THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES—the real story

A couple of years ago, I was watching Castle Secrets And Legends on television. One of the segments was about Cromer Hall in England, located approximately 140 miles northeast of London. The Cabell family have been owner and residents of Cromer Hall for many decades, well over a century.

A local legend told to a visiting Arthur Conan Doyle, along with the physical description of the actual Cromer Hall built in 1829, are said to have been Doyle's inspiration for The Hound Of The Baskervilles published in 1902. Being a Sherlock Holmes fan, I was pleased when the television series aired that episode again. I augmented the information the show provided with a little research of my own starting by locating Cromer on a map.

According to a legend told to Doyle—on August 5, 1577, a large black Hound of Hell materialized in a local church and brutally mauled two people to death. The hound glared at the other people in the church with red blazing eyes, then disappeared leaving only a scorched claw mark on the stone wall to confirm its presence. The mark remains to this day. The beast was called Black Shuk and blamed for all unexplained gruesome happenings that took place from that time on.

Another legend tells of Richard Cabell, a 17th century country squire. After seriously mistreating a village girl, he was chased by wild hounds until he died of a heart attack. Considered to have been an evil man and feared by the local villagers, they entombed his body in a small building by the church and placed a heavy stone slab on top of his grave so he couldn't escape.

The Cabell family has their own version of this legend. Richard Cabell believed his wife had been unfaithful. He chased her out into the night and viciously stabbed her to death. Her loyal dog retaliated by tearing him to pieces.

Doyle took the basics of the three legends along with a detailed description of Cromer Hall, and transported it all to Dartmoor. And the name he gave to the family cursed with the presence of a Hound From Hell due to an ancestor's misdeeds? The coachman who drove Arthur Conan Doyle to Cromer Hall that fateful day for his visit was a man named…Henry Baskerville.

The huge popularity of the story continues today. Devotees of The Hound Of The Baskervilles often dress in period clothes, including the infamous deerstalker cap, and search Dartmoor for the origins of the story.

They do need to keep in mind that it's a fictional story, not a documentary.