Sherlockian Sojourns #84: As Seen On Screen 22 – Richmond Park

A day after returning from a previous ‘ASOS’ sojourn, it was time for a mini-sojourn to a location much closer to home – Richmond Park.

Catching a bus to Kingston Hospital mid-afternoon, I changed onto a #85 for the five minute journey to the Ladderstile Gate to the park. From here it was a twenty-five minute walk to Pen Ponds, located more or less in the centre of the Park, which consists of two lakes, the Upper and the Lower Pond. It was here that the Romani Camp scenes in ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ were filmed. Comparing screen captures, I managed to find the woodland where filming took place.

           

It was then a half-hour walk to the Richmond Gate, and a further twenty minutes to the Richmond Theatre, where my evening’s entertainment was ‘Ardal O’Hanlon: Not Himself’. I even managed to get a photo with the man himself (who appears as Mr. Halligan, Sherlock's butler and coach driver in ‘Sherlock & Daughter’ [2015]) at the stage door afterwards.

  

Sherlockian Sojourns #83: As Seen on Screen 21 - ‘Young Sherlock’s Bristol

An event was bringing me back to the West Country, and having spent the week prior watching the new Prime Video show ‘Young Sherlock’, some of which was filmed in Bristol, I decided to return to the land of my father for another ‘As Seen on Screen’ sojourn.  (I had visited Bristol on two previous ASOS sojourns in 2018 and 2024).

Catching a coach from Victoria Coach Station, just over 2½ hours later, I was pulling into Bristol Coach and Bus Station. From here it was a short walk to catch a M1 bus to visit a Bristol Sherlockian filming location that had been on my list for a long time, being postponed on two previous occasions. After forty minutes through areas of Bristol familiar to me from my childhood, I finally alighted outside Hengrove Park, a large open space including a large adventure play park and wheels park for skateboarders and BMX riders, which was previously Bristol Whitchurch Airport. I entered the Park along a footpath between Hengrove Park Leisure Centre and South Bristol Community Hospital.

In the middle of the Park is the former main runway area which appeared in ‘Sherlock: The Abominable Bride’ as the Airfield that the plane carrying Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) returns to following the seeming return of James Moriarty (Andrew Scott).

    

Returning to the bus stop, I was just in time to catch a bus back into the City Centre. Alighting half-an-hour later, I made my way to a site that I had visited before – Queen’s Square - a 2.4-hectare Georgian square known for its historic equestrian statue of William III. Number 7, on the left hand side of the Square, has the balcony from which Emelia Ricoletti (Natasha O’Keeffe) fires on by-passers in the street, before seemingly fatally shooting herself, in ‘Sherlock: The Abominable Bride’, and this had been the reason for my previous visit.

   

However, the Square also appears in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Unarmed Man‘, being where Gulun Shou'an (Zine Tseng) meets Esad Kasgarli (Numan Acar), on a bench in front of Queen Square House, with children playing nearby.

       

From here it was a ten minute walk to Bristol Amphitheatre & Waterfront Square, which appeared in the recent Doctor Who spinoff ‘The War Between The Land and the Sea’, being where the shipping container containing Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is winched onto a truck, and where Barclay (‘Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville’s Russell Tovey) steals the truck, frees her, then jumps into the harbour to join her. Having taken some photos, I took the opportunity to have some lunch overlooking the harbour.

  

It was then a fifteen minute walk, passing the Statue of Cary Grant and Bristol Cathedral (the courtyard of which also appeared in ‘Sherlock: The Abominable Bride’) to The Georgian House Museum in Great George Street. Closed for the winter, when open, this museum features eleven rooms spread over four floors revealing what life was like above and below stairs in a Bristol sugar plantation and slave owner’s home in around 1790. Gulun Shou'an attends this address to murder Professor Roberts (Ian Midlane) in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Burnt Photograph‘.

  

A fifteen minute walk, with a brief detour to look in a secondhand bookshop and a games store in the covered market, and I found myself at Small Street Espresso, a coffee shop in Small Street, one of the roads which features in a sequence from ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Burnt Photograph‘, where James Moriarty (Donal Finn) walks across town following leaving his former Oxford College, the fictional 'Candlin College'. Small Street Espresso, appears as a Tobacconist in the scene, as Moriarty exits from the arch labelled ‘Albion Chambers’.

   

Walking around the corner, I reached Corn Street, and Bristol Corn Exchange, previously visited because it appeared as the exterior of the ‘Orpheum Theatre’ in ‘Without A Clue’ (1988). It then appears as ‘The Queen’s Theatre’ passed by Moriarty immediately after the Tobacconists in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Burnt Photograph‘.

    

Next, I made my way onto Broad Street, which also featured in the sequence involving Moriarty walking across town. (Again this was a road visited by myself previously, on that occasion for the Old Guildhall which featured in ‘Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia’ and for 'Chez Marcel', a creperie that appeared as the Toymaker’s Toy Shop in ‘Doctor Who: The Giggle’).

Making my way to the main road, it was a fifteen minute bus ride to the Bishopston area of Bristol, and 25 Codrington Road, the filming location for exterior of the student flat in ‘The Young Ones’.

     

A further ten minute walk brought me to ‘Room 212’, a vibrant shop and gallery showcasing Bristol art, craft, and design, which has a mural of Cary Grant on it. Grant’s true surname was the same as my own, and as he came from Bristol (as did my father), the family joke was always that he was ‘our Arch’.

    

Another ten minutes, and I was at 15 Hughenden Road, Cary’s Grant’s birthplace, marked by a blue plaque.

    

Returning to the main road, it was a half-hour bus ride back into central Bristol. Alighting outside an Oxfam Books and Music shop, I went inside, finding that they were selling a large number of postcards featuring iconic ‘Radio Times’ covers, with my finding the 1987 ‘100 Years of Sherlock Holmes’ cover, as well as two covers covering the 2005 and 2006 seasons of ‘Doctor Who’. Five minutes away was the Bristol branch of Forbidden Planet, re-opened after a devastating fire, where I purchased several DW enamel pins.

Catching a bus to Bristol Temple Meads Station, it was a short walk to my hotel for the night, where I had a restful evening, having spent much of the day walking.

 

The next day, I caught a train from Temple Meads to Exeter St Davids, and then two buses to the Westpoint Arena on the outskirts, where the ‘Exeter Comic Con and Gaming Festival’ was taking place. Once inside, I found that there was no queue for the guest that I was interested in, James D’Arcy, who appears as a young Sherlock Holmes in the TV Movie, ‘Sherlock: A Case of Evil’ (2002). Photo signed and having had a photo taken with James by a steward, I then met Tyger Drew-Honey star of ‘Outnumbered’ before browsing the many stalls, buying very little.

I then caught a bus back to Exeter City Centre, trawling the shops without success, before catching a train back to Temple Meads, and then a coach back to London, after what had been a very full two days.