The Lumber Room: December 2025

A penultimate sojourn for 2025, previously planned for almost a month earlier when I was supposed to be in the area for a theatre show, but moved when that was cancelled. The main object of my quest was the Army Town of Aldershot, which features in ‘The Crooked Man’. This adventure involves Holmes calling upon Watson at his surgery late one night in 1889 to request his assistance in an investigation. Holmes explains that, at Aldershot Army Camp, Colonel James Barclay of The Royal Mallows and his wife Nancy DeVoy Barclay were a seemingly happy couple; however, Barclay has died, and his wife is suspected of his murder. The two therefore travel to Aldershot, and I decided to do likewise (after a short detour).

Catching a train to Guildford, I changed onto another train for the twenty minute trip to Blackwater. From here I took a taxi to my first port of call, Minley Manor, a French-style manor house built in 1860. This appeared as the boarding school run by Miss Harrison (Fiona Shaw) in ‘Enola Holmes’ (2020), and also appeared in the French series ‘Mademoiselle Holmes’ (2024). Its non-Sherlockian appearances include ‘Stardust’ (2007) and ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ (2018).

The gate that the taxi dropped me at, opposite my first barracks of the day, indicated that the road down to the Manor itself was private and that there was no admittance due to police dogs being trained on site. However, I was aware that the Manor was visible from nearby parkland. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong direction to strike off in, and ended up walking three sides of square before I got a clear view to take distant photos of the Manor.

It was then a forty minute walk to the bus stop that I needed, where I found all buses to be delayed, but finally found myself on a #3 bus to Camberley, having to run to catch a connecting bus, #1Gold. On sitting down in my seat, I noticed that the advertising on the bus indicated that buses are every ten minutes, meaning that my run was unnecessary. Passing several roads named after Queen Victoria and Albert, we finally reached Hammersley Avenue where I alighted. It was then a two minute walk back to Aldershot Military Museum, housed in the only surviving brick-built barrack blocks left in Aldershot, and dates from the time of The Royal Mallows. The museum tells the story of Aldershot Military Town and the civil towns of Aldershot, Farnborough and Cove. Having taken multiple photos of the building, I entered, paying for admission (which allowed free return within a year).

The first part of the museum related to the towns in general, with the Army coming to the fore in the second gallery, which was the other part of a U-shape. Entering this gallery, I initially thought that another visitor or staff member was sitting on one of the beds, so moved to the next section to give them space, before realising that they hadn’t moved, being a mannequin of a typical soldier. The display cases contained a multitude of exhibits dating back to the time of ‘The Crooked Man’, including dress uniforms and medals.

Exiting the gallery, there were multiple tanks and other armoured vehicles to look at, before I made my way back to the Museum shop, purchasing some postcards of the barracks as it was in the 1890s.

Leaving the museum grounds, and taking a few more photos of the current barracks, I made my way along Queen’s Avenue in search of ‘Lachine Villa’, Colonel Barclay’s home which is described as ‘about half a mile from the North Camp’ [CROO]. Being aware that the Victorian camp was demolished in the 1960s, and both darkness and rain coming in, I simply found what seemed to be an appropriate spot, overlooking the current camp.