Sherlockian Sojourns #74: As Seen on Screen - Bluebell Railway

The Bluebell Railway is a heritage railway which runs across eleven miles from Sheffield Park to East Grinstead in Sussex, stopping at Horsted Keynes and Kingscote. Each station on the line offers a unique glimpse into different historical periods. It is therefore regularly used for filming with no less than eight different Sherlockian productions having been filmed there over the years.

My journey began by catching a bus to East Croydon, and then a train to East Grinstead. Having exited the main station it was a short walk to the Bluebell Line platform which is described as ‘blending historic charm with the convenience of modern transport links’. Converting my e-ticket to a paper ticket at the booking office, I had around twenty minutes wait for the service from Sheffield Park, where I took my place in a Third Class carriage, pulled by LBSCR H2-class Atlantic No. 32424 ‘Beachy Head’.

   

  

After around ten minutes the train pulled away, powering through the Sussex countryside to its first stop, Kingscote Station, seven minutes away. This station has been restored to represent the British Railways period of the mid-1950s. However, I remained on the train, taking a few ineffectual photos through the window.

After a further fifteen minutes, I reached my first destination, Horsted Keynes Station, which was built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, as a large junction station, with a line branching off to Haywards Heath via Ardingly. It has been restored to the Southern Railway period of the mid-1920s, making it a popular filming spot, due to its expansive platforms and authentic features.  Exiting the train, I found myself on Platform 5. This appeared as ‘Cuckmere Haven Station’ in ‘Mr Holmes’ (2015), and is where Holmes (Ian McKellen) alights to travel home. Looking through the booking office, the classic village signpost standing outside on Station Approach can be seen.

    

Later in the same year, the same platform appeared as ‘Crannock Station’ in ‘Arthur and George’ (2015), being from where Conan Doyle (Martin Clunes) and his ‘gentleman’ Woody (Charles Edwards) travelled to Great Wyrley to investigate the Edalji Case. Aboard the train, Conan Doyle discourses to his companion about the village that they are approaching. In the pedantic manner that he handed on to Holmes, he lists the public houses, shops and their proprietors, and the geographical features of the area. Woody, like Watson, remains politely subservient while clearly bored. It also appears as the quiet ‘Swaleness Station’, peopled only by one family and a few soldiers as Sally (Billie Piper) boards a train in the BBC dramatisation of Philip Pullman’s ‘The Ruby In The Smoke’ (2006) – followed, unbeknown by her, by Mrs. Holland (Julie Walters). 

Exiting the station, I found myself in the forecourt which appears in the ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ episode ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’ (1989), being where Hastings (Hugh Fraser) drops Poirot (David Suchet) off in his car. Whilst filming this episode, Suchet had just said the line, “The train has one advantage over the car. It won’t run out of coal”, when the Standard Class 4 No. 75027, drowned the remainder of his lines by departing the station with its drain cocks open (as ordered by the director to produce as much black smoke as possible). Once it had gone, Suchet added, aside, “But they do have a terrible sense of timing”.

    

In fact Horsted Keynes appears in multiple other ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ episodes –‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ (1990) as (Styles St Mary Station), ‘The Double Clue’ (1990), ‘The Plymouth Express’ (1990), ‘The ABC Murders’ (1992) (as multiple stations), ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’ (1993), ‘Hercule Poirot’s Christmas’ (1994), ‘After the Funeral’ (2006) and ‘Mrs. McGinty’s Dead’ (2008).

Re-entering the station, using the underpass I made my way to Platforms 3 & 4, which both appeared in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Greek Interpreter’ (1985). Platform 3 was Herne Hill, where Holmes (Jeremy Brett), Watson (David Burke) and Mycroft (Charles Gray) rush to catch the train in which the criminals have escaped on. To add drama, scenes of the departing train, pulled by SE&CR C-Class No. 592 with Metropolitan coaches, were filmed at night, with the train moving off towards Leamland Bridge. The usual atmospheric red glow from the firebox visible on a passing train, was supplemented by the firing of submarine flares, which although it added to the dramatic effect, also temporarily blinded everyone in the vicinity. 

   

Platform 4 then appeared as Dover Station where Wilson Kemp (George Costigan) and Sophie Kratides (Victoria Harwood) are led away by the police at the end of the episode.

   

All the railway scenes were completed at Horsted Keynes over the course of a week. Coach No. 6575 was cocooned in blackout material for several days while the interior shots were filmed, and the interior of the Great Northern saloon was converted into a first-class buffet car, on a train where the characters flee for their lives. [Similar filming also took place in 1988 for ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’.]  The railway also appears briefly three years later in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1988) in footage of Watson (Edward Hardwicke), Dr. Mortimer (Alastair Duncan) & Sir Henry Baskerville (Kristoffer Tabori) travelling from London to the Moor by train.

