Sherlock Holmes and the phantom pack
The burnt-out Holy Trinity Church in Buckfastleigh in Devon is believed to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of Baskervilles
What do a small market town, a church in ruins, and Sherlock Holmes have in common? The fact that the graveyard in the church precinct was the burial place of a sinister squire, whose story is said to have inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The novel, serialised in The Strand Magazine in 1901–02, was the first Sherlock Holmes story since the detective’s “death” in The Final Problem.
It begins in the historic town of Buckfastleigh in Devon, England, a town famed for its woollen, paper, and corn mills. Buckfastleigh and the neighbouring abbey village of Buckfast are located in Exeter and Plymouth by the southern edge of eastern Dartmoor.
The word “Buckfast” translates into “stronghold”, and was traditionally a place where deer and buck were held. “Leigh” referred to the pasture that belonged to Buckfast. Buckfast village likely existed before Buckfastleigh – it finds mention in the Domesday Book and is said to have come into its own in the 11th century when King Canute (the very one who vainly ordered the sea to retreat) founded a Benedictine Abbey here.
The abbey was the beating heart of the community until Catholic monasteries were dissolved by King Henry VIII. It fell into ruin, but was resurrected by a group of exiled French monks between 1906 and 1937.
Today, apart from being a popular destination for a day out, the abbey is known for Buckfast Tonic Wine, production of which started in the 1890s. The wine, fortified with caffeine, is popular across the UK.
But not too far and rising high above Buckfastleigh and the abbey is the gleaming spire of Buckfastleigh Church. The late 13th century Trinity Church, isolated in its location on a rocky outcrop, isn’t really functional; the well-preserved ruin is now a shell of the building it used to be.
Mark Lakeman of Experience South West Tours reveals that the Holy Trinity Church was originally a 13th century Norman built church. “However, it is believed that there was a previous religious site there prior to the church’s existence. There were some abbey-associated buildings in the grounds too, now in ruins,” he says.
A joint research project carried out on the site by University College London and Dartmoor National Park between 2002 and 2005 revealed that the medieval church was built upon an earlier structure dating to the late Saxon period and was perhaps the site of the first Buckfast Abbey.
Despite its sacred nature, the church has had more than its share of bad luck. It’s been a target, on multiple occasions, of body snatchers, arsonists, and vandals. In 1849, a fire destroyed the vestry and the altar. Twenty-five years on, in 1884, the tower was struck by lightning and had to be rebuilt.
In The History, gazetteer and directory of the County of Devon, William White writes: “The tower, chancel and transepts were constructed in the 13th century with the aisles and chancel chapels added in the 15th century. By the mid-19th century, the building had fallen into a ruinous state and underwent major restoration.”
During World War II, a nearby bomb explosion led to the destruction of a number of stained glass windows.
Things came to a head on July 21, 1992, when the church was broken into and set ablaze. It’s believed that the fire that gutted the historic structure was started deliberately beneath the altar. Rumours blame Satanists for reducing 700 years of history to a burnt-out shell.
Lakeman, who arranges Baskerville Tours and Dartmoor Experience Tours, believes the church was doomed from the moment Squire Richard Cabell III was entombed there alongside his father and grandfather.
“During his life, in the early 1600s, Cabell III was quite the tyrant. A harsh landlord, he allegedly murdered his own wife and was involved in the kidnapping of the daughters of several local farmers. If you wronged him, chances are he would chase you down on horseback with his pack of bloodthirsty hunting hounds,” Lakeman says.
Locals believe that Cabell got away with the murder of his wife after making a pact with “Old Dewer”, the devil, for his soul. “Upon his death, his tomb was to be left open so Old Dewer could collect his soul in payment for eternal life in hell’s high order,” Lakeman says.
The frightened people of Buckfastleigh, who feared Cabell and his pack of vicious hunting dogs when he was alive, did not stop dreading the squire after his death on July 5, 1677. Local lore goes that a “phantom pack of hounds” ran, baying across the moor, to howl at his tomb on the night when he was interred.
“The deal with the devil frightened the locals, who sealed his tomb. Several break-in attempts were made. Some 200 years after his death, around the 1850s, one such attempt resulted in an arson attack that left the church gutted,” Lakeman says.
The mausoleum, on the south side of the church, is inscribed with the names of Richard I and Susanna Cabell (died in 1612 and 1597, respectively) and their son, Richard II (died in 1655). Interestingly, the unprepossessing structure – known locally as the Sepulchre – has no mention of Richