Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his creation of the eccentric detective, Sherlock Holmes. But he was also interested in architecture and worked on several projects throughout his life, from his home in Surrey to a golf course in Canada. Now, a building designed by Conan Doyle, the Lyndhurst Park Hotel in Hampshire, is under threat of demolition. The hotel’s east wing was designed from sketches provided by the author during a stay there in 1912.
In The Greek Interpreter (1893), Holmes tells Watson that he has “art” in his “blood” from a French relative. Conan Doyle too had art in his blood. After settling in London in the 1820s his Dublin-born and art-trained grandfather, John Doyle (1797-1868), became a famous political cartoonist. He even sketched Queen Victoria when she was a child.
