Travelling up the day before, I caught a train to Lancaster, then a bus to Ingleton (Land of Caves and Waterfalls), my first port of call. This village in the Yorkshire Dales has a history going back to the Iron ages, when a fortress was existent on top of Ingleborough. Mary Doyle, the mother of Sir Arthur, lived in Masongill, a small hamlet nearby, and therefore the man himself would have been a regular visitor to the area, travelling to Ingleton Station (no longer there) before making his way the few miles to Masongill. It was also whilst staying in the local area that Conan Doyle wrote two short stories, 'The Surgeon of Gaster Fell' (based on his father's life in a mental institution) and 'Uncle Jeremy's Household' (the tale of a murderous plot set near to Ingleton, featuring a Doctor from Baker Street, written two years before his Baker Street Detective).
Having alighted at the Community Centre, and popped into the Tourist Information Office (picking up a 'Welcome to Yorkshire' magazine with the Thirteenth Doctor on the cover - Jodie Whittaker being born in Skelmansthorpe, West Yorkshire), then found the Public House where I was staying the night, I dumped my main bag and made my way back to the main street, and St. Mary's Church, Ingleton, which is left open all day for visitors. The church dates from 1886, and features an old font dating back 800 years to Norman times, as well as their 'Vinegar Bible', one of the few remaining copies printed in 1717 containing the page heading 'Parable of the Vinegar' (a misprint for 'Vineyard').
However, it was for two of its other treasures that I had come. The first was a brass eagle lectern at the front of the church, paid for partly by Conan Doyle himself. It was presented to the Church by pupils and parents of Ingleton School in 1886. Conan Doyle's two sisters were students at the school at that time.
The other Doylean interest was in a family closely linked with the church -a brass in the church commemorates the death of one Randall Hopley Sherlock, brother of the Reverend Todd Sherlock (vicar of Ingleton), struck by lightning at Ingleton Station in 1876. The Church was also designed and built by Cornelius Sherlock. The clock tower houses the 'Sherlock Window', with a plaque dedicated to Randall. However, this could only be viewed when the Church was staffed and by arrangement, so I had to make do with an ineffectual photo from outside.
So, taking into account the Sherlock family, and with the area below the prominent nearby viaduct that crosses the valley in the village called the Holmes (Holme Head etc), there is a pleasing opportunity for speculation about the origin of the name of a certain detective ! Having paid for two short guides to the Church using the donation box, I also bought a small pamphlet entitled 'Sherlock Holmes was a Liverpudlian'.
Exiting the Church, and after a few wrong turns I found the correct path to nearby Thornton-in-Lonsdale, passing the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail. I was in search of another Church, St. Oswalds, where on 6th August 1885, Conan Doyle married his first wife, Louisa Hawkins.
Going inside, I was surprised (and delighted) that for a small donation to church funds, I was able to take away a photocopy of the Marriage Register entry for 6th August 1885, certified by the current Vicar and Churchwarden.
Returning outside, I could feel the start of promised rain showers, and so decided that rather than going on to Masongill, to see Mary Doyle's former residence (a 40 minute walk away), I would return to Ingleton and the shelter of my room.
The evening was spent watching television and eating an enjoyable pub meal. The next morning after breakfast, I gathered up my belongings and made my way back to the main street. Prior to making my way to the bus stop, I popped into 'Uncle Jeremy's Household', a gift and toy shop named after the Conan Doyle short story. Conan Doyle would have been familiar with the building, which in his day housed 'Preston's Refreshment Rooms'.
Finding nothing that I wanted to buy save a fridge magnet, showing the first page of 'Uncle Jeremy's Household' as printed in 'The Boy's Own Paper' in 1887, I made my way back out into the main street, where it had begun raining hard. Putting up my umbrella, I walked along to the Community Centre, arriving far too early for my bus. Eventually, the bus arrived and I made my way to Skipton, where after a brief dash into a local shop to buy a poncho and a zip-up jumper (it having got surprisingly cold after weeks of hot weather), I caught another us into Clitheroe. Here I spent an hour trawling charity shops and purchasing my picnic for the evening, until it was time to catch a more local bus to Hurst Green, where both Stonyhurst and my evening's accommodation were located.
Alighting outside 'The Shireburn Arms', my night's accommodation, I settled into my room, and sorted out my bag containing my picnic, camera, wallet and ground-sheet. Leaving the pub an hour-and-a-half before the advertised start time, I made my way up a road opposite, which had signs pointing towards Stonyhurst. After less than 10 minutes walk, I was entering the grounds.