Also filmed here was ‘QED: Murder on the Bluebell Line’ (1986), a drama-documentary about the Piltdown Man hoax filmed in the style of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, featuring Hugh Fraser (three years before ACP) as Holmes and Ronald Fraser as Watson. A train was filmed coming into Horsted Keynes to be boarded by the detectives on their way to look into the problem. The film crew had forgotten to bring their smoke cannister, so the engine had to provide its own special effects. A steam lance was attached to the steam heat pipe in order to bathe the two in the obligatory clouds of steam, as they set off for Piltdown, a few miles from Sheffield Park.

The station also appears in the first and fifth episodes of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ (1990) as Westcombe-on-Sea and Chuffnell Regus respectively, ‘Muppets Most Wanted’ (2013) as Berlin and Dublin stations on their world tour by train, and ‘The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Beyond The Pale’ (2014) as Victoria Station, with the nearby Leamland Bridge featuring heavily.

Next, I visited the Carriage and Wagon workshop where preservation work was taking place, before utilising a nearby picnic table for my lunch. The train then steamed in, and I took my place in another Third Class carriage (this time pulled by SR Bulleid Battle of Britain Pacific No. 34059 ‘Sir Archibald Sinclair’) for the fifteen minute journey to the end of the line.

Built in 1882, Sheffield Park Station has been restored to its 1880s Brighton era grandeur, and also houses two museums. It was to one of these, SteamWorks!, that I first made my way. As well as interactive displays, this also features several locomotives from the Railway’s collection, including some with Sherlockian connections. The first of these was SE&CR C-Class No. 592, which featured in ‘The Greek Interpreter’ (1985) and also in ‘The Baker Street Boys: The Disappearing Dispatch Case’ (1983).  This particular locomotive allowed access to the cab with an interactive presentation including a shaking cab floor to simulate movement.

     

  

Next up was LB&SCR Class E4 0-6-2T 473, ‘Birch Grove’, which appears in the 1965 BBC dramatisation of ‘The Retired Colourman’ starring Douglas Wilmer, filmed at this station.

   

Other locomotives included Dorking Greystone Lime Works No. 3 'Captain Baxter' which appears in ‘Muppets Most Wanted’ (2013), renamed Randy Stevenot, as the train taking them on their world tour, and Standard Class 4 No. 75027 which appeared in ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’ (1989), upstaging Suchet.

  

Exiting SteamWorks!, I took some photos of Platform 1 which appears in ‘Arthur & George’ (2015) as ‘Great Wyrley Station’, the home village of the accused George Edalji.

I then made my way over the footbridge to Platform 2. This also appeared in ‘Mr Holmes’ (2015) being where Holmes changes trains to travel home. There was also a sign with a familiar name.

    

This platform also saw the first Sherlockian filming on the line, with three scenes from ‘The Retired Colourman’ (1965), being filmed here. At the time of filming, the line did not even run as far as Horsted Keynes, instead stopping just short of the station at Bluebell Halt, a makeshift platform next to the road. The station first appears as ‘Lewisham Station’ where Watson (Nigel Stock) observes the mysterious Barker (Peter Henchie) jump on to the same train as him as it is about to pull out from the platform. The railway was then used for Josiah Amberley (Maurice Denham) and Watson’s journey to Little Purlington, and for ‘Little Purlington Station’ which they arrive at to be told that there are no cabs.

Finally, ‘The Baker Street Boys’ (1983) filmed its second episode, ‘The Disappearing Dispatch Case -Part 2’ here at Sheffield Park and also at Barcombe Mills Station (a disused station further down the former Wealden Line). However, main filming took place at Freshfield Bank, where a bomb is placed on the railway line. I had failed to get a photo of this area as we passed through it, but was keen to try again on the return journey.

I then visited the Bluebell Railway Museum, which included an information board about filming on the railway, including an ‘Arthur & George’ photo (and the Downton Village sign).

The station was also used to fill-in blue-screen backgrounds for ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ (2011). All that was required was a series of shots of the line from various angles; no train was needed, just a diesel shunter with a brake van and wagons for the equipment, and a helicopter filming from above. I therefore took a photo of the station from the footbridge.

Other filming at the station includes ‘The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club’ (1973), in which Lord Peter Wimsey (Ian Carmichael) travelled to Southampton (Sheffield Park to Horsted Keynes) to interview the deceased’s relatives aboard a train hauled by Great Western Railway Class 4-4-0 No. 9017 'Earl of Berkeley'  (currently on loan to the Vale of Rheidol Railway, Aberystwyth), and ’The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: The Ties That Bind’ (2014) which featured Sheffield Park as ‘Wainsbury’ and ‘Lydford’ stations (by utilising both ends of the station).

