Sherlockian Sojourns - Special #6: ‘You could not find a more lonely tract of road anywhere’.

My trip to Reigate, brought a previous sojourn that I had not previously published to mind. In ‘The Solitary Cyclist’, Violet Smith moves to ‘Chiltern Grange’ in Farnham on ‘the borders of Surrey’ to act as music teacher to the daughter of a Mr. Carruthers, who claims acquaintance with a seemingly dead relative of hers. Every Saturday forenoon she rides her bicycle to Farnham Station, in order to get the 12:22 to town. The road is a lonely one, and at one spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile between Charlington Heath upon one side and the woods which lie round Charlington Hall upon the other. However, she finds herself being regularly followed by another cyclist, so seeks the support of Holmes and Watson.

Therefore, in August 2011, I decided to follow in her footsteps/bicycle tracks, catching a train to Guildford Station, then a bus to Puttenham Cross Roads. Nearby was an entrance onto Puttenham Common, the true identity of Charlington Heath. I walked swiftly across the Common, taking photographs.

I then passed Hampton Lodge, the true identity of Charlington Hall, continuing to enter the woodland. However, I decided to pop back for some more photos to be challenged by the owner of a nearby cottage, having not noticed a sign indicating that this part of the Common was private land. I apologised profusely, returning to the woodland, before managing to grab a couple more photos after he had gone.

   

Exiting the woodland onto a main road, it was then a two mile walk to my next stop, the Barley Mow Public House, where Holmes fought with Mr. Carruthers’ co-conspirator, Mr. Woodley, demonstrating his expertise in boxing.

 

“I found that country pub which I had already recommended to your notice, and there I made my discreet inquiries. I was in the bar, and a garrulous landlord was giving me all that I wanted,…..when who should walk in but [Mr. Woodley], who had been drinking his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole conversation…..He ended a string of abuse by a vicious back-hander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart” – Holmes [SOLI]

 

Continuing along for another three miles, I finally reached my (and Miss Smith’s) final destination, Farnham Station. The station was opened on 8 October 1849, on a route from Guildford via Ash Green and Tongham. The line from Aldershot station opened in 1870 and was electrified on 4 July 1937. It was to here to Holmes and Watson travelled to come to Miss Smith’s aid, with Holmes describing Farnham as "a beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting associations. You remember, Watson, that it was near there that we took Archie Stamford, the forger." [SOLI]

  

I then caught a train back to Guildford, where I spent the evening enjoying a production of ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, featuring Sixth-Doctor actor, Colin Baker, as Count Fosco. 

 

The production was enjoyable, if like the original novel, a little too long. This concluded, a late train took me home.

Sherlockian Sojourns #32: 'A Bachelor Establishment in Reigate'

Another sojourn close to home. Looking into the locations for ‘The Reigate Squires’ (or ‘The Reigate Puzzle’ if you’re American) in nearby Reigate, I found that Ross E. Davies in ‘Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Reigate Puzzle – A Cartographical and Pictorial View’ stated that Hayter’s residence was Rookwood, Acton’s Great Doods, and the Cunningham’s Reigate Lodge. All lay to the east of the town centre. Sadly, all three were demolished last century and their grounds used for residential development. However, David L. Hammer identifies Reigate Priory (still standing and now a Junior School) as the location of the Cunningham’s manor house. I then found a bus that in 45 minutes made its way from Epsom (a short bus ride away) to almost directly outside the Priory.

With no transport problems, I was soon getting off the bus in Bancroft Road in Reigate, where just around a corner and about two minutes’ walk was Priory Park which surrounds Reigate Priory. Making my way into the park, the Priory was to the right. The Priory is a Grade I listed building, and was originally founded in the early 13th century and was converted to a mansion in Tudor times following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In June 1541 Henry VIII granted the Manor and Priory of Reigate to Lord William Howard, uncle of Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife. Reigate Priory became the family home and the old monastic buildings were converted to become a comfortable Tudor mansion.

