The Epping Forest Country Club was a group of three night clubs on the Essex/London border, just outside Chigwell, Essex. The various night clubs were well known throughout South East of England and attracted many big name acts as well as many celebrity visitors. The venues closed in early 2002 after a number of high-profile incidents in addition to complaints from the local residents about noise. Incidents included a door man being shot in 2001 after trying to break up a fight and earlier in the year another person being stabbed on the dance floor. On October 3rd 1999, Darren Pearman was killed in the grounds of the venue.OverviewThe three venues were called 'Atlantis', 'The Casino Club', and Woolston Hall Known as 'The Country Club'. All but one of the buildings have now been demolished and a Holmes Place (now Nuffield Health) health club built on the site. The only original building that remains is that of 'The Casino Club' and its swimming pool complex, which used to host 'Splash' parties where over 5,000 people used to attend.HistoryThe original 'Woolston Hall' dated back to 1740, and was owned by the Scott family and sold in around 1930 to the Co-Op and was used as their sport and social club. In the late '70s Woolston Hall was converted into a high class private members club by Sean Connery and 1966 World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore. One night in the early '80s a group of local businessmen and their wives attempted to get into a local club in Walthamstow, unfortunately for the owner of this club his doormen decided not to let them in because only two of the party was members. One of the group was a local builder called Peter Pomfret, and after being refused entry decided to purchase the lease of 'Woolston Hall', which by now was suffering from a lack of customers. The club was swiftly closed down and turned into a night club, with much less strict membership criteria, and soon attracted huge numbers of local customers, but was still restricted to over-25s. It soon became overwhelmed with its own success, Peter and his wife decided to extend the club facilities to include, tennis, golf, venues for weddings, private functions, corporate events and a new fitness centre named after their daughter 'Gina's'then in the mid-'90s added 'The Jungle', which after a few years was refurbished as 'Atlantis'.