Happy St. Parrick's day!

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Irish Mystery

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By Tom Deignan, Contributor
December / January 2013

As Sherlock Holmes fans celebrate the 125th anniversary of the novel in which Arthur Conan Doyle introduced his famous sleuth, Tom Deignan investigates the author’s Irish roots.

The two recent Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law have earned well over one billion dollars worldwide, so it’s no surprise that screenwriters are currently toiling away at another installment of the lucrative franchise. Current Hollywood buzz has it that filming of the third Sherlock Holmes flick will begin sometime next year, with the movie in theaters possibly by Christmas 2014.

Sherlock Holmes — who celebrates his 125th birthday this year — shows no signs of slowing down. Author Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creation, who first appeared in the 1887 murder mystery novel A Study in Scarlet, has had a long life in books and on radio, in television and stage adaptations, and in the movies.

Generations of Sherlock Holmes fans have watched the sleuth, alongside his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson, wield his trademark magnifying glass in order to navigate fog-shrouded British streets, debating theories in plummy accents. The most iconic Holmes, perhaps, is Basil Rathbone, who played the great detective in over a dozen films, and even Robert Downey, Jr.  earned raves for his British accent.

Though he never really went out of style, Doyle is currently enjoying a renaissance. In addition to the film franchise, consulting detective Holmes is also the subject of two hit television series that give Doyle’s stories a contemporary spin: In Britain, the BBC mini-series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and in the U.S., the new CBS show Elementary, featuring Johnny Lee Miller, Lisa Liu, and Aidan Quinn.

Exploring Irish History
Given Sherlock Holmes’ undeniable British pedigree, it may come as a surprise to some that his creator actually comes from a strong Irish Catholic background. Indeed, both the Conan and Doyle families — not to mention the Foleys, on the great writer’s mother’s side — all hail from Dublin. One of Arthur’s uncles, Henry Doyle, was a prominent artist who went on to serve as director of the National Gallery of Ireland.

As for Arthur Conan Doyle himself, though best known for creating Sherlock Holmes, he also wrote many stories that explore Irish themes and characters. Perhaps most interesting to Irish Americans is the fourth and final Sherlock Homes novel, The Valley of Fear (1915), which may have been inspired by two notable episodes in Irish history — the rise of the Molly Maguires, the secret organization that sought to improve labor conditions in Pennsylvania in the 1870s, and the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin in May of 1882. (Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, the Permanent Undersecretary, were fatally stabbed by members of the Irish National Invincibles.)

More broadly, Doyle (1859 – 1930) was alive to witness some of the most tumultuous years of Irish political history, from the post-Famine years to the Easter Rising to the Irish Civil War.

Doyle actively followed the so-called “Irish question” and corresponded with prominent Irish nationalists such as Erskine Childers and Roger Casement.

However, from his fiction to his political positions, Doyle was complicated. For example, despite his strong Irish roots, he once defended British policy in Ireland. So it is fitting that the greatest mystery writer of them all has created quite a mystery about his own past: Precisely how did Arthur Conan Doyle’s Irish background influence his writing?

A Dublin Family
John Doyle (Arthur’s grandfather) was born in Dublin in 1797, into a devoutly Catholic family with an artistic bent. John, who was already showcasing his work at 17, married fellow Dubliner Marianne Conan, a daughter of a tailor, in 1820. Two years later they sought a new life in London, where they soon had three children while John was struggling to succeed as a painter.

After changing his artistic style, John Doyle eventually found success as a political cartoonist. The children kept on coming, as the family moved to the more affluent neighborhood of Hyde Park. They lived in a home where party guests included Benjamin Disraeli and Charles Dickens.

John and Marianne gave birth to Arthur Conan Doyle’s father, Charles, in 1832.

The great writer’s mother, meanwhile, was born in Dublin. The daughter of a doctor who died young, Mary Foley moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where her mother  established a boardinghouse. Charles also had moved to Scotland as a young man. Mary Foley and Charles Doyle married in 1855 and settled in Edinburgh.

