Sherlockian Sojourns #74: As Seen on Screen - Bluebell Railway

The Bluebell Railway is a heritage railway which runs across eleven miles from Sheffield Park to East Grinstead in Sussex, stopping at Horsted Keynes and Kingscote. Each station on the line offers a unique glimpse into different historical periods. It is therefore regularly used for filming with no less than eight different Sherlockian productions having been filmed there over the years.

My journey began by catching a bus to East Croydon, and then a train to East Grinstead. Having exited the main station it was a short walk to the Bluebell Line platform which is described as ‘blending historic charm with the convenience of modern transport links’. Converting my e-ticket to a paper ticket at the booking office, I had around twenty minutes wait for the service from Sheffield Park, where I took my place in a Third Class carriage, pulled by LBSCR H2-class Atlantic No. 32424 ‘Beachy Head’.

   

  

After around ten minutes the train pulled away, powering through the Sussex countryside to its first stop, Kingscote Station, seven minutes away. This station has been restored to represent the British Railways period of the mid-1950s. However, I remained on the train, taking a few ineffectual photos through the window.

After a further fifteen minutes, I reached my first destination, Horsted Keynes Station, which was built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, as a large junction station, with a line branching off to Haywards Heath via Ardingly. It has been restored to the Southern Railway period of the mid-1920s, making it a popular filming spot, due to its expansive platforms and authentic features.  Exiting the train, I found myself on Platform 5. This appeared as ‘Cuckmere Haven Station’ in ‘Mr Holmes’ (2015), and is where Holmes (Ian McKellen) alights to travel home. Looking through the booking office, the classic village signpost standing outside on Station Approach can be seen.

    

Later in the same year, the same platform appeared as ‘Crannock Station’ in ‘Arthur and George’ (2015), being from where Conan Doyle (Martin Clunes) and his ‘gentleman’ Woody (Charles Edwards) travelled to Great Wyrley to investigate the Edalji Case. Aboard the train, Conan Doyle discourses to his companion about the village that they are approaching. In the pedantic manner that he handed on to Holmes, he lists the public houses, shops and their proprietors, and the geographical features of the area. Woody, like Watson, remains politely subservient while clearly bored. It also appears as the quiet ‘Swaleness Station’, peopled only by one family and a few soldiers as Sally (Billie Piper) boards a train in the BBC dramatisation of Philip Pullman’s ‘The Ruby In The Smoke’ (2006) – followed, unbeknown by her, by Mrs. Holland (Julie Walters). 

Exiting the station, I found myself in the forecourt which appears in the ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ episode ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’ (1989), being where Hastings (Hugh Fraser) drops Poirot (David Suchet) off in his car. Whilst filming this episode, Suchet had just said the line, “The train has one advantage over the car. It won’t run out of coal”, when the Standard Class 4 No. 75027, drowned the remainder of his lines by departing the station with its drain cocks open (as ordered by the director to produce as much black smoke as possible). Once it had gone, Suchet added, aside, “But they do have a terrible sense of timing”.

    

In fact Horsted Keynes appears in multiple other ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ episodes –‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ (1990) as (Styles St Mary Station), ‘The Double Clue’ (1990), ‘The Plymouth Express’ (1990), ‘The ABC Murders’ (1992) (as multiple stations), ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’ (1993), ‘Hercule Poirot’s Christmas’ (1994), ‘After the Funeral’ (2006) and ‘Mrs. McGinty’s Dead’ (2008).

Re-entering the station, using the underpass I made my way to Platforms 3 & 4, which both appeared in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Greek Interpreter’ (1985). Platform 3 was Herne Hill, where Holmes (Jeremy Brett), Watson (David Burke) and Mycroft (Charles Gray) rush to catch the train in which the criminals have escaped on. To add drama, scenes of the departing train, pulled by SE&CR C-Class No. 592 with Metropolitan coaches, were filmed at night, with the train moving off towards Leamland Bridge. The usual atmospheric red glow from the firebox visible on a passing train, was supplemented by the firing of submarine flares, which although it added to the dramatic effect, also temporarily blinded everyone in the vicinity. 

   

Platform 4 then appeared as Dover Station where Wilson Kemp (George Costigan) and Sophie Kratides (Victoria Harwood) are led away by the police at the end of the episode.

   

All the railway scenes were completed at Horsted Keynes over the course of a week. Coach No. 6575 was cocooned in blackout material for several days while the interior shots were filmed, and the interior of the Great Northern saloon was converted into a first-class buffet car, on a train where the characters flee for their lives. [Similar filming also took place in 1988 for ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’.]  The railway also appears briefly three years later in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1988) in footage of Watson (Edward Hardwicke), Dr. Mortimer (Alastair Duncan) & Sir Henry Baskerville (Kristoffer Tabori) travelling from London to the Moor by train.

