Sherlockian Sojourns #87: As Seen On Screen 24 –Young Sherlock’s Ho(l)me

Having planned a visit to another 'Young Sherlock' filming location, the plan was to stop off in Bristol again to complete the scenes filmed here.

Day 1: Return to Bristol

Catching a coach from Victoria Coach Station, just over 2½ hours later, I was at Bristol Bus and Coach Station, retracing my steps from my last visit. First up was 36 Broad Street, a Grade II listed building, now a Clayton Hotel, which appeared in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Killing Jar’, as the taxidermist’s shop visited by the young Beatrice Holmes (Purdy Hughes) in an attempt to identify her mysterious benefactor.

    

From here it was a ten minute walk to Queen’s Square, and Sailors Refuge, a historic house situated at #27–29, which dates from 1709–11, and is one of the few remaining houses from the original construction of the square. It is built in an early Georgian naive Palladian style, and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building (in fact until 2021 it served as the regional office for Historic England and English Heritage in the South West). It was used as the house of Professor Enright (James Sobol Kelly) which was broken into by Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Moriarty (Donal Finn) in  ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Unarmed Man‘. Unfortunately, due to building work going on, it was covered with scaffolding.

Another fifteen minute walk brought me to The Georgian House Museum, which had been closed on my previous visit, meaning that although I had managed to take photos of the areas where Gulun Shou’an (Zine Tseng) is seen staking out the home of  Professor Roberts (Ian Mildane) in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Burnt Photograph‘, the inside which appeared as the interior of the Baker Street home of Mycroft Holmes (Max Irons) in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Missing Scrolls’, had been inaccessible. The museum features eleven rooms over four floors revealing what life was like above and below stairs in a Bristol sugar plantation and slave owner’s home in around 1970. Entering and giving a donation for entry, I slowly made my way around the rooms until I identified the two rooms that appeared in the episode, the Small Drawing Room and Library, with Sherlock having a bath in the former after his release from Newgate Prison, whilst Mycroft talks to him from the latter. Unfortunately, the connecting door between the two (meaning that both were seen in the same shot on screen) was locked.

 

I continued wandering around the house, which included a display focusing on Bristol’s involvement in the slave trade, before exiting the building. Having gone round a few local shops, and taken photos of the outside of my father’s boyhood school, I caught a bus down to the dock area. From here it was a five minute walk to Underfall Yard, a historic boatyard dating from 1809, which features a Visitors Centre with multiple displays about Bristol dockyards. The Yard was used to film the scenes featuring the Cheapside workshop that Gulun Shou’an follows Esad Kasgarli (Numan Acar) in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of the Killing Jar’, with the large chimney featuring prominently.

    

Catching a bus back to the Bus and Coach Station, I had only a short wait for my coach to where I was spending the evening, Newport. The trip took only an hour, and my Guest House was only fifteen minutes from the drop-off point.

 

Day 2: ‘Appleton Manor’

The next day, I spent the morning in Newport trawling the shops, before catching a train to Abergavenny. From here it was a five minute walk to catch a bus to Skirrid Inn, one of a number of pubs claiming to be the oldest in Wales. Work undertaken by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust has concluded that the present building is of mainly mid-late 17th century construction. However, it has been claimed that an inn had stood on the site previously, due to it being situated upon a pilgrim trail that led to the nearby Llanthony Priory; although there is no evidence to verify this.

 

From here it was a three minute walk down a side-street to the A465, and once this had been crossed, down a long drive until I reached Llanvihangel Court, a Tudor Manor House that has medieval origins dating back to at least 1471. The house appeared as ‘Appleton Manor’, the ancestral Holmes house in ‘Young Sherlock’, and also appeared as the home of Professor Digby Kirke (Michael Aldridge) in the 1998 BBC dramatisation of ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’  (featuring prominently in the recent Blu-Ray set, being where the children were evacuated to and where the titular wardrobe was located). Being a private home, the house is only open to the public at limited times, and I was initially concerned that I might have come on the wrong day due to their being no signs indicating that it was open when I pushed the large entry gate open. However, on reaching the door of the house, there was a whiteboard confirming that the first tour was at 2pm. Having time to waste, I took several photos of the outside of the house, before walking around the gardens. This brought me to the thatched timber-framed barn, built in the seventeenth century, which features in ‘Young Sherlock: The Case of Young Sherlock Holmes’.

   

      

Returning to the door in order to take advantage of the shade, the guide popped out to confirm that they would be opening the door in ten minutes (at 2pm), before popping back in. Whilst waiting, another couple arrived, and at the given time, the door was opened and we were all admitted. Having paid the entrance fee, and having been informed that there was no photography inside the house (as it is a private home), the guide introduced herself as the granddaughter of the most recent purchasers. Having run through the history of the house (sitting on sofas in the entrance hall that features prominently in TLTW&TW), we were then taken around the ground floor and the first floor, with the upper floors (including the attic which was replicated in the studio for TLTW&TW) being private. After around 45 minutes, the tour was over, and I was purchasing a postcard of the house for my collection.

It was then a walk back to Skirrid Inn, getting a drink at a nearby shop, as I waited for a bus into Hereford. My original route to get home had had to be changed due to strike action by staff of one of the train companies I had been intending to use, but I was hopeful that there would be no problems. However, my bus to Hereford was ten minutes late, and on arriving at the Station, all trains were severely delayed. I ended up catching the train before the one I had intended, but it was running over fifty minutes late, and lost more time as we went on, meaning that my train pulled into Newport at exactly the time, my coach home was due to depart from a stop ten minutes away. Checking the coach tracking app, I was pleased that the coach was delayed by thirty minutes. However, on reaching the stop and checking again, it had moved to forty-five minutes. Eventually the coach pulled in an hour late, but managed to make half-an-hour back on the motorway, meaning that I only got home around forty minutes later than planned.