Following the road round, five minutes later, I found myself at the end of a very long drive, leading down to the school building. Stonyhurst was founded in 1593 by Father Robert Persons SJ at St Omer, a commune in France, at a time
when penal laws prohibited Catholic education in England. After
moving to Bruges in 1762 and Liège in 1773, the college moved to
Stonyhurst in 1794. It currently provides boarding and day education
to approximately 450 boys and girls aged 13–18. The school's alumni
include three Saints, seven archbishops, seven Victoria Cross
winners, three world leaders, a signatory of the American Declaration
of Independence and several sportsmen, politicians, and writers,
including Conan Doyle.
Conan Doyle attended Stonyhurst between 1868 and 1875, spending the first two years at the nearby prep school,at Hodder Place (being sent there at the age of 9 years and 4 months) and the remaining five at the College. His fees were paid by his father’s two brothers. The main reason for his being sent away to a boarding school is thought to have been to allow him to grow up away from the damaging and distressing problem of a drunkard father.
It is believed that some of the principal characters in the Canon were based on, or at least influenced by, people he had known at Stonyhurst. The arch-criminal and master-manipulator Professor James Moriarty, who also had a brother called James may have been based on the two Moriarty brothers – John and Michael – who were his contemporaries at Stonyhurst. They were both good at mathematics, but it was Michael who was outstanding and won the second prize in the whole school whilst aged only 14 and in Grammar. Conan Doyle writes of Moriarty: ‘At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise on the binomial theorem' [FINA]. But it was John who seems to have been of questionable character. He later became Solicitor-General, followed by Attorney General, for Ireland and finally Lord Justice of the Irish Bar. In the Canon, the character is described by Holmes as having a face which ‘protrudes forwards and is forever oscillating from side-to-side in a curiously reptilian fashion’ [FINA]. And in real life, when John Moriarty rose to examine a witness, the word ‘uncoiled’ has been used to describe his action.
Some of the names of the other characters may also be traced to his fellow pupils, notably Patrick Sherlock, whose arrival at Hodder on 2 October 1868 is recorded on the same page as the arrival of Arthur Doyle. Others included a Thurston (a man with whom Watson played billiards in 'The Dancing Men') – the Stonyhurst one later became a Jesuit priest, a Garcia ('Wisteria Lodge'), a Dunn ('The Valley of Fear') and a Moran (the name of a family in 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery', and a father and son in 'The Empty House' and other stories, the son being Professor Moriarty’s chief of staff and ‘the second most dangerous man in England’). At Stonyhurst he was Norbert Louis Moran, who arrived at Hodder two weeks after Doyle, but was put in a higher class.
Stonyhurst is also claimed to have been the model for the description of Baskerville Hall in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' - '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, 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'. [HOUN]
Walking down the drive, I eventually reached a security gate, where after a quick conversation with security, I was let through to the main campus.
Continuing down the drive, I stopped to take a few more photos and then followed the instructions given by security, walking around the chapel (with the green roof) to the gardens at the rear of the building where the performance would be taking place, taking more photos on the way.
Showing my ticket to a steward, I was directed to the performance space. I initially found a space for my ground-sheet but seeing others taking chairs from rows set out some distance back (for Stonyhurst students) decided to do so myself., placing this on the ground-sheet in a space in the front row. Waiting for the performance to start, I ate my picnic. Just before the start, those sitting on the ground were moved forward to form a new front row, but my view was still excellent.
At around 6.45pm, the cast came along selling programmes and raffle tickets, and at 7pm the play began - 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' presented by Chapterhouse Theatre Company, whose performance 'The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes' I had seen three years before with a friend at Gunby Hall,
Spilsby. The play involved Holmes and Watson being called in by Watson's sister-in-law to investigate the deaths of multiple young women in Newcastle, who were all found in the river Tyne, drained of blood. With one of the characters called 'The Professor', the solution was not exactly surprising. However, I spent an enjoyable couple of hours sitting in the gardens of Conan Doyle's alma-mater.
Returning to the pub, I watched some television and then turned in for the night. The next day, I retraced my journey back to Skipton, where I caught a train to Leeds, then one back to London. The information that Open Days where you could go inside the school and even seen Conan Doyle's school-desk, meant that a return trip the next summer is a distinct possibility.
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