Reinventing Undershaw

Sherlock Holmes fans can now visit the house where The Hound of the Baskervilles was written, thanks to a series of dramatic twists worthy of the famous sleuth, himself. Beatrice Philpotts takes a closer look ahead of a special concert taking place at the venue later this month

- Beatrice Philpotts

A DERELICT empty shell and the butt of vandals from 2004, Undershaw, the great literary landmark in Hindhead, which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle built and lived in from 1897 to 1907, was in danger of being lost.

Converted into a hotel in 1924, the house was sold to a property developer 13 years ago and was the subject of a succession of failed bids to turn it into housing.

Then, in an “Elementary, my dear Watson” moment, Undershaw’s luck changed at a single stroke in 2014, when the site was bought by Haslemere financier and philanthropist, David Forbes-Nixon, through his DFN Charitable Foundation.

Mr Forbes-Nixon had correctly deduced that the landmark building could not only be restored to its former glory, but also given a new lease of life that would secure its future. Anxious to help Stepping Stones, the special needs school where his son is a pupil but which had outgrown its Hindhead site, he stepped in to save the day on two fronts by boosting its educational facilities and saving a valuable heritage asset.

Fittingly, re-opening Undershaw as a special needs school was also a happy extension of the original reason why Conan Doyle originally built the house, which was to support the special needs of his wife, Louise, who was disabled by TB. At the time, Hindhead was enjoying new-found fame as England’s “Little Switzerland” and had become a fashionable health resort for the well-heeled in search of restorative clean air.