 years, to Monika, who’s originally from Poland.
Yet despite his cosmopolitan lifestyle, Blackburn always hankered after his homeland. Hence the collection of UK-themed memorabilia that he started in 2016 when he bought an old UK phone booth. It was in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, and Blackburn was partly paying homage to his roots, but also wanting to do his bit to rebuild relations between the UK and the EU.
“I could see things were going to change, and people were asking what I thought about Brexit. So I started collecting things. The idea was to make a place where the Brits and the Germans could keep their friendship going,” he says.
“Everyone loved the queen, Germans still talk about her all the time. So I wanted to keep the German-British friendship, rather than have them turn against us for doing Brexit.”
The phone box was just the start. Then came the (first) lifesize model of the queen. Then came more. And more. Two double decker London buses – one of which is from 1966, the year that England infamously beat Germany in the World Cup soccer final – became the centerpiece of what he modestly calls “a bit of a collection.” In total, he actually has four buses, two of which are currently under restoration. “I went a bit crazy,” he admits.
Initially Blackburn stored it all at his home, on the outskirts of the village. Germans visiting the Rhine area would pop by for a gawp, a photo and a chat. But in 2018 he hit a bump in the road. His newest purchase was a tank, and his neighbors decided to object to the whole installation. The local authorities agreed.
They missed the point, says Blackburn; the tank wasn’t a declaration of war. For starters, it’s a post-war model, he’s keen to point out. “It’s a monument for freedom and peace – that people shouldn’t forget how horrible wars are,” he says. The footpath running beside his house leads to land that was the scene of heavy fighting during World War II. “I didn’t have any bad intention. I wanted people to think, not hide things under the carpet.”
He certainly did make them think. When he was ordered to shut down his exhibition, it made worldwide headlines – and he received waves of support from Germans who’d enjoyed seeing his homage to the UK when they came biking and hiking along the Rhine. They thought it was all over…. But they didn’t bargain on Blackburn having a cunning plan.
A hotel to house his memorabilia
Vettelschloss sits across the boundary of two local authorities. While the one in which Blackburn’s home was situated – Erpel, in the district of Unkel – asked him to shutter the site, authorities on the other side of the village – Vettelschloss itself, under the jurisdiction of Linz – were making more hospitable noises.
Blackburn estimates that he has spent over 500,000 euros ($535,000) on his collection. As well as the buses (one alone was 55,000 euros plus tax), he has a collection of cars including a Rolls-Royce, London taxis, a Mini, phone boxes, postboxes, multiple figures and even a Tardis from “Doctor Who.”
“I could have retired but this has been more fun, living my dreams and using my imagination,” he says. Monika calls his collection “crazy.” “He goes over the top – he doesn’t buy just one thing, he buys four or five,” she shrugs.
So what do you do when your collection of UK memorabilia worth half a million dollars is shuttered by one half of the village?
You move it to the other.
In 2020, Blackburn saw a house on the Vettelschloss side of the boundary for sale for 350,000 euros ($375,000) and promptly snapped it up. “I bought it to park the tank and the buses,” he says, simply. But then he had a lightbulb moment. Instead of simply recreating the open-air exhibition space they’d had before, they could open a hotel themed around the UK.
Who opens a hotel during a pandemic? A man convinced that Germans will love memorabilia of the British royal family.
He was right. The Little Britain Inn opened in September 2020, and was immediately so popular that the following year Blackburn bought the house next door to add more rooms, a restaurant and a pub.
Today, the hotel caters to the hikers and cyclists who come for the Rhine Valley, as well as those who, according to Blackburn, come to Vettelschloss purely for the Little Britain Inn.
Blackburn’s collection – including the infamous tank, now painted in the colors of the Union Jack – is scattered around the two houses and the garden area between them.
“Germans love it – more Germans like England than you can imagine,” he says, noting that their 9.3 rating on Booking.com is higher than that of the hotel nearby where the actual queen of England once stayed. The Little Britain Inn also rates 4.8 out of 5 on Google.
