Sherlockian Sojourns #44: As Seen on Screen 3.5

Just a mini sojourn this time (a semi-sojourn, if you will). Catching the Piccadilly Line from Earls Court to Osterley (22 minutes), I alighted at a station that I had previously visited to attend Isleworth Crown Court.

 

Striding off down the side of a busy dual carriageway, after a short distance I turned down a side road and after half-a-mile found myself at the entrance to Osterley Park, a Georgian country estate in west London, that straddles the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Originally dating from the 1570s, the estate contains a number of Grade I and II listed buildings, with the park listed as Grade II. The main house was remodelled by Robert Adam between 1761 and 1765. The National Trust took charge of Osterley in 1991 

A walk down a long drive finally brought me to the artificial lake, which I walked around to my destination, Osterley Park House.

 

The House appeared in Holmes vs The Ripper film ‘A Study in Terror’ (1965), where the impressive East Front acted as the home of Lord Carfax (John Fraser), visited by Holmes (John Neville) and Watson (Donald Houston) at the start of the film. This represented the only external location, the rest of the film being filmed in studio at Shepperton. The House also appeared in the less successful, ‘Holmes and Watson’ (2018), starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

    

Having taken multiple photos of the building, I had missed the last entrance for the gardens (I had a voucher for free entry) and the House itself is closed in winter months, so I popped into the small gift shop to buy a few postcards.

Retracing my steps, on my way back to the station, I passed Osterley Books, but despite an intense browsing of the shelves I found nothing of Sherlockian interest that I did not already own.

 

The Piccadilly and District Lines brought me to Richmond and my evening’s entertainment, a stage adaptation of the classic Ealing Comedy ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, starring Miles Jupp (who played a Waiter in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ [2009]) and Justin Edwards (who appeared in the awful ‘This is Genius: No Place Like Holmes’).