I love a good press release as much as the next desperate journalist, but it’s rare that I receive anything as outstanding as the very special offering I found in my in box last week.

According to window dressing specialist Hillarys, one in 10 Britons has a secret room in their home.

Yes, really – an actual secret room!

More surprising still was the news that it took them an average of five years of living there to realise this secret room even existed.

And what have they found there? “Hundreds of gnome statues, teeth and small bones and even an upside-down cross”.

Just, wow. The mind really does boggle. Do these people have massive mansions then, or what? Because my house doesn’t seem anywhere near big enough to house a secret room, not even a really, really small one.

More creepy and less weirdly comical was news of the “room which looked as if someone had been living in it”, followed by the “small room full of men’s magazines”.

Definitely not keen on stumbling on either of those - but I don’t think any of us would say no to “a room at the end of a garden with hundreds of gnome statues in it”.

The odds of finding a mystery door or hatch are marginally higher at one in eight, and sadly I’ve never found one of those, either. Have you? Please, please get in touch if so, I think I can speak on behalf of all of Herts when I say that we’d love to hear all about it, bones, gnomes and all.