Doyle himself acknowledged his strong Irish roots in his 1924 autobiography Memories and Adventures. “I, an Irishman by extraction, was born in the Scottish capital,” Doyle wrote.

Of his parents, he said: “Two separate lines of Irish wanderers came together under one roof.”

A Visit to Waterford
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859. He was baptized at St. Mary’s Cathedral and received a Jesuit education into his teenage years, before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

Doyle was only 20 years old when he published his first story in a Scottish journal. As early as 1881, Doyle spent time with family in Ireland, visiting Waterford during a time of agrarian unrest that came to be called “The Land War.” Doyle wrote of his time in Ireland in an essay (with photographs) called “To the Waterford Coast and Along It.”

In 1885, Doyle married Louisa Hawkins, and the couple went to Ireland for their honeymoon. Throughout the 1880s, however, Doyle struggled as both a writer and doctor. Patients were not exactly knocking down the door of his practice, and publishers and journals rejected many of Doyle’s manuscripts. One magazine that finally agreed to publish a new work by Arthur Conan Doyle was Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The November 1887 edition of that magazine contained a story called “A Study in Scarlet.” Critics in The Scotsman and Glasgow Herald newspapers liked the story. Little did they know that the history of literature was about to change.

Sherlock — and Support for Irish Home Rule?
“A Study in Scarlet” was the first story to feature a detective named Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson. Doyle eventually achieved widespread popularity, with Holmes starring in three subsequent novels: The Sign of the Four (1890), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and The Valley of Fear (1915).

But just as he was more or less creating the modern detective novel, Doyle was also exploring Irish themes in stories such as “That Little Square Box,” “The Heiress of Glenmahowley,” “Touch and Go: A Midshipman’s Story,” and “The Green Flag.”

“These stories are testimonies to Doyle’s keen and sympathetic interest in Irish political grievances,” writes Catherine Wynne, author of the scholarly text The Colonial Conan Doyle.

And yet, despite his roots and his visits to Ireland, the now-successful Arthur Conan Doyle opposed Irish Home Rule in the early 1900s.

“I was what was called a Liberal-Unionist, that is, a man whose general position was Liberal, but who could not see his way to support Gladstone’s Irish Policy,” Doyle himself wrote in his memoirs, referring to the British prime minister who supported Home Rule for Ireland.

The famous writer’s attitude changed in the coming decade. In February 1912 he wrote a letter to Roger Casement stating: “Yes, I feel strongly for Ireland and hope I may strike some blow in that cause.”

On the other hand, Doyle felt compelled to add: “I see the British point of view very clearly, also. However, from both points of view, I am convinced that Home Rule is the solution.”

Scholars such as Catherine Wynne believe Doyle never quite resolved the tensions he felt about Ireland. On the one hand he saw himself as an Irishman, visited Ireland and followed the political situation there. But he was also a successful writer who shied away from more radical political ideas. Wynne believes this conflict manifested itself in Doyle’s writing, leading him to follow the tradition of Gothic Irish literature, a genre perhaps best exemplified by the Dublin-born writer Bram Stroker, the author of Dracula.

Doyle and Ireland
Doyle’s “preoccupations with colonialism are demonstrated in recurring obsessions with land, mind, racial identity and sexuality,” Wynne writes. “The Gothic is an important mode within the colonial context because… it gives a voice to those who are without power and are disenfranchised.”

Doyle’s complex take on Irish matters is perhaps most evident in the final Sherlock Holmes novel, Valley of Fear.

Part of the novel takes place in 1875, and features a meeting on a train during which two passengers (one carrying a gun) identify themselves as members of a secret society most critics believe was based on the Molly Maguires.

Doyle was said to be fascinated by James McParland, the detective who infiltrated the Molly Maguires. He met with William Pinkerton – head of the private detective agency that McParland worked for – and many speculate that hearing the Molly Maguires story from Pinkerton inspired Doyle to write Valley of Fear and to base the detective character on McParland, who was born in Armagh.

