Despite having just returned from a mega-sojourn, it was time for another sojourn, a return to somewhere that I had visited many years ago, and which I had planned to revisit nine months ago, but due to heavy rain this had had to be cancelled.
Catching a train to Clapham Junction, my train to Southampton was delayed by six minutes, meaning that I was concerned about meeting my connection. However, the good news was that we made up time on the journey, arriving only two minutes after the scheduled time. The bad news was that it had begun raining during the journey. I therefore caught my connecting train with minutes to spare, alighting twenty minutes later at Netley, a village flanked on one side by the ruins of Netley Abbey and on the other by the Royal Victoria Country Park. The latter was my intended destination. Pleasingly, Netley is part of the parish of Hound, hence the sign outside the Station.
As I set out on the half-hour walk to the Country Park, the rain started to get a little heavier, and by the time I reached the Park itself, the heavens had completely opened, pounding down on my umbrella. After around five minutes, I reached a gate indicating ‘Site of the former Royal Victoria Military Hospital’. It was at this Hospital in 1878 that Doctor Watson undertook the Army Surgeons course before going out to join his regiment in India:
“In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and
proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army”
– Doctor John H. Watson [STUD]
In 1963, a large fire damaged much of the hospital building, and it was demolished in 1966, with only the Chapel retained. This was also scheduled for demolition, but was saved at the last moment as a monument to the hospital, and was designated as Grade II* listed in 1974. I therefore rushed across the grass to the Chapel where I was able to take shelter from the rain, in the café where I partook of a warming Hot Chocolate with marshmallows. Popping to the gift shop, I purchased a guide to the Chapel and two photographic postcards of the Hospital as it was at its height.
Reading the guide, I learnt that Queen Victoria laid the Hospital’s foundation stone on 19th May 1856, concealing underneath a copy of the plans, the first Victoria Cross, a Crimea Medal and coins of the realm. The inscription read:
‘This stone was laid on the 19th day of May in the year of our Lord 1856, by Her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland as the foundation stone of the Victoria Military Hospital intended for the reception of the sick and invalid soldiers of her Army’.
Its design caused some controversy, chiefly from Florence Nightingale, but the hospital eventually opened for patients on 11th March 1863. It was a quarter of a mile (435m) long, had 138 wards and approximately 1,000 beds, and was Britain's largest military hospital. It cost £350,000 to build, and was late and over budget.
From its construction until 1902, Netley Hospital served as the home of the Army Medical School, training civilian doctors for service with the army, with John Watson being one of its alumni (even getting a mention in the guidebook). As many patients were suffering from tropical diseases, the hospital was also used for medical research. The first thing that confronted anyone entering the imposing central tower block was a large museum of natural history and anatomical specimens, reflecting the interests of many of the doctors.
The hospital was particularly busy during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) [which Watson went to fight in on the completion of his training] which, when the project was further encouraged by Queen Victoria, provided the impetus for extending the railway line that brought patients from Southampton Docks in 1900. The extension terminated at a station behind the hospital but was awkward to operate, having gradients which were steep for the locomotives of the time. Some trains needed a locomotive at each end to travel that ¾ of a mile.
In 1863, Florence Nightingale's colleague, Jane Catherine Shaw Stewart, became the Supervisor of Nurses, but she was there for just five years before an investigation revealed her bullying and temper. She was replaced by Jane Cecilia Deeble who was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her work "in Zululand". Deeble was in charge until 1889 (so would have been there when Watson was) when she was succeeded by Helen Campbell Norman.
The Chapel is now a museum, with displays relating to all eras of the Hospital, including Queen Victoria’s ongoing connection (she visited twenty times), various uniforms, a model of the Hospital showing where all buildings were, a version of ‘Operation’ in which you attempt to locate a (Jezail) bullet in an arm without destroying surrounding nerves or blood vessels, and even a deduction exercise in which close observation of Pathe newsreel footage showing the Hospital treating shell-shocked soldiers revealed all was not quite as it seemed (meaning the film was propaganda) as people in the background were exactly the same and in the same places in footage allegedly filmed two months apart, as was the smoke coming out of a chimney.
Looking out through the Chapel doors I could see that the rain had stopped and the sun was now shining. I therefore went outside to get photos of the Chapel from outside and explore the site where the former other Hospital buildings previously stood, including the Pier Head where the injured came ashore and sat by the sea recuperating, and the remains of the railway line that led from Southampton Docks.