 

 

‘We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived and walked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old Queen Anne house, which bears the date of Malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. Holmes and Inspector Forrester led us round it until we came to the side gate, which is separated by a stretch of garden from the hedge which lines the road.’   [REIG] 

 

The priory is now home to Reigate Priory School and Reigate Priory Museum. Unfortunately, the Museum and the Holbein Hall with its Tudor fireplace, 18th century staircase and murals, was closed because of essential structural repair to the building. Photos taken from all sides, including an ornamental pond, and I made my way out of the park. My first point of call was a comic book shop that I had passed on my way to the park, where I managed to purchase a rare ‘Doctor Who’-related magazine for the bargain price of £1. I then trawled the charity shops of Reigate, before ending up at the station, walking along the appropriately named, Holmesdale Road. Holmes and Watson would have alighted here on their journey to stay at Colonel Hayter’s. The current station buildings date from 1849.

 

 

 

‘My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had come under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house near Reigate in Surrey and had frequently asked me to come down to him upon a visit….and a week after our return from Lyons we were under the colonel’s roof. ’  [REIG]

 

Grabbing some lunch at a nearby supermarket, I waited at the bus stop for my return bus, which arrived after around fifteen minutes. I was soon back in Epsom, and a short time after that, back home.

Sherlockian Sojourns #31: ‘The Napoleon of Crime’

This afternoon sojourn started exactly where a previous one ended, 'The Logs', on East Heath Road, Hampstead, thought to be the location of 'Appledore Towers', where 'the worst man in London', Charles Augustus Milverton, lived. In the story of the same name, Holmes and Watson attempted to burgle the property.  The property was also being lived in by Marty Feldman (and his wife Loretta), when he appeared as Orville Sacker in ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother’ (1975). I took some more photos, as the light was poor by the time I reached here last time.

 

It was then a short walk to Hampstead Heath, where Mrs Warren’s husband was dumped after being kidnapped in Tottenham Court Road having been mistaken by the criminals for his mysterious lodger in ‘The Red Circle’. 

 

 

Striding across the heath, after around half-an-hour’s walk, I found myself at my main destination for the afternoon, Highgate Cemetery. The cemetery in its original form – the north-western wooded area – opened in 1839, as part of a plan to provide seven large, modern cemeteries, now known as the "Magnificent Seven", around the outside of central London. The inner-city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead. The initial design was by architect and entrepreneur Stephen Geary.

The cemetery is in two parts – East and West, and it was to the latter that I made my way first, having paid the entrance fee. After around 45 minutes searching across muddy pathways, as it did not appear on their ‘Notable Graves’ map, I found the grave that I was looking for, Adam Worth, who was originally buried in a pauper’s grave under the alias – Henry Judson Raymond. Worth was a Victorian Criminal, who stole Thomas Gainsborough's recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire from a London gallery of Thomas Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He is considered by scholars of Conan Doyle to be the basis of nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, Professor James Moriarty. His headstone even calls him "The Napoleon of Crime", Moriarty’s soubriquet.

On my way back to the gate, I passed graves for Beryl Bainbridge and David Devant, a magician, born David Wighton in Highgate, London, the son of a Scottish landscape artist, James Wighton. Taking the stage name Devant early in his career, he became a member of Maskelyne & Cook company which was acknowledged as the showcase for the age's premier magicians and performed regularly at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. Being a student of the history of magic, I understood his importance (and his name also brought back memories of my student days when I saw a group called ‘David Devant and his Spirit Wife’ play live).

 

It was then over to the East Cemetery, with the cemetery’s most famous resident, Karl Marx, German Philosopher, Socialist, Economist and Revolutionary, passing the simpler memorial to author Douglas Adams, creator of ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’.

 

A brief detour brought me to the grave and monument of Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Eliot, and that of Roger Lloyd Pack, 'Only Fools and Horses' Trigger  (who also appeared in ‘Murder Rooms: The Photographer’s Chair’).

 

It was then onto two graves with clearer Sherlockian connections – Sir Ralph Richardson who played Watson in a 1950’s radio series opposite John Gielgud, and Tim Pigott-Smith who played Holmes in a 1986 BBC radio dramatisation of ‘The Valley of Fear’, Watson on Broadway in 1974/5 and wrote ‘The Baker Street Mysteries’ series of books.

 

It was then a short walk to the Gatehouse Public House in Highgate Village, which has its own pub theatre, for ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’, an adaptation of ‘The Empty House’. The play was a two-hander featuring Nigel Miles-Thomas and Michael Roy Andrew as Holmes and Watson respectively. The play lasted an hour and was enjoyable, save two unnecessary initial scenes, the first featuring Holmes, followed by one in which a mysterious letter is sent to Watson to interest him in the murder of Ronald Adair. However, certainly worth watching when it returns to the Edinburgh Fringe next summer.