Also filmed here was ‘QED: Murder on the Bluebell Line’ (1986), a drama-documentary about the Piltdown Man hoax filmed in the style of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, featuring Hugh Fraser (three years before ACP) as Holmes and Ronald Fraser as Watson. A train was filmed coming into Horsted Keynes to be boarded by the detectives on their way to look into the problem. The film crew had forgotten to bring their smoke cannister, so the engine had to provide its own special effects. A steam lance was attached to the steam heat pipe in order to bathe the two in the obligatory clouds of steam, as they set off for Piltdown, a few miles from Sheffield Park.

The station also appears in the first and fifth episodes of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ (1990) as Westcombe-on-Sea and Chuffnell Regus respectively, ‘Muppets Most Wanted’ (2013) as Berlin and Dublin stations on their world tour by train, and ‘The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Beyond The Pale’ (2014) as Victoria Station, with the nearby Leamland Bridge featuring heavily.

Next, I visited the Carriage and Wagon workshop where preservation work was taking place, before utilising a nearby picnic table for my lunch. The train then steamed in, and I took my place in another Third Class carriage (this time pulled by SR Bulleid Battle of Britain Pacific No. 34059 ‘Sir Archibald Sinclair’) for the fifteen minute journey to the end of the line.

Built in 1882, Sheffield Park Station has been restored to its 1880s Brighton era grandeur, and also houses two museums. It was to one of these, SteamWorks!, that I first made my way. As well as interactive displays, this also features several locomotives from the Railway’s collection, including some with Sherlockian connections. The first of these was SE&CR C-Class No. 592, which featured in ‘The Greek Interpreter’ (1985) and also in ‘The Baker Street Boys: The Disappearing Dispatch Case’ (1983).  This particular locomotive allowed access to the cab with an interactive presentation including a shaking cab floor to simulate movement.

     

  

Next up was LB&SCR Class E4 0-6-2T 473, ‘Birch Grove’, which appears in the 1965 BBC dramatisation of ‘The Retired Colourman’ starring Douglas Wilmer, filmed at this station.

   

Other locomotives included Dorking Greystone Lime Works No. 3 'Captain Baxter' which appears in ‘Muppets Most Wanted’ (2013), renamed Randy Stevenot, as the train taking them on their world tour, and Standard Class 4 No. 75027 which appeared in ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’ (1989), upstaging Suchet.

  

Exiting SteamWorks!, I took some photos of Platform 1 which appears in ‘Arthur & George’ (2015) as ‘Great Wyrley Station’, the home village of the accused George Edalji.

I then made my way over the footbridge to Platform 2. This also appeared in ‘Mr Holmes’ (2015) being where Holmes changes trains to travel home. There was also a sign with a familiar name.

    

This platform also saw the first Sherlockian filming on the line, with three scenes from ‘The Retired Colourman’ (1965), being filmed here. At the time of filming, the line did not even run as far as Horsted Keynes, instead stopping just short of the station at Bluebell Halt, a makeshift platform next to the road. The station first appears as ‘Lewisham Station’ where Watson (Nigel Stock) observes the mysterious Barker (Peter Henchie) jump on to the same train as him as it is about to pull out from the platform. The railway was then used for Josiah Amberley (Maurice Denham) and Watson’s journey to Little Purlington, and for ‘Little Purlington Station’ which they arrive at to be told that there are no cabs.

Finally, ‘The Baker Street Boys’ (1983) filmed its second episode, ‘The Disappearing Dispatch Case -Part 2’ here at Sheffield Park and also at Barcombe Mills Station (a disused station further down the former Wealden Line). However, main filming took place at Freshfield Bank, where a bomb is placed on the railway line. I had failed to get a photo of this area as we passed through it, but was keen to try again on the return journey.

I then visited the Bluebell Railway Museum, which included an information board about filming on the railway, including an ‘Arthur & George’ photo (and the Downton Village sign).

The station was also used to fill-in blue-screen backgrounds for ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ (2011). All that was required was a series of shots of the line from various angles; no train was needed, just a diesel shunter with a brake van and wagons for the equipment, and a helicopter filming from above. I therefore took a photo of the station from the footbridge.

Other filming at the station includes ‘The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club’ (1973), in which Lord Peter Wimsey (Ian Carmichael) travelled to Southampton (Sheffield Park to Horsted Keynes) to interview the deceased’s relatives aboard a train hauled by Great Western Railway Class 4-4-0 No. 9017 'Earl of Berkeley'  (currently on loan to the Vale of Rheidol Railway, Aberystwyth), and ’The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: The Ties That Bind’ (2014) which featured Sheffield Park as ‘Wainsbury’ and ‘Lydford’ stations (by utilising both ends of the station).

Having visited the gift shop, purchasing a couple of postcards, I had plenty of time to board my train back to East Grinstead. This time I managed to get a few photos of Freshfield Bank from the train window, including one which included the stone bridge where the bomb is set in ‘The Baker Street Boys’.

    

Back in East Grinstead there was time to visit some shops in the town, before catching a train back to East Croydon, and then a bus home.