“Lots of people come for a weekend, as a present,” he says. “The food’s really good. The sheets are Egyptian cotton, brought over from England. The towels are from Guildford (in the UK) – we spent 40,000 euros on bedding alone. Some of our best guests have been here eight or 10 times – it’s like they’re our friends.”
Today, the Little Britain Inn is going from strength to strength. Its last Christmas fair – where they sold traditional Cornish pasties, fish and chips, and beer galore, while a DJ and an Elvis impersonator provided the entertainment – was bigger than the one in the nearby town of Linz, says Blackburn. For the coronation last year, they put on a party, with guests arriving in Charles and Camilla masks. When Queen Elizabeth died, they stuck to a sober screening of the funeral.
Rooms fit for a queen
Hotel guests can pick one of the 12 rooms themed by place (like Cornwall, which has a mural of a clifftop scene painted behind the bed) or by person, whether real or fictional – including James Bond, Mr. Bean, Agatha Christie, Harry Potter and the late queen. All have themed murals behind the bed, in which no attention to detail has been spared – Blackburn says that when he noticed that some flowers in the Cornish room didn’t look like the flowers that grow on Cornish clifftops, he got the artist back in to change them.
Awakening in the morning, guests traipse down past the buses, tank and statues, to a full English breakfast of sausages, bacon, baked beans, toast and more. Everything is top quality – in fact, says Blackburn, everything is sourced from the UK, apart from the eggs. The tea, the beer, everything is shipped over from the UK – no wonder some Germans pop in for breakfast alone.
They also have gin especially blended from them – the King Charles one is infused with honey, while the top-of-the-range bottle is called Lillibet (the late queen’s nickname). Morning coffee and tea is served in mugs by chi-chi designer Emma Bridgewater with names of the royals painted on them.
Those popping in during the day can try fish and chips, roast dinners, cream teas and more, all made by Monika, who had never attempted British food before opening the inn, and says she learned to make the cooked breakfasts and fish and chips by watching YouTube and Instagram videos.
Meals are taken either in the medieval-themed dining room (the Robin Hood murals are recreations of the illustrations of a childhood book Blackburn’s grandmother gave him), in the beer garden, or out the front, on a bench beside the queen or chairs underneath Prince William. Regulars have donated bits and pieces to the collection, from pictures of the royals to books, Harry Potter memorabilia and even a piano.
About half his clients are German, he says – and regulars include local politicians, including the mayor of Vettelschloss. “He comes here, we drink beer, it’s all fine,” says Blackburn. “They’re nice people.”
The other half are mainly made up of migrants and visitors from English-speaking countries, he says. Then there are others visiting the area for work or pleasure. People coming on business to Birkenstock and John Deere, which have factories nearby, stay at the Inn. On the night CNN was in the building, there were visitors from Argentina. Because despite the kitsch, the rooms are incredibly comfortable.
Monika and the couple’s daughters Emily and Alyson run the inn together. Emily, 20, is off to hotel school next to learn how to take things up a notch. Blackburn hopes that when he and Monika retire, the girls can take over the business.
Cross-cultural contamination
But for Blackburn, the Little Britain Inn isn’t a hotel; it’s a state of mind.
And one the Germans share.
“The Germans really respect the royals, and felt closer to the UK than anywhere else in the EU,” he says.
Blackburn says he hopes to retire back in the UK one day. He is, after all a fervent royalist. Monika is less so but says, diplomatically, “I think England without the kings and queens wouldn’t be the same.” She generously let her husband name their dogs: Charles and Camilla, a red setter-Australian setter mix and a Altdeutsche Schäferhund (a breed known as an “old German shepherd”), who recently had puppies together.
They’re not the only ones with royal names in the family: Alyson’s middle name is Diana, and one of Monika and Gary’s sons is called William.
The real Charles, Camilla and William may be around 330 miles northwest, but Blackburn lives in hope that one day he might get a royal knock on the door.
“I think they’d really appreciate it – especially because they’re part German,” he says, opening the door of the gents toilets to reveal King Charles plastered over the toilet door, overlooking the urinals.
Perhaps a state visit could be on the cards.
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