Having spent much of the past week in Scotland, it was time for a final sojourn before returning home. Catching a train from Preston to Blackburn, I changed onto a train to Whalley in the Ribble Valley. A fifteen minute bus journey then took me to the Shireburn Arms, where I had stayed on a previous sojourn, visiting Stonyhurst, the boarding school attended by the young Conan Doyle. It was to Stonyhurst that I was going again, this time to see the inside of it, as its museum, described as ‘the oldest museum in the English-speaking world’, was hosting an exhibition ‘The Shire, Shakespeare and Sherlock’, uncovering the fascinating ties between the Ribble Valley and three literary giants – J.R.R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (The Ribble Valley was the inspiration for The Shire in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’, the school has a First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, and Conan Doyle was an ‘old boy’).
A five minute walk brought me to the entrance to the drive down to the school, and around twenty minutes later I was walking down the side of the building to enter via the reception area.
I was shown into a side-room to sign in, and take a visitor’s badge. My entry to the museum was not supposed to be for another half-an-hour, but soon after arriving a family also arrived with a hyperactive toddler, so the guide agreed to take us up early. Our first point of call was the Arundell Library, which included Jesuit treasures such as Sir Thomas More’s felted hat and nightcap, stuffed animals and birds, and books on all walls, floor to ceiling. The majority of these were provided by James Arundell, 10th Baron Wardour, who attended Stonyhurst in 1796. On leaving, he spent the rest of his life collecting a unique library for the College, paid for out of his personal income. His intention was to collect books that would provide everything a young Catholic would need for his education and formation, leading to his collecting around 4,000 books. When Arundell died in 1834, his widow, Mary, faithfully followed her husband’s instructions, expressed in his dying words ‘Remember Mary, the books are for Stonyhurst’.
I was informed that although they were happy for me to take photographs, these could only be for personal use, and not shared online.
I then moved into the exhibition which was in a side-room to the Library. The exhibition comprised items from the Museum’s collection, relating to the three authors, with only the Conan Doyle display featuring items specifically connected to the author, those items relating to Tolkien and Shakespeare were items referred to in the author’s works, with the appropriate quote next to them, including a 1960s cope made of 'Space Age' material linked to a quote about ‘Gandalf the Grey’.
The key exhibit was a row of four desks, the left of which was used by Conan Doyle. Despite being known for their strict discipline, the Jesuits seem to have been relaxed about the boys’ practice of carving names into the wooden desktops, with some of the names being quite elaborately engraved, and ‘A Doyle’ is carved faintly into this desk. It took a little bit of looking, but I soon found it. Easier to find was the name ‘A Watson’ (Alfred Watson) carved clearly on the right-hand desk, a contemporary of Conan Doyle and a possible inspiration for the name of Holmes’ partner and chronicler, Dr. John Watson . (In the original draft, Watson was called ‘Ormond Sacker’ before being changed, possibly to his old schoolfriend’s name).
Also part of the exhibition were several bound school reports with Conan Doyle’s name on, a playbill from an 1872 Stonyhurst production of ‘The Omnibus’ (described as ‘A Farce in One Act’) in which he played ‘Farrier’s Boy’, and school photos including one of the school cricket team. An information board also highlighted Conan Doyle’s contemporaries, the Moriarty brothers (Johnny and Michael) and Patrick Sherlock, as well as Stonyhurst acting as inspiration for Baskerville Hall.
There were also exhibits linked to canonical quotes, including a stuffed python (representing the reptilian Professor Moriarty, rather than ‘the Speckled Band’, which instead was represented by some preserved smaller snakes), the Stonyhurst Doctor’s medical bag, poison-tipped blow-darts, and a chalice featuring several garnets (or carbuncles).
Having gone around the exhibition several times, I was taken down a level to the final exhibition room which featured a number of historic documents, including a red velvet prayer book commissioned by the Catholic queen, Mary Tudor. Elizabeth I’s older half-sister. The book was still being bound when Mary Tudor died in 1558, and by an unknown route, it was passed to her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, who was also Catholic, who even carried it to her execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1586. The book was smuggled out of England by her Lady-in-Waiting, and passed to the English Jesuits in 1620, who have loaned it to Stonyhurst.
Moving along to the end of the gallery, there were the two jewels of Stonyhurst’s collection. The first is the copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio. James Arundell bought this in 1813 for the sum of £37 and 16 shillings. It was lacking its distinctive portrait, but his wife managed to find a portrait from another incomplete Folio and had it pasted into the Stonyhurst copy. Of perhaps 750 copies printed, today 235 copies of the first edition survive. None are perfect and unique, but the Stonyhurst copy is one of the few copies to include all the plays.
The other was a sumptuous gold-embroidered cope, decorated with Tudor roses and portcullises, from a set of vestments used by the household of Henry VII and bequeathed by him to Westminster Abbey. It is then said to have been borrowed back by Henry VIII to wear at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. This cope had spent a long time on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but was now back at Stonyhurst.
The attendant was keen to give an extended talk on both these items, but I was aware that I was at risk of missing my bus, and having over an hour to wait if I did so. Luckily another attendant appeared in the nick of time, and took me back to reception to sign out. I then managed to get back to the bus stop opposite the Shireburn Arms in just under twenty minutes, arriving just five minutes before the bus did.
Back at Whalley Station, I had a ten minute wait for my train to Salford Crescent, from where I caught another train one stop to Manchester Deansgate. From here it was a two minute walk to Castle Street, which runs alongside the thirty-nine mile Bridgewater Canal, which stretches from Runcorn to Leigh, and was constructed by the Duke of Bridgewater, reaching Manchester by 1765. Its purpose was to transport coal from his mines near Worsley to Manchester to fuel the developing industries. At the Manchester end, in Castlefield, wharfs were created to land the coal and one of those coal wharfs was located beside Castle Street.
This street appears in Granada’s dramatisation of ‘The Sign of Four’, in the scenes with Holmes, Watson and Toby, where Holmes asks Watson if he brought his pistol. A strategically placed tarpaulin covered the more modern aspects of this road.
A short walk though crowds lining the streets for Manchester Pride, I made my way to Manchester Science and Industry Museum, for an interesting exhibition of items relating to Stephen Hawking.
Moving on into Central Manchester, passing the old Granada studios, I browsed in a few shops, before making my way to Back Piccadilly, a road that features in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (2009) in the scene where, after the fight, Dredger (Robert Maillet) jumps out of the window into the street below, followed by Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and Watson (Jude Law).
From here it was a short walk to Manchester Piccadilly, and my train home after almost a week sojourning.
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