The Victorian Society (Vic Soc) reports on how the only surviving building designed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could be demolished for new residential units if a planning application gets consent.
image Vic Soc website – Lyndhurst Park Hotel southern view of East wing post-1912 Doyle extension © Brice Stratford
The Victorian Society writes:
Best known for his creation of world famous detective Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle was also particularly interested in architecture: he collaborated with architect and friend Joseph Henry Ball over the design and construction of his family home, Underhill in Surrey, and even designed a golf course and outbuildings for a ‘million dollar hotel’ in Canada’s Jasper National Park, now sadly demolished.
The former Lyndhurst Park Hotel in the New Forest currently stands as the only remaining building designed by Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally built as an early 19th century mansion known as ‘Glasshayes House’, the building was sold off and converted into a hotel in 1895. Archive material shows Conan Doyle visiting the hotel with his family in early 1912, and by autumn that same year the hotel had been transformed with an entire third floor extension and new façade, all designed by Conan Doyle.
The ambitious redesign transformed the building into what you see today; the building as it currently stands is a near perfect expression of Doyle’s plans, though as it has been left empty since 2014 it is beginning to show signs of dereliction and vandal damage.
Despite the unique historic significance of the building, it is unlisted (though several listing applications have been made) and therefore unprotected against demolition, a threat that has become imminent with the submission of a planning application which seeks to demolish the entire site.
The current owners, developers PegasusLife, have previously applied to demolish the building but their application was rejected earlier this year. They have now come back with a new application, and in the meantime have failed to secure the building, which was operating as a working hotel prior to their purchase in 2014.
Time is swiftly running out for Glasshayes House, and the risk that it may be lost forever to be replaced with a run-of-the-mill block of flats is becoming ever more real. Previous applications for listing were undertaken without the knowledge of the Conan Doyle connection, which has now been added to a new application.
Tom Taylor, Conservation Adviser at the Victorian Society, says: ‘It is now of paramount importance that the building be reconsidered for listing, as that would offer it valuable protection against demolition and insensitive redevelopment. The fact that Glasshayes House is thought to be the last remaining building designed by Arthur Conan Doyle makes it unique, and therefore highly historically significant and certainly worthy of reassessment.’
