Sherlockian Sojourns #67: ‘The Cold, Bracing Atmosphere of the Peak Country’ (Part 2)

 

‘It is a peculiarly desolate plain’ – Sherlock Holmes   [PRIO].

 

Having previously visited a number of sites relating to ‘The Priory School’ in ‘Hallamshire’, it was time to try and visit the remaining ones. Therefore, ten months on from my previous sojourn, I met up with the same friend to attempt to do so. Having spent the night in Leeds having completed a mega-sojourn and seen an operatic version of ‘The Sign of Four’, I caught a train to Chesterfield. Having met up with my friend, we stopped briefly for breakfast, then made for our first location, Chatsworth House, the favoured location for the home of the Duke of Holdernesse, a twenty-minute drive away. It was also used in the 1984 Granada TV ‘The Priory School’, as the exterior of Holdernesse Hall, and also features in ‘The Master Blackmailer’ (1992) as the Earl of Dovercourt’s country house.  

Chatsworth is also thought to have been Jane Austen’s inspiration for Pemberley (Darcy’s home), and it has appeared as such in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (2005) and ‘Death Comes to Pemberley’ (2013), as well as having appearances in ‘Peaky Blinders’ (2014) and ‘The Duchess’ (2008).

As on our last visit, a special event (a Country Fair this time) was in full swing. However, we managed to park in the event car park, and get photos of the house and the bridge that appears in publicity photos from outside the event area.

    

‘At eleven o’clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace’s study’.   [PRIO] 

 

The next planned stop was Robin Hood’s Stride, a rock formation close to the village of Elton. It’s also known as Grain Tor or the Mock Beggars Mansion, as from a distance it looks like it has two chimneys. It was here in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Priory School’ that Holmes and Watson find the body of the German Master, Herr Heidiger, and Holmes comments to Watson, "My dear fellow, you must be starving ! "  However, after another twenty minute drive we could not find a parking spot for the Limestone Way, the waymarked route across the Peak District National Park that has this rock formation on it.

We therefore moved onto our next stops, in the village of Ashover, where the School itself is believed to have been. After fifteen minutes we reached Gladwin's Mark Farm, attributed by the late Bernard Davies as the former site of the Priory School, where Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable was Headmaster and Lord Saltire a pupil. There not being an appropriate stopping place, we had to go further up the road to a point where we could turn round, then pulled up on a grass verge whilst I took my photos.

‘That evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak country, in which Dr. Huxtable’s famous school is situated’.    [PRIO] 

 

Just behind the farm was Harewood Moor, which bears a striking resemblance to Lower Gill Moor where the German Master was murdered, as described in Watson’s account.

   

‘”Here there lies a grove of trees, marked as the ‘Ragged Shaw,’ and on the farther side stretches a great rolling moor,  Lower Gill Moor, extending for ten miles and sloping gradually upwards…. A few moor farmers have small holdings, where they rear sheep and cattle. Except these, the plover and the curlew are the only inhabitants until you come to the Chesterfield High Road”’  - Sherlock Holmes  [PRIO].

 

‘Suddenly, as I looked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the thick gorse bushes. Out of them we dragged a bicycle, Palmer-tyred, one pedal bent, and the whole front of it horribly smeared and slobbered with blood. On the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting. We ran round, and there lay the unfortunate rider’.  [PRIO]

 

Continuing along the road, we reached Screetham House Farm, attributed by Bernard Davies as location of ‘The Red Bull Inn’, which he used to position The Priory School. The farm is on a corner, and we had to pull up a side road before finding a place that we could stop briefly, whilst I ran back to take photos.

    

‘”There is an inn here, the Red Bull, the landlady of which was ill. She had sent to Mackleton for a doctor, but he did not arrive until morning. The people at the inn were alert all night, awaiting his coming, and one or other of them seems to have continually had an eye upon the road”’ – Sherlock Holmes. [PRIO]

 

Back in the car, we made our way to Matlock, visiting a couple of cult TV shops, and two Harry Potter-themed shops, the first also having a Dalek and TARDIS on display.

We then drove the hour-and-a-half into Lincoln, where we visited a few more shops before making our way to our evening’s entertainment – Escape Lincoln’s ‘Sherlock: The Initiation’ Escape Room.

The room was in partial darkness which impacted on our reading of some of the clues and checking that we had completed locks correctly, but we managed to solve most of the riddles, gaining access to the 221b study, before running out of time with two riddles left. We then posed with cards decrying our failure.

Returning to my friend’s home, we had a reasonably early night as we had another sojourn planned for the next day.