One of the key characters in Valley of Fear is lost at sea. However, Sherlock Holmes fears he was in fact executed and thrown overboard. This echoes the death of James Carey, who informed on his fellow comrades in the Irish National Invincibles, the group that perpetrated the murders in Phoenix Park. Carey was shot dead on board a ship by Donegal man Patrick O’Donnell, an Irish revolutionary who likely had relatives who belonged to – you guessed it – the Molly Maguires. O’Donnell may even have visited Pennsylvania as part of his search for the informant who exposed the Phoenix Park assassins.

In the end, Arthur Conan Doyle’s relationship with Ireland may have been complicated, but it was most certainly intimate. In fact, if Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law stay at this long enough, it’s more than likely that they will someday be in a scene featuring an Irish-American coal miner with a gun on a train.

Source

And since we have had a thing for HOUN the last couple of weeks. . . . .

Because I need cheering up after my failed attempt at Sherlockian Immortality . . . . tea cheers us up, right?

Tea fixes everything. Sherlock Holmes liked tea, didn't he? Please say he did.

Just goes to show what I know.

Here is was, thinking I was on the edge of Sherlockian greatness. I should have known better.
I was going to take all the untold cases of Sherlock Holmes and come up with a four letter abbreviation list for them.
I was making good head way.
But I kept digging to make sure I had not missed any.
And low and behold, I found it had already been done.
Like I said, I should have known.

Here is the list compiled by Sherlockian Chris Redmond

Chris Redmonds list

I will have to find another way to be ranked with the Sherlockian elite (I want to hang out with Brad).
Wait, Okay, I know! I'll abbreviate the whole Canon! Any word over four letters, abbreviate!
That's it!

Camping with Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes doesn't camp!

Watson camps. Or at least he had to while in service to Queen and Country. Because he was wounded so near the front, his quarters must have been as mobile as the rest of the ranks.

But even given that, most of us think of Watson (after he mended a little) as robust and enjoying outdoor pursuits. So we could see him camping, right?

Camping had, like recreational boating, become somewhat in vogue during Victoria's reign.

But Sherlock Holmes camping?

Well that image doesn't actually spring into one’s mind does it?

Sure, he could 'rough it' on the mean streets of London and in opium dens and such places most 'campers' wouldn't think of going. Give me bears and bugs over thugs any day. But out in the wild, communing with nature, nope, not Holmes.

Camping, for the most part, was quite different from what we experience today. Gear was heavy and awkward, not like our modern gear with light-weight materials and vacuumed packed food. It usually had to be done with some sort of ready transportation nearby (very nearby).

And let’s face it, the Victorian’s were not known for traveling light.

While extreme in its depiction, this example sort of shows how Victorians equipped themselves for camping and trips; Who but an Englishman, the legendary Sir John Franklin, could have managed to die of starvation and scurvy along with all 129 of his men in a region of the Canadian Arctic whose game had supported an Eskimo colony for centuries? When the corpses of some of Franklin’s officers and crew were later discovered, miles from their ships, the men were found to have left behind their guns but to have lugged such essentials as monogrammed silver cutlery, a backgammon board, a cigar case, a clothes brush, a tin of button polish, and a copy of The Vicar of Wakefield. These men may have been incompetent bunglers, but, by God, they were gentlemen.
Who of use haven't seen some movie or read some book showing how much gear was carried on trips in this era.

While not all Victorian camping trips were as extreme as this example, most would hardly ventured out with only what they could carry on their backs. These, after all, were not Mountain men of the American West, or pioneers setting out across the open plains, but civilized folk. Certain comforts were required after all. With rare exception, light weight camping did not become possible until the advent of nylons and plastics. Up until the late 1960’s modern camper’s tents were still made out of heavy canvas. 

Thomas Hiram Holding is often considered the father of modern camping, gaining his love of adventure from crossing the American plains in a covered wagon.

But Holmes, he was a man of the city. London was his comfort zone. He thrived in London. He required London.

But camp he did, at least once.

In Dartmoor, in Devon. In ‘Hound’.

At least for a few days (a while it seems), and he seemed to do it rather well with a certain amount of comfort.

I am sure he wasn’t thinking of it as camping. More of a ‘stake-out’ I’m sure. But camping it certainly was.

