A Duet with an Occasional Chorus (ACD Journal vol. 10)
A Duet with an Occasional Chorus [vol. 10] is an article written by Barbara Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 10, may 2000).
This article reflects on the threatened demolition of Liberton Bank House and questions whether saving a minor Arthur Conan Doyle residence is meaningful without a viable preservation plan. It argues that heritage value alone is not enough: without funding, collections, and purpose, rescue could become only a symbolic victory.
Article
Whenever we had occasion, while living in England, to drive from our home near Chester into Yorkshire, we would take the M62, surely one of the more dreary stretches of motorway in Britain, but the quickest way of getting to points east of where we lived. There was, however, one faintly cheering sight, as one sped past the dismal expanse of Saddleworth Moor: a farmhouse incongruously stuck in the middle of the motorway.
I don't, of course, mean that the farmhouse was built on the M62; rather, the motorway split into two to go around it, with the eastbound lanes making a curve on the farm's north side and the westbound lanes curving around on the south, to rejoin each other several hundred yards further along. I have no idea what led to this state of affairs-presumably someone, back when land was being bought up for the new motorway, declined to sell-but the somewhat ridiculous spectacle never failed to raise a smile, at least when the whole area wasn't covered with the fog which seems perpetually to cloak Saddleworth.
It didn't take much thought, though, to realise that the whole thing must have occasioned some major headaches for the engineers designing the road; and one has to wonder at the thought processes which would lead a landowner to condemn himself and his family to live in the centre of six lanes of busy motorway just to prove a point. I wonder if, in the cold light of day, and thirty or so years after the fact, the 'victory' seems rather hollow.
I was reminded of this sight when I heard the news that Liberton Bank House near Edinburgh, home to Arthur Conan Doyle for two years in the 1860s, faced demolition to make way for a McDonald's restaurant. The announcement has, predictably, acted as a red flag to Conan Doyle enthusiasts and those interested in the preservation of Scottish heritage (see report beginning on page 6).
Now, I am the first to agree that yes, sites with literary associations. should, where possible, be preserved, for the sake of posterity. But the cynic in me, when I read the newspaper reports, couldn't help but wonder where support for ACD's residences-indeed his tangible literary legacy-has been until now. His first home is, after all, long since gone, torn down to make way for a traffic roundabout. His second home was torn down so that a public convenience could be built on the site. ACD's house at Undershaw has been on and off the market several times over the decades, with no one seeming to care very much what fate befell it, and Conan Doyle's final home, at Windlesham near Crowborough, has long been a nursing home, and has presumably been very drastically altered since the author died.
Now, however, a house in which he-but, as far as we know, not the rest of his family-lived for two years, long before he embarked on his literary career, has been threatened by developers; and there is an outcry. I have a feeling that this response is, at least in part, engendered by the firm behind the threat. To many people, the mere mention that McDonald's is behind something is enough to induce a knee-jerk reaction in opposition to it, on principle. I'm not suggesting that this is the case with everyone, or even most people, opposed to the destruction of Liberton Bank House; but I have a feeling that, had the Golden Arches not been involved, the opposition might have been less intense.
Let's face it: the house, which undoubtedly has ACD connections, is hardly on a par with Dickens House on Doughty Street in London, where the author wrote some of his earliest works (including The Pickwick Papers), or Max Gate, Thomas Hardy's home near Dorchester from 1885 until his death. in 1928. Conan Doyle lived at Liberton Bank House between the ages of five and seven, so we are not talking about an important segment of his working life, in which the house and its environs may have played a part in his writing. To put it bluntly, this is hardly a major site of Doylean interest. And I have to say that if every house in Britain which, at one time, served as home to a literary or artistic figure had to be preserved, there would be a lot more small museums for people to visit, but probably far fewer modern homes and stores for people to live, work, and shop in.
Another point which should be raised is, what will happen to Liberton Bank should it be reprieved? It's all very well to say that it must be preserved: but for what? And for whom? Conan Doyle, for all his admirable life and many fine works, is hardly a Dickens or Hardy or Austen, attracting thousands of admirers on literary pilgrimages each year. Yes, there are those who admire ACD's life and accomplishments; but for every person who would visit Liberton Bank House, there are probably a thousand who would visit a site on Baker Street and feel that it had far more relevance and significance than a house in which Sherlock Holmes's creator had lived for a very short period while he was a child.
What would greet visitors to Liberton Bank House? The property itself, based on recent photographs, seems in a fairly derelict state, and it would presumably take a good deal of cash to get it into a reasonable shape to meet whatever health and safety standards apply to museums. How much more would it cost to bring the property up to the standards-as far as security, insurance, display, climate, staff, and doubtless a host of other matters are concerned-required of museums? Where would this money come from? And what, pray, would be on display there?
It's a fair question; after all, you have to offer more than simply a bare stone cottage where the author lived as a boy. Over the years, admirers of Conan Doyle have doubtless watched in dismay as opportunity after opportunity to establish a worthwhile museum devoted to ACD has evaporated. ACD's family, it must be said, showed little inclination towards. such a project, preferring instead to fragment the valuable legacy over which they were stewards, selling pieces here, donating a piece or two there, and ensuring that much valuable material was made inaccessible due to continuing legal tangles. When Dame Jean Conan Doyle died in 1997, her own personal collection was fragmented even further, making any sort of meaningful memorial in one place impossible. The largest collections of Conan Doyle material now reside in libraries and museums in North America thousands of miles and an ocean away from where ACD was born and lived and have come about because of the generosity of private collectors.
It would be a shame if Liberton Bank House disappeared; after all, one doesn't have to travel very far to find a McDonald's, but there aren't any eighteenth century houses being built anymore, and to lose one would be a pity. But one has to wonder: should Liberton Bank House be saved, what would be its fate? This is where that farmhouse on the M62 comes back into the picture. I envisage a run-down stone cottage, stranded in a sea of car parks and shops, gently falling into an even greater state of disrepair while passers-by eye it with curiosity and a slight smile. Without a viable ACD collection to go into it, and the funds to outfit and maintain the property in an appropriate manner, the exercise of saving Liberton Bank House may prove to be a very hollow victory at best.
Barbara Roden
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Dana Martin Batory is no stranger to readers of ACD. He has previously contributed articles on aspects of ACD's supernatural fiction and The Lost World.
Wladimir V. Bogomoletz lives in Paris, and is a regular contributor to Sherlockian journals.
Alan C. Olding is the founder of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Australia.
John S. Partington is editor of The Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society.
Thomas R. Tietze has contributed previous articles on ACD's writings to ACD. He lives in Plymouth, Minnesota.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
