Windlesham, Crowborough

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Windlesham, Crowborough is an article written by I. M. Fresson published in The Sussex County Magazine in december 1955.


Windlesham, Crowborough

The Sussex County Magazine (december 1955, p. 574)
The Sussex County Magazine (december 1955, p. 575)

"Windlesham", the entrance. Reproduced by courtesy of the London Evening News
The Sussex County Magazine (december 1955, p. 576)

Twenty-five years ago, a great man died. During his life Conan Doyle fascinated thousands by the creation of his famous fictional characters. The interest in him which is still alive to-day, is extended to the kind of house he lived in, its furnishings and outlook. If we can picture the atmosphere in which he worked, it helps to keep his memory clear and to make him still seem alive.

In 1907 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle married Jean Leckie and brought her to their new home, Windlesham, Hurtis Hill, Crowborough. At that time, the house was set in lonely country, an open stretch running from the Sussex Downs to Crowborough Beacon. Windlesham, with its five gables, red roof and chimney stacks, could be seen from a long distance.

The new owners were charmed with the white window frames and grey painted shingles, but they wished to enlarge the house. One of the additions was the enormous billiard room which eventually became its heart and pulse. This room had immense windows at each end. It housed Lady Conan Doyle's beloved grand piano at one end, while at the other a huge billiard table looked no longer than an ordinary dining table.

The Van Dyck painting bequeathed by Conan Doyle's grandfather, John Doyle, had pride of place over the fireplace; over the other hung a stag's head whose horns held the author's cartridge bandolier from the Boer War.

Windlesham has been the meeting place of many great men. In that billiard room Rudyard Kipling sat, yarning of India. So did Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who surely must have been fascinated by Sir Arthur's methods of deduction. The Arctic explorer, Stefannson, brought his maps to be pored over at the billiard table, and many others, equally famous, were entertained and offered friendship there. All must have been conscious of the deep happiness which the house held.

In 1909 the first child of this, Conan Doyle's second family, was born amid much rejoicing. Denis Percy Stewart Conan Doyle was lucky indeed to be born in such beautiful surroundings and of such happy parents.

The author had his study on a corner of the house, with large windows looking out across the golf course, away towards the Sussex Downs in the distance. Those Downs were in some way responsible for the birth of Professor Challenger of The Lost World. The shape of fossilised footprints found on the Hastings sands fired Conan Doyle's imagination. A twenty-foot-high prehistoric monster — it set the author thinking. Professor Ray Lankester's book on prehistoric animals took him a step farther, and one can imagine him peopling the misty Downs with his nightmare animals.

Excited by this new idea, Conan Doyle sat in his study, writing and working out his plans for his new book, The Lost World. Sitting on a winter's evening in front of a roaring fire under the stag's head in the billiard room, the author would read aloud the chapters written during the day. The huge room would be peopled by Professor Challenger, Malone, Lord John Roxton and the others. Lady Conan Doyle and Lily Lotter Symonds, her friend who lived with them, must have almost heard them crashing through the jungle. Perhaps one can hear them still, for surely such characters as those must live for ever. The author has said that Professor Challenger became his favourite character, and it is small wonder.

One Christmas Eve, a very old and charming custom was performed at Windlesham before it finally died out for good. Lady Conan Doyle, her husband and the small children were all there to see the Christmas Mummers performing a miracle play, complete with silver-scale armour and dragon. In 1912, at Sir Arthur's invitation, the Council of the British Medical Association came to Windlesham for their annual Conference. The Conan Doyles also entertained the then famous American detective, William J. Burns, for a week-end, and it is not difficult to imagine the talks and discussions in which the two men must have indulged.

The summer of 1914 found Windlesham in a gay mood. Conan Doyle's younger brother, Innes, was back from America; Kingsley, his eldest son by his first marriage, was there too. With other relations, they were all welcomed, and the younger children, after bed time, creeping down the staircase which was lined with illustrations from Sherlock Holmes and The Lost World, would hear the gay voices from the dining room where the distinguished guests sat round the famous old table which had come to Doyle from his grandfather, and round which had sat so many famous people in the old days. Truly its tradition was being most nobly upheld.

The shadow of war had not yet touched them, but when it did, and the threat became plain, Conan Doyle formed what was the first Volunteer Reserve Company in England. Training with them, he slept in a bell tent on the Sussex Downs with his Battalion and listened to the faint but unmistakable throb of the guns from across the Channel. It was the beginning of the anxiety which was to last for four years of nightmare.

The study at Windlesham must have been the scene of much of Conan Doyle's struggle towards his final faith, which had lasted for thirty years. That he emerged triumphant is world knowledge. Once convinced, he worked for spiritualism with his usual thoroughness and zest until his health broke down. He fought with courage and endurance for something in which he believed. No man can do more.

Finally, he died peacefully in the home in which he had lived since 1907 and loved so much, and in which they had all been so happy. He was buried in a corner of his beloved garden in the grave designed by his wife, and in 1940 he was joined by her. There they rested together.

Until recently, the house has been occupied by staff from the Foreign Office, but now that the house is to be sold, the grave which for so long has been a shrine for spiritualists has been moved. But whatever the future fate of Windlesham, it must always remain a home of happy memories and a house of national interest.