And it seems that little has been discussed about this in Sherlockian writings.

We of course discover this side of Holmes because of Watson’s tenacity and need to prove to Holmes that he was up to the task assigned him.

As we know in ‘Hound’, Watson sets out to find who is hiding on the Moor within view of  Mr. Frankland’s telescope.

Watson soon comes across the ‘campsite’ set amongst the stone circle, and describes it this way;

“This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle -- the same, no doubt, which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy. It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches.”

Sounds like a camping site to me; blankets and a waterproof, ashes of a fire, cooking utensils, water.

And it sounds like the camp site of either a very fastidious person, or someone with some camping knowledge.

The blankets were rolled up in a waterproof to protect them from the elements. The fire was out.

Had the empty tins been burned in the fire to get rid of the food smells? Were the utensils cleaned to once again get rid of the food smells? Probably left out to air dry. Was the bucket of water covered and protected? Watson doesn’t cover these points, so it would only be speculation on our part to assume any of that.

But camping it does sound like. A form of Victorian light weight camping.

It is shortly after Watson describes this scene we learn that it is Holmes who has been the ‘camper’ at this site. He has been hiding out in his pursuit of information regarding the goings on at Baskerville Hall.

And nothing more is said of this camping trip after that.

Let’s look at some of the other things Holmes had with him at his ‘camp-site’.

It is suggested that this part of the story took place around the middle of October. The nights could probably have gotten a little chilly by then, and probably a little damp.

We know he had blankets. And that he wore a nice tweed suit. Between those and a fire he would probably been warm enough inside, out of the wind.

His utensil requirements, by the food present, would have been very minimum and would have probably been used for eating also; a fork, knife and a spoon.

Watson does not tell us what is in the discarded tins; we do however know that there is at least tinned tongue and tinned preserved peaches. Neither would require more than a knife, fork or spoon. The same could probably be said for whatever foods may have been in the discarded tins.

It can be noted that there is no mention of plates or pots and pans. Present however is a ‘pannikin’ and a half-bottle of spirits. A pannikin is described as; Exactly what is a Pannikin? Almost every reference defines Pannikin as: a noun \pa-ni-kən\ pan + -nikin (as in cannikin) "a small pan or cup (usually made of tin). It is a British term dating back to 1823.

A Victorian equivalent of a mess-kit? Perhaps.

This image shows a Victorian food warmer. The very top portion is considered the pannikin. Made of ceramic and has a lid.

Here is another description of the device; The food warmer was commonly used to prepare a warm mixture of flour or bread in diluted milk. This was called pap and was fed to babies and invalids. The mixture would be put in the ceramic container called a pannikin. The pannikin sat inside a container of hot water known as the liner. Both the pannikin and liner sat on a pedestal. A night light at the base heated the water and food, much like a modern steamer.

This seems a little elaborate and more than Holmes may require. I would suggest something a little easier was used that is sometimes also called a pannikin. Whatever Holmes used would probably have been something that he could have cooked in and eaten out of at the same time. And if it is only the top of the above elaborate set-up that is called the 'pannikin',  why couldn't any pot used on a stove for cooking and eating, with a lid, be called a pannikin?

Something simpler like this photo would seem more likely. He could have heated up his food from the tins with it, and he could have used it for a warm drink. The one above right could probably all be stored inside the large pot.

Or this, an alcohol stove.









Modern versions show a lidded pot like this one as pannikins.

However, the more elaborate set up could heat water separate from his food dish. 
I am, however, still leaning more towards the simpler arrangement.

Watson mentions a grate in the hut. That could be taken as a ring of stone, something to contain the fire or it could be a grill above the fire for cooking on. He could have then just placed the tins on top of a grate/grill for warming food. But I don't think so.

Having no desire to know how to cook tongue, I am not going to suggest a method here.

Watson states that the ashes from the fire were heaped in a grate, so I would suggest a circle to contain the fire is what he meant.

Either way, Holmes would have had to cook his food some way.

Watson does however state that in the corner with the pannikin was half a bottle of spirits.

