Undershaw, the house where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dreamed up Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, will be turned into a school for disabled children following negotiations between an education charity and a preservation trust looking to keep the house in-tact.
As the DFN Foundation and the Undershaw Preservation Trust work together to give Conan Doyle’s house a future, we have a look at other authors’ abodes and what has happened to them since their literary heyday.
First of all Sir Conan Doyle, a physician with strong morals and a habit of campaigning for the down and out, would no doubt be glad to hear that his home will now become an upper school for Stepping Stones, a school for children with a range of disabilities.
The Kilns, built on an old clay pit, was bought by C.S. Lewis and his brother and provided much of the inspiration for his greatest work, The Chronicles of Narnia, which he wrote whilst living there. Today the quaint Oxford residence is a place of Christian reflection and literary scholarship, another outcome which would have pleased its avid Christian ex-owner.
One of the most interesting author’s residences never belonged to an author at all, but to two of his most well-loved characters: Henry Liddell was dean of Christ Church College in Oxford as well as colleague and best friend of Lewis Carroll. He was always flustered and in a hurry, often running late for his appointments with a habit of checking his pocketwatch far too often. He also had a daughter called Alice. Most should have guessed by now that we are talking about the home of the White Rabbit and Alice of Wonderland fame. The Charlton Kings house recently sold for around £1 million, complete with the huge six by five foot looking glass that inspired Alice’s second adventure.