Having taken lots of photos, I went round the museum again, before making my way back the way I came. The first thing that I came across was a timber-framed structure that represented where the small entrance porch to the Hospital was located. However, my eye was then taken by a familiar name – that of ‘Doctor Watson’ who comprised part of a display with Queen Victoria, and included a representation of the first two pages of ‘A Study in Scarlet’.
Making my way out of the Park, and looking at my watch it was clear that I would just miss the next train from Netley, so I decided to make a detour to Netley Abbey, after which the village gained its name, which was built in 1237. The site was picked specifically as it met the requirements of the Cistercians that would run it. This was specifically that the abbey would be built 'remote from towns', indicating there was little settlement here.
In 1536, Netley Abbey was dissolved as part of the Dissolution of the monasteries, with the buildings being converted into a Tudor mansion. This was given to Sir William Paulet. In 1542 or 1544, Netley Castle was constructed as part of the Device Programme to defend The Solent from French invasions. This utilised abandoned parts of the former Abbey, like its water supply and building materials. By the start of the Nineteenth Century, the castle and Abbey laid in ruins.
Walking back to the Station, I passed the Netley Victoria Club, and was in plenty of time for my train back to Southampton, eating my lunch on the platform. At Southampton, I had ten minutes to change platforms for my train to Eastleigh (also part of ‘Hound’).
Ten minutes later I was alighting at Eastleigh, and walking over to catch the #3 bus from the nearby Bus Station. A long queue had formed, and when the small single-deckered bus arrived I was concerned if I would be able to get on, particularly as there were two pushchairs and a wheelchair in front of me. Eventually the driver managed to fit everyone in after folding down one of the pushchairs and the wheelchair. Having finally started off, after around twenty minutes I was alighting at a stop seemingly named after the hero of a series of seven historical short stories, a novel and a play, written by Watson’s literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle – ‘The Brigadier Gerard’.
However, the bus stop was named after the traditional country pub opposite, nestled on the outskirts of Horton Heath. Frustratingly, the Pub is named after a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire, which itself was named after Conan Doyle’s Brigadier Etienne Gerard. In Doyle’s works, Gerard is a Hussar officer in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars, and his most notable attribute is his vanity – he is utterly convinced that he is the bravest soldier, greatest swordsman, most accomplished horseman and most gallant lover in all France. Obsessed with honour and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady. In a racing career which lasted from June 1970 until October 1972, Gerard the horse won seventeen of his eighteen races, and is rated the best racehorse trained in Britain in the Twentieth Century.
Having taken photos of the outside, I entered the Pub, where I ordered a Pepsi, then took photos of all memorabilia relating to the horse, including a newspaper report on the 1971 ‘Two Thousand Guineas’, which referenced the other ‘Brigadier Gerard’.
‘In one of his more famous exploits, as described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Brigadier Gerard
killed a fox – with a single well-aimed stroke of his sabre – in full view of the Duke of Wellington
and the British army. But although the gallant Hussar caused quite a stir on that occasion, it
was nothing compared with the sensation at Newmarket last Saturday, as with a single, equally
deadly stroke, his modern reincarnation, Mrs. John Hislop’s Brigadier Gerard, mowed down the
two best-known three-year-olds in Europe’.
Making my way to the bus stop on the other side of the road, I caught a #3 back into Eastleigh, then a train onto Winchester. Passing the site of ‘The Black Swan Inn’ as visited by Holmes and Watson (and myself in a previous sojourn) in ‘The Copper Beeches’, I walked to the Theatre Royal for my evening’s entertainment – ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Thief of Antiquity’, performed by Blue Apple Theatre.
Founded in 2005 by Jane and Tommy Jessop and based in Winchester, Blue Apple is an inspirational and ambitious theatrical company that supports learning disabled performers to develop and present high quality productions to the widest possible audiences – performing and touring theatre, dance and film within a variety of large and small scale venues around Hampshire and the southern regions, as well as nationally and internationally. The performance was amazing – with a wonderful Holmes (Sam Dace) and Watson (Tom Hatchett), backed up by nearly forty others.
Taking a late train from Winchester, I was lucky at Clapham Junction in just catching my connecting train home.