Now, that could either be a half bottle of Jameson’s spirits (whiskey) or half a bottle of spirits used for a stove. A food warmer as mentioned above would require spirits as fuel.

I am however still of the mind that this set up would be a little more than Holmes would need and suggest that some other sort of spirit stove was used. 

And here is an example of one.

However, when playing the game and Watson actually describes something as such we should take him at his word. And since a Victorian pannikin could be used for cooking and light, up to ten hours, perhaps we should just leave it at that.

My only other argument against the complete pannikin setup would be that Holmes probably had some sort of bulls-eye lantern with him and would not need two sources of light for his adventure. Just a thought.

One thing, actually two, that is not mentioned his the presense of tea or coffee. Now I know, I could not go camping without my tea. I do love the smell of coffee when camping but do not drink it. Tea is however required.

Where did Holmes come up with this 'camping' gear? Was it Watsons? Watson didn't say so.
Was it his? Was it arranged for?

We know that Holmes looked a little thinner, and worn, but bronzed and cat-like clean.

Watson also describes him as looking like any other tourist on the moor.

Exercise and the environment would contribute to the healthy way Holmes looked. A look that could be attributed to, well, camping.

And he was a prepared camper. From what Watson describes as his gear in the hut, he had just about everything he needed. Off handedly Holmes states his only other needs were a loaf of bread and a clean collar. And young Cartwright took care of those.

So it does seem Holmes was a camper. "Needs most" perhaps, but none the less. 

He stayed dry, he stayed warm. He met his food requirments.

Signs of a good camper.

A couple other questions remain. Not about Holmes’ ability as a camper (merit badge material is he) but about his security while camping and that of Cartwright with Seldon running around?

And on that note I will leave you with just one more thought;

Some more pannikins and camping stuff.

Elementary S4-E16 - 'Hounded' - Once bitten, twice shy. . . . . or Love is in the air . . It should have been called 'GUS'.

  Okay, 'Elementary' had a chance here and, well, kinda missed the mark.

Hound of the Baskervilles is arguably the most well-known and the most popular tale in the Canon.

  So they had a lot to work with, and a lot of room to miss the mark. Which they did.

  Retelling the Hound is always going to be hard. You can either re-tell the story canonically, a great Gothic tale of mystery and murder, and be judged by how well you pull that off. 

  Or you can adapt it in a totally new way and, well, be judged by how well you pull it off.

  ‘Elementary’ with ‘Hounded’ didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind on which way it wanted to go and failed in both directions.

  The show opens with Holmes walking in on Hawes who is examining a new body at the morgue. Hawes’ work has been slipping of late and Holmes has come to point that fact out and if possible discover why.

  The show then cuts to Central Park and a man being chased through the woods by an unknown assailant. The man running stumbles of a cliff and is hit by a truck. Holmes discovers that there was someone else present and could be a possible witness.

  The man is Charles Baskerville.

  While Holmes works on finding out what is wrong with Hawes, Watson finds the witness, a homeless man, and discovers he saw a large wolf or small bear attack Charles.

  And so, without going over the whole show again, we have a murdered Baskerville, another who will inherit the fortune, but who doesn’t really need it, and the rest of the cast from the Canon.

 Where the episode falls apart is when it doesn’t either stay true to the original story and just retell it, and it also doesn’t come up with something new and unique in its telling.

  Mostly the episode is guilty of using as many clichés as possible without putting them into a well told story.

  The episode does however once again hit on timely topics, GMO’s and robots, but they could have done that without, perhaps better, using HOUN as the backdrop.

  The episode actually became more of a test to see how many HOUN clichés one could catch and not worry about the story line.

So, here are the ones I caught;

‘Sir’ Charles is chased down a narrow lane.

He dies of something other than the ‘beast, (canonically a heart attack, in this episode, a truck).

Henry Baskerville is the heir (as is apparently everyone else in the episode).

Part of the story takes place in Devonshire (Devonshire Robotics)

Watson is sent off to investigate on her own while Holmes goes elsewhere. (Her checking up on the witness while Holmes played chess).