Having visited the gift shop, purchasing a couple of postcards, I had plenty of time to board my train back to East Grinstead. This time I managed to get a few photos of Freshfield Bank from the train window, including one which included the stone bridge where the bomb is set in ‘The Baker Street Boys’.

    

Back in East Grinstead there was time to visit some shops in the town, before catching a train back to East Croydon, and then a bus home. 

 

Sherlockian Sojourns #66: As Seen on Screen - Granada's Greater Manchester

Family issues had impacted on this year’s Sojourns, but it was time for another mega-sojourn, this time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first episode of the Granada ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series. (I had already attended ‘Brett Con’ earlier in the year). With the aid of the Jeremy Brett Podcast Filming Locations site an itinerary was drawn up around Granada’s Manchester base.

 

DAY 1

Catching an early train, I made my way to London Euston for a two-hour journey to Stockport, changing trains to reach Altrincham half-an-hour later.

A fifteen minute walk and I was at my first location - Bowdon Downs Congregational Church, which appeared in the first episode, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ (on 24th April 1984). This was the church where Irene Adler (Gayle Hunnicutt), spinster, is married to Godfrey Norton (Michael Carter), bachelor, ably assisted by a disguised Holmes (Jeremy Brett). The church is a Grade II listed building. Unfortunately both the church and its churchyard were locked up, but I managed to get some photos from the road and through the churchyard gate. It was also at this point that it began raining,

   

A minute further down the road, I reached Beech Mount House which was used as the exteriors of the house belonging to Jonas Oldacre (Jonathan Adams) in Series 2 episode ‘The Norwood Builder’. The house was previously owned by pop star, Morrissey, and is a private residence behind large gates. However, I managed to get some photos by holding my camera over the top of the gates.

Just across the road was the Upper Room Christian Fellowship building, which can be seen in the background as Holmes and Watson (David Burke) arrive and leave Oldcacre’s home.

It was time for the hourly bus to my next location, but having waited and waited for almost half-an-hour without a bus arriving, I had to come up with a new plan. A forty-five minute walk across country, including across a golf course and down narrow country lanes, brought me to National Trust property, Dunham Massey. This includes 300-acre deer park, with its historic house and buildings, appeared in four episodes of the show, namely ‘The Abbey Grange’, ‘Shoscombe Old Place’, ‘The Master Blackmailer’ and ‘The Dying Detective’. 

  

Before entering the house, I made a brief detour to the sawmill in the grounds which was used for the scene where Sir Robert Norberton (Robin Ellis) tells John Mason (Frank Grimes) to get rid of the dog in ‘Shoscombe Old Place’.

Showing a voucher for free entry, I entered the West Courtyard which was crossed by Holmes and Watson on their way to speak to Lady Brackenstall (Anne-Louise Lambert) in ‘The Abbey Grange’ and is where Victor Savage (Hugh Bonneville) rides off from in ‘The Dying Detective’.

Stowing my bag in a locker, I entered the House itself, moving through the Kitchens and Dining Room, until I reached the first room of interest. The Great Hall was the location of the iconic scene where Holmes scales the fireplace to look for clues in ‘The Abbey Grange’. It was also used as the sitting room where Sir Robert and Josiah Barnes (Michael Wynne) reveal their secrets [‘Shoscombe Old Place’]. The room was undergoing repair but I managed to get plenty of photos of the fireplace which is the narrow part of the room that was still accessible. During the First World War, whilst Dunham Massey operated as the Stamford Hospital, the Great Hall was used as a recreation room for rest and recuperation by the soldiers who stayed there.

 

 

Next I reached the Hall Staircase which was used for the scene where Marina Savage (Rachel Rice) expresses concern for her father, to her mother (Susannah Harker) in ‘The Dying Detective’.

 Just off the landing was the Upper Hall, where the rug skating took place in the same episode.

The small courtyard and fountain of the Hall where Holmes tries to convince Lady Brackenstall to come clean with her story [‘The Abbey Grange’] were unfortunately not accessible to visitors. However, on the way out of the House, I managed to get photos of it through a window.

  

Picking up my bag, I wandered around the Gardens, then made my way to the Visitors Centre and the NT shop where I purchased three postcards, including one of the Great Hall fireplace. Exiting the estate, I made my way to a nearby bus stop where after a very short wait I caught a bus back to Altrincham Transport Interchange. This bus proved to be a minibus with the route number in very small print on the front window. Thinking back, I could remember a similar minibus passing me at the bus stop earlier, which I had failed to flag down. I then picked up the Metrolink Green Line for the half-hour trip into central Manchester and my hotel for the night.

