Sherlockian Sojourns #79: ‘Some Good Berkshire (Oxfordshire) Air’ [SHOS]

The final of the sixty stories in the Canon to be published was ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’ in which Holmes and Watson travel (in the guise of two weary Londoners wanting to do some fishing) to the aforementioned Shoscombe Old Place (home of the Shoscombe Racehorse Stud) to investigate the increasingly erratic behaviour of Sir Robert Norberton (Baronet) and to find the explanation for a partially burnt femur bone found in the Estate’s furnace. I decided to follow their example.

Unlike Holmes and Watson it was to Swindon that I caught a train from London Paddington, rather than the small halt of ‘Shoscombe’. From here I caught a bus (a minibus in fact) to the small village of Ashbury, seven miles east, and formerly in Berkshire but since 1974 in Oxfordshire.

This is the village identified by Bernard Davies as the location of ‘Crendall’ the village three miles off from the Shoscombe Estate, with the mill ponds where Holmes and Watson fished being a short distance away. Crendall was where ‘The Green Dragon’, the Public House where Holmes and Watson stayed, and was also where the landlord, Josiah Barnes, had been given Norberton’s sister’s beloved pet spaniel by Sir Robert in a seemingly spiteful mood. Davies identifies ‘The Rose and Crown Inn’, a 16th-century coaching inn controlled by Arkell's Brewery, as the real location, and it was outside this building that I exited the bus.

 

   

“What is the name of that inn you spoke of ?” - Holmes
“The Green Dragon.” – John Mason
“Is there good fishing in that part of Berkshire?” – Holmes    [SHOS]

 

“On reaching our destination a short drive took us to an old-fashioned tavern, where a sporting host, Josiah Barnes, entered eagerly into our plans for the extirpation of the fish of the neighbourhood” – Watson  [SHOS]

 

Having taken photos, and the Pub not opening for another hour-and-a-half, the plan was then get a taxi to the Shoscombe Estate but having tried repeatedly to book one without success, I realised that I would have to walk. Unfortunately, the walk was nearer to five miles than three, but in just over an hour-and-a-quarter, I was entering the small village of Kingston Lisle, a spring line settlement at the foot of Blowing Stone Hill, which is part of the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs. Like Ashbury, the village was in Berkshire until boundary changes moved it into Oxfordshire.

Bernard Davies decided Kingston Lisle Park, a Seventeenth Century country house, remodelled in the Eighteenth Century with an original estate of 1,000 acres, was the best candidate for Shoscombe Old Place as it was the only one of the estates in this area that had a ruined chapel on the estate. The chapel was situated close to Fawler Copse, a name which bears a similarity to Lady Beatrice Falder, Sir Robert’s sister. No remains of the chapel survive, but there is a church next to the main gates.

These gates and the remaining Lodge are where Lady Beatrice’s carriage exited the Estate on her daily ride. It was here that Holmes and Watson ambushed her in her carriage, learning that all was not as it first seemed. The rest of the estate was private, and I could not see to the manor house. I therefore took photos of the gates and Lodge, and also the Church in lieu of the non-surviving chapel.

   

“This is the place,” said Holmes as we came to two high park gates with heraldic griffins towering above them. “About midday, Mr. Barnes informs me, the old lady takes a drive, and the carriage must slow down while the gates are opened. When it comes through, and before it gathers speed, I want you, Watson, to stop the coachman with some question”.   [SHOS]

  

 

I then did manage to book a taxi to the nearby town of Wantage, where after a brief break for lunch, I was able to catch a bus to Didcot Parkway Station (visited as part of a previous sojourn), and then a train back to London. My original plan had been to also visit the remains of the Shrivenham Railway Station platform, which must have been the ‘Shoscombe Halt’ where Holmes and Watson alighted for Shoscombe Old Place, but I had run out of time. The station itself was demolished in 1965.

Once back at London Paddington, I caught the Elizabeth Line to Farringdon, and then Thameslink to Greenwich for my evening’s entertainment – ‘Sherlock Holmes and The Man Who Believed in Fairies’ in the Studio at Greenwich Theatre. This play written, produced and directed by F. R. Maher, involved Sherlock Holmes investigating the mystery of the Cottingley Fairies, to disprove Conan Doyle's assertion that they are real which he believes reflects badly on him. It was originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in an 85 minute version in 2024, before a this three venue tour of an extended version with the same cast. Playing Holmes was Harry Meacher, who I had previously seen as Holmes in a self-penned 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' in 2009.

I had an enjoyable evening surrounded by a number of acquaintances from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. It was then time to wend my way home, having done more walking than I had originally intended.