A Stapleton is involved and related.

Hugo Baskerville (in this case a railroad baron).

Barrymore (this time working for Stapleton).(The name served no real purpose in the storyline.)

Miss Lyons (a Stapleton)

An unknown heir.

A glowing dog (this one a big pussy cat).

And also mentioned Canonically or from ACD;

Undershaw.

Holmes mentions ‘The Woman’

 While it was fun to spot these, the story did not need any of them and would have probably made for a better episode without the HOUN connection, especially considering how much is expected once you connect it to the original story. (Hey 'Elementary', change the names and show it again.!)

  One of the things that have always made HOUN such great story is that Holmes is taken out of his perceived comfort zone, London, and sent, for him, to an alien environment, Dartmoor. Holmes we believe is a creature of the city, not comfortable in such a rural setting. (I am going to have a separate post for this discussion.)

  This episode failed to even attempt use that Gothic setting to its advantage. The location is as much a part of HOUN as is anything else. It is the sinister nature of the enviornment that sets the tone (I know; Central Park at night isnt' scary enough for you?) The story should have gone to New Jersey or some where else.

  Another flaw in the episode was the fact that everyone loved each other, for the most part.

  Henry loved Charles, Stapleton loved the Baskervilles. Barrymore, while maybe not loving Stapleton at least didn’t mind having drinks with him.

Stapleton loved, well, women.

The dog loved Charles.

 Okay maybe Ms. Lyons didn’t love everyone, but she should have because her plot line was really bad.

  We were never told how Roger mistreated her father, the hippie, the one who moved to Australia. I thought hippies did that kind of thing. A free and open life.

  She had a great job. Didn’t it pay well? And just like in the Canon, why didn’t she just ask to be part of the family? Everyone loved each other. They would have made her feel welcome.

  And instead of calling this episode 'HOUNded', maybe we should call it 'GUS', after the robotic dog. I don’t claim to know much about the physics of robots but I don’t see a machine like that being able to maneuver like it did in the park at night in such a rough terrain. A tracked vehicle would have trouble unless it was the size of a small tank.

 The side story with Hawes was well done and showed some growth on Miller’s Holmes part.

  The acting was still strong by the leads. The extras didn't carry enough weight, once again considering the source.

  I know, at this point I am starting to sound like Brad (I feel dirty) but in this case he may have a point. I will check to see if he has any thoughts on this episode after I post this.

 The episode did however live up to this season, and, compared to the last few seasons, it remained strong. It did not however take advantage of its source material which set it up as a failure.

It would be akin to setting Mutiny on the Bounty on a pontoon boat.

The weakest episode of this season.

Because of its poor treatment of HOUN I can only fairly give it;

And a little more.

Brook manor house and Sherlock Holmes

To the west of the town is Brook Manor house, a grade II* listed property, built in 1656 for Richard Cabell, Lord of the Manor of Brook.^[2] He was the subject of a local legend. It is said that on the night of his death (ca. 1677) black hounds, breathing fire and smoke, raced over Dartmoor and surrounded Brook Manor House, howling. Cabbell's unusual tomb was allegedly designed to keep his restless spirit from roaming Dartmoor.^[3] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based the Sherlock Holmes story Hound of the Baskervilles on this legend. The story's description of Baskerville Hall, however, is based on Cromer Hall in Norfolk.

Literary connections

The hall has a strong literary connection thanks to a visit to the house by the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes. In 1901 Arthur Conan Doyle had returned from South Africa, suffering from Typhoid fever. To aid his recuperation, the author decided to take a golfing holiday in North Norfolk, accompanied by the journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson. The two friends stayed at the Royal Links Hotel in Cromer. During their stay, Doyle probably heard the Norfolk legend of 'Black Shuck', the Hell Hound of Norfolk. The following description of Baskerville Hall in Doyle’s book can also be matched to the exterior aspects of Cromer Hall.

“

The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy,[6] with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenellated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke…

”

From The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originally serialised in the Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902. Unfortunately, Doyle himself said nothing in his autobiography about the writing of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Although the setting for the story was Devon, Doyle's visit to Cromer undoubtedly provided part of the inspiration.