 

 

DAY 2

Although I had previously visited some central Manchester locations on a previous sojourn, the plan was to cover as many others as possible in one day. Leaving my hotel, the rain was back with a vengeance. My first port of call was the Midland Hotel, which has been a much-loved part of Manchester life for over 120 years. Jeremy Brett always stayed here when he was filming ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

   

A few minutes along the road was Albert Hall, a previously forgotten Wesleyan chapel which was used for the Women's Liberation speech scene in 'The Golden Pince-Nez'. It is now a music and events venue. Crossing the road, I took my photos from an appropriately named street.

   

A short walk brought me to site of the Old Granada Studios, which comprises several buildings over a small area, including Studios (Versa), a gym, a bonded warehouse, and a ‘The Crystal Maze Live Experience’.Some parts are also now used as an events venue.

        

My plan was to next revisit Manchester Town Hall, widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Neo-Gothic architecture in the United Kingdom, and is one of the most important Grade One listed buildings in England. Part of the Town Hall was used for the street rebellion scenes in 'The Golden Pince-Nez', at the beginning and end of the episode. It was also used for the chase scene with Shinwell Johnson (Roy Holder) and Kitty Winter (Kim Thomson) in 'The Illustrious Client', as well as being where Holmes is attacked by ruffians in the same episode. It is also where Peterson (Frank Mills) comes across the goose and hat in 'The Blue Carbuncle' (voted in a recent poll as the best of the Granada series).

Stage Doors to theatres were also shot here, such as in 'The Master Blackmailer' and 'The Eligible Bachelor'.  The rear of the City & Suburban Bank is also set here in 'The Red-Headed League', and the scene where a concrete block and flag are dropped on Holmes in 'The Final Problem', as well as the scene of Watson running to get into a cab on his way to the train station.

The interiors were used as the Whitehall Museum where the Mazarin Stone is stolen from, and the interiors of the Diogenes Club in ‘The Mazarin Stone’.  The interiors were also used for the inside of the Houses of Parliament in the Guy Ritchie film, “Sherlock Holmes” (2009), and also in “Darkest Hour” (2017). The Town Hall also appears in “Ripper Street” (2012), “Victor Frankenstein” (2015) and “A Very English Scandal” (2018).

However, on my arrival the whole building was under scaffolding and sheets and behind barriers as renovation work was taking place. The hoardings indicated that the building had been closed since 2018 to safeguard and repair the Town Hall and the Square, to boost public access and ensure that they continue to play a role at the heart of city life.

Not deterred, a twenty-five minute walk took me to HMP Manchester, which was used as the exteriors of the prisons in both 'The Blue Carbuncle', where the wrongly suspected John Horner (Desmond McNamara) is released and reunited with his family following Holmes’ involvement, and 'The Six Napoleons', where the Venuccis (Marina Sirtis & Steve Plytas) read Beppo's execution notice in the rain, both scenes being at the end of their respective episode.

Making my way back to Manchester Victoria Station, I passed Chetham’s School of Music whose library was used as the office of Professor Moriarty (Eric Porter) in both ’The Red-Headed League’ and ‘The Final Problem’. Some of the interiors in ‘The Priory School’ were also filmed here, specifically the scene in the corridor with Holmes and Aveling (Michael Bertenshaw), as well as the scene around the table at dinner.

 

I then caught a tram to Queens Park, and after a short walk, I reached the site of the Queen’s Park Museum & Art Gallery, which is where the unveiling of the painting done of Lady Diana Swinstead (Norma West) is revealed in 'The Master Blackmailer', and where Holmes and Watson (Edward Hardwicke) meet Lady Eva Blackwell (Serena Gordon) and The Hon, Charlotte Miles (Sarah McVicar). The Museum and Gallery are now closed, and undergoing building works.

  

Catching a bus from a nearby stop, having just missed one, after a ten minute journey, I changed onto the Metrolink Blue Line to reach Droylsden. A short walk brought me to Fairfield Square, which doubled for Great Orme Street, home to Mr & Mrs Warren (Kenneth Connor & Betty Marsden) in 'The Red Circle'. It was also, home to Mrs Oakshott (Maggie Jones), sister of James Ryder (Ken Campbell), in 'The Blue Carbuncle', and it is where Cartwright (Charles Cork) is arrested in 'The Resident Patient'.

   

  

Returning to Central Manchester, I made my way to Manchester Victoria Station again, from where I caught a train into York. It was then time for a fifteen minute rush from the station to visit Sherlock Holmes Imaginarium, a gift shop described as being themed around the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, which also promotes LGBT issues.

