Conan Doyle's old house, Undershaw, to be redeveloped

Undershaw is the house Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived in, having had it built in 1897 as his wife needed to move into the country for health reasons. He lived there for ten years, and wrote while there, among other things, The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Undershaw Preservation Trust would like to turn the Grade II listed building into a museum, but in June Waverley District Council granted listed building and planning consent for the conversion of the house into three apartments with an extension containing five town houses. The council has previously spent over £70,000 on emergency repairs to the building which had been neglected by the owners.

There has been a lengthy campaign, the latest stage of which has seen a number of people, including Conan Doyle’s great-great-nephews, Joshua and Oliver Conan Doyle, writing to Jeremy Hunt, MP for South West Surrey - he had previously been in favour of preserving the property. Stephen Fry, Christopher Frayling and Uri Geller are listed among the campaign's supporters.

You can read on at Bagotbooks's Blog.