A fun interesting read from a few years ago.

Dartmoor: In the footprints of a gigantic hound

Conan Doyle's canine monstrosity is 100 years old. A nervous Christopher Somerville plays literary sleuth on Dartmoor

12:01AM GMT 09 Mar 2002

WHENEVER fans of Sherlock Holmes hear the name of Dartmoor, it is impressions from The Hound Of The Baskervilles that come rushing to mind: a barren, mist-wreathed moor, a mysterious figure silhouetted against the rising moon, the face of an escaped convict "all seamed and scored with vile passions", and the blood-freezing howl of the fiery, fiendish Hound from the heart of the great Grimpen Mire.

Something about the moor fascinated Arthur Conan Doyle from the moment his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson spun him a yarn about a spectral hound that haunted Dartmoor. Researching his tale in 1901, Conan Doyle drew inspiration from the gloomy baronial halls, sucking bogs, abandoned tin mines and lonely houses all around - not to mention the great grim prison.

Doyle had killed off his famous detective eight years before. But Holmes simply could not be left out of such a ripping yarn. It was a wise capitulation on Conan Doyle's part: The Hound Of The Baskervilles has never been out of print, and rarely off the film and TV screen, since its first serialised publication in 1901-2 in The Strand Magazine. We love this Gothic horror tale, all of us, all over the world, whether we are dedicated Holmesians or mere casual browsers under the midnight lamp.

The Hound is 100 years old, but has never lost its fascination. When Philip Weller's admirable new book, The Hound Of The Baskervilles: Hunting the Dartmoor Legend, fell through my letterbox I knew that I was in the capable hands of a Holmesian par excellence. The author is chairman of The Baskerville Hounds, a group of enthusiasts dedicated to playing to the utmost what they term "The Great Holmesian Game" -pretending that Holmes and Watson were real and fitting their adventures to actual dates, locations and historical circumstances.

Imagination is always the best set designer. But this book promised to introduce some fascinating actuality. The prospect of expert guidance around Dartmoor, to points from which I could gaze on the originals of doom-wrapped Baskerville Hall, sinister Merripit House and the wastes of the great Grimpen Mire itself, was too good to pass up. I threw my Weller into a gladstone, looked out my stoutest boots and a trusty "Penang lawyer", sent down to Stanfords for the Ordnance map and to Spar for a pound of their strongest shag, and took the M5 into Devonshire on a blustery autumn day of the year 20--.

Baskerville Hall, seat of the Hound-haunted Baskerville family, has always been one of the prime Gothic literary settings - a dark old house in a tree-blanketed hollow under the moor with a sombre tunnel of a drive, twin towers, ivy-smothered walls and that scary Yew Alley where Sir Charles Baskerville died of sheer fright after running for his life from the Hound. There are three main candidates for Baskerville Hall on the eastern edge of Dartmoor, the only feasible location given the relative positions of neighbouring places in the story.

Fowelscombe, not far from the village of Ugborough, was a strong contender, in spite of its lack of a view of the moor. When Doyle was researching on Dartmoor in 1901 this grand Elizabethan mansion - then newly abandoned to decay - possessed twin towers, mullioned windows, crenellations and long wings, just as in the novelist's description of Baskerville Hall. I found Fowelscombe sunk in its hollow in a sad state of dereliction; a poignant, ivy-choked ruin.

The next candidate, Hayford Hall, was perfectly positioned deep in a tree-filled cleft under Dartmoor's rim west of Buckfastleigh, and had an old yew alley leading out on to the moor. The drive was lined with beeches whose leaves were streaming away on the autumn gale. I could only catch a glimpse of tall, tower-like chimneys through the trees, but Weller's book assured me that the house itself answered none of Doyle's description of Baskerville Hall.