                 

Purchasing three pin badges – a Sherlockian silhouette, a pipe and a Baker Street sign – I returned to York Station, I caught a train back to Leeds, my base for the next couple of days, and checked into my hotel.

 

 

DAY 3

The next morning, a short train journey from Leeds brought me to Garforth Station, where I caught a taxi to Lotherton Hall, which appeared in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Illustrious Client’ as the home of the evil and vindictive Baron Gruner (Anthony Valentine), with both exteriors and interiors being used. Paying my taxi driver, I made my way from the entrance to the Hall itself, taking photos of its exterior and the nearby Chapel (which is even older than the Hall).

  

Entering the Hall and stowing my bag in a locker, I first sat in a cinema room to watch a history of the Hall, before making my way around the ground floor (the first floor being closed for renovation), comparing each room to my screencaps from the episode, initially believing the Boudoir to be the location where Holmes breaks into the house. However, a distinctive barometer by the door into the Dining Room indicated that this was the room in question.

 

Exiting the Hall, I made my way around to the Gardens where Gruner drinks tea with his fiancée Violet Merville (Abigail Cruttenden), Holmes having been employed to break up the match. It being August, regular Punch & Judy Shows were taking place on one of the lawns.

   

It was then time to experience Lotherton’s other main attraction – Wildlife World – which began as a Bird Garden with exotic birds, but has now expanded to include other animals including Warthogs, Monkeys, Capybaras, Bats, and a Giant Rat (from the Philippines, rather than Sumatra). The main attraction, however, were the Humboldt penguins for which the attraction is famous, with posters everywhere urging you to sponsor one for a year.

On the way out of the menagerie, I bought a postcard of the Hall, then viewed the Hall’s carriage collection, which included a Brougham (used by Holmes and several of his clients) and a Gig (as used by Dr Mortimer in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles').

Catching a taxi back to Garforth Station, I was soon back in Leeds, and catching a train to nearby Harrogate.

A ten minute walk brought me to the Parliament Street Turkish Baths, an ornate Moorish-style bath house with glazed brickwork & painted ceilings, built in the 19th century which was used at the beginning of ‘The Illustrious Client’ when Holmes and Watson are having a ‘spa day’. I managed to get photos of the outside and in the corridor leading to reception (which included a Lego version of the Baths), but for obvious reasons there was no photography allowed past this point.

   

A five minute walk then took me to the Old Swan Hotel. Hospitality has been available on this site since at least 1777, originally it was the 'Swan Inn" in Low Harrogate separate from the settlement of High Harrogate. In the late nineteenth century it was extensively redeveloped by the "Harrogate Hydropathic Company" as a fashionable spa hotel, and included Turkish baths. Even Karl Marx visited on one occasion.

However, it also has an important part in crime fiction history. In December 1926 the author Agatha Christie suddenly disappeared from her home. She was missing for a total of eleven days, during which the police conducted a major manhunt, and there was speculation that she had committed suicide. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was consulted about the case. After about ten days (having checked into the Swan Hydropathic Hotel under the assumed name Mrs. Teresa Neele) she was recognised by one of the banjo players at the hotel. A 1979 film about the event entitled ‘Agatha’ was also filmed at the hotel, and the wonderfully named Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is held in Harrogate every year.

I took several photos of the outside, then followed some guests into reception, where I took a photo of the plaque commemorating the Hotel’s claim to fame as Agatha’s retreat, and a copy of ‘The Sketch’ reporting her being found.

   

   

Returning to the station, I made my way back to Leeds, and my evening’s entertainment, at Leeds School of Arts – ‘The Sign of Four’, a new opera, being put on by Northern Opera Group as part of Leeds Opera Festival. This ambitious project, four years in the making, began after the Group's artistic director David Ward read all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books during lockdown as he had "a lot of time on his hands". The production's composer and librettist Lliam Paterson was approached by Northern Opera after it saw his "wonderfully dramatic" previous work. 

I arrived very early for the 7pm start time, and was ushered into the theatre to find it empty, save for the orchestra practising. I therefore stepped out for a few minutes before taking my seat. To my delight, sitting next to me was Dr Mark Jones, co-host of the ‘Doings of Doyle’ podcast, who also wrote a brilliant book on the now lost 1967 BBC TV series ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’, which represented Granada producer John Hawkesworth’s first involvement with Conan Doyle. Although I still do not share Holmes’ love of opera, I did have an enjoyable evening. Click here for a fuller review.

  

 Returning to my hotel, I had an early night as I had another sojourn planned the next day.