Image of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons)
Following the estate’s report, the restored property was nominated for a Surrey Heritage Award, and the winner was announced on 12 April 2017. The changes were limited; as per Edward’s account, one wall was removed to connect the extension of the house, while an internal wall was changed. Conan Doyle’s former study, where he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles , became the headteacher’s office. His wife’s room, noted for its bay windows and views, became the school library. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian residence in Hindhead, Surrey, called Undershaw, was left in complete neglect after 2004. The work followed a £7.5 million fundraising effort, and the former residence became the home of Stepping Stones School, which had previously operated from a nearby church, according to the Conan Doyle Estate . A house associated with one of, if not the best, fiction writers in literature went through a period of uncertainty after its life as a hotel ended. A proposed conversion into separate dwellings prompted a legal challenge, and the building eventually found a new purpose as a school for disabled children.
The next decisive change came in 2014, when David Fiorbes-Nixon purchased Undershaw through the DFM Foundation. The purchase concluded a near-decade-long preservation campaign, according to the Guardian report on 3 April 2014. Nixon’s son at the time attended Stepping Stones, a nearby school that would eventually occupy the property. Stepping Stones offered a practical future for a building whose large rooms could be modified for teaching. The fact that a literary giant’s residence was being turned into a school was very fitting and allowed it to remain in use, rather than being divided into residential units.