The third possible source of inspiration, Brook Manor, lay in a suitably deep valley a couple of miles east of Hayford Hall. What best recommended this ancient house, though, was the character of the man who owned it in the mid-17th century, Richard "Dirty Dick" Cabell. Dirty Dick married Elizabeth Fowell of Fowelscombe, but proved an absolute bounder - so wicked, in fact, that legend says he was hunted to death on Dartmoor by ghostly black dogs.

In the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church at Buckfastleigh I found the mausoleum where Dirty Dick lies sealed into his tomb by a massive stone slab - he has a tendency to walk abroad, apparently. He might well have been Conan Doyle's inspiration for the character of wicked Hugo Baskerville, who became the first of his family to be Hounded to death when he hunted an innocent maiden over the moor by night.

I dentification of the prehistoric stone hut in which Sherlock Holmes camped out on the moor, unbeknown to faithful Watson, could be a nightmare, since Dartmoor possesses the remains of well over a thousand such primitive dwellings. But Weller persuaded me that there were really only two candidates.

It's a fact that Arthur Conan Doyle and Bertram Fletcher Robinson visited Grimspound, Dartmoor's best-known enclosure of hut circles, in 1901. A suitably moody rainstorm welcomed me to the site, where I soon identified the hut in which Doyle and Robinson probably sat to smoke their pipes - Hut No 3, the most thoroughly restored and most central in the big walled compound.

Grimspound lies too far from the central moor to be the correct choice geographically; but Ryder's Rings, an oblong walled settlement a couple of miles south-west of Hayford Hall, is perfectly placed at the top of a steep brackeny slope above the River Avon. Its forgotten hut circles, collapsed in the bracken, chimed exactly with the melancholy mood of the moor.

So to the scenes of the tale's denouement around Merripit House, the remote moorland dwelling of the ominous naturalist Stapleton and his exotically beautiful "sister", Beryl, on the shores of the fearsome quagmire called the great Grimpen Mire. Stapleton is unmasked - by a typically acute piece of Holmesian observation - as a murderous Baskerville bastard intent on extinguishing the young rightful heir to the estate, Sir Henry Baskerville, and claiming title, house and fortune for himself.

Although other candidates exist, only one area properly fits the bill - the moor south of Princetown. Here Fox Tor Mires makes the perfect great Grimpen Mire, while Nun's Cross Farm is surely the original Merripit House. In late afternoon rain I passed the gaunt Napoleonic barrack blocks of Dartmoor prison and walked the puddled track towards Nun's Cross Farm.

The shuttered building lay hidden in a walled quarter-acre of rough garden, its grey walls battered by the weather. Nothing lonelier or more eerie could be imagined - save for the vast flat brown waste of Fox Tor Mires that filled the adjacent valley.

Along the track through a moor fog Sir Henry Baskerville had run screaming from the hellish, fire-breathing hound that Stapleton set on his trail. Here Holmes gunned the Hound down in the nick of time. And over there, where the ruined walls of the old Whiteworks tin mines lay on the moor slopes, the desperate Stapleton, in flight from the collapse of his schemes, had leapt over the tussocks of the great Grimpen Mire until a false step sent the murderer into the ooze to be sucked down to his awful end.

Weller in hand, I gazed on this scene so often conjured in the imagination's eye, now brought starkly and stunningly to life.

Hound basics

OS grid references Baskerville Hall Fowelscombe 692551, Hayford Hall 688671, Brook Manor 713677; Holmes's hut Ryder's Rings in square 6764, Grimspound 701809; Merripit House Nun's Cross Farm 606698;Grimpen Mire Fox Tor Mires in squares 6170, 6270; Abandoned tin mine in Grimpen Mire Whiteworks mine ruins in squares 6170, 6171.

Remember that Fowelscombe, Hayford Hall, Brook Manor and Nun's Cross Farm are private property, and may be viewed only from nearby rights of way.

Reading 
The Hound Of The Baskervilles - Hunting the Dartmoor Legend by Philip Weller is published by Devon Books at £24.95; order from Halsgrove Direct on 01884 243242 or email sales@halsgrove.com.

The Baskerville Hounds - Contact The Kennel Maid, 6 Bramham Moor, Hill Head, Fareham, Hants PO14 3RU.

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