Sherlockian Sojourns #20: Norfolk

For my next sojourn, I made my way to Norfolk, where the events of the short-story "The Dancing Men” took place. The story involves Mr. Hilton Cubitt of Riding Thorpe Manor submitting what appear to be childish scrawls of stick men to Holmes, but which are at the heart of a mystery that seems to be driving his young wife Elsie to distraction. Catching a train from Liverpool Street Station to Norwich Station, I changed onto a local service to North Walsham, arriving at the same station that Holmes and Watson would have done, where they learnt of the death of their client, Mr. Cubitt.

Holmes and Watson travelled by carriage, but I had to make do with a taxi (having just missed the #34 bus) to travel the seven miles, passing Ebridge Mill, the inspiration for ‘Elridges’ (where the murderer was laying low), with its ‘Cubitt & Walker’ sign, until finally I reached Happisburgh.

It was here that Watson’s literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle stayed when on a motoring holiday in 1903. The landlord’s small son, Gilbert Cubitt had developed a way of writing his signature in stick men. This intrigued Conan Doyle, who used the idea in his account of “The Dancing Men”, which was based in Norfolk, and is said to have been written in the Green Room of the old Boarding House which overlooked the bowling green. This boarding house is now the Happisburgh Hill House Inn, and features a plaque commemorating the Conan Doyle connection.

The Inn dates back to 1550, with period features and a large beer garden Since 2014, it has had its own attached brewery, ‘The Dancing Men Brewery’, but unfortunately they do not do a Sherlockian-themed beer. Next door was the Happisburgh Halt Coffee Shop & Carvery, but that had closed for the day. Feeling hungry, I therefore entered the pub and ordered a Cheese and Bacon burger, from a menu with a familiar silhouette on it.

Having taken photos of the Sherlock Holmes themed alcove, I then struck out in search of the home of Hilton and Elsie Cubitt, Riding Thorpe Manor, identified as Walcott House, Walcott Green, by Shirley Purves (in 'A Singular Countryside'), finding it with a minimum of wrong turns.

However, my bad luck with buses continued, as I just missed one back to North Walsham, and had to wait almost two hours for the next one, as the final bus of the day arrived 25 minutes late. I spent some of the time sitting on a sea wall, gazing out to sea as I listened to Stephen Fry read ‘The Dancing Men'.

Finally catching the bus and then a train back to Norwich, I made my way to my weekend’s lodgings, as I had further non-Sherlockian sites to visit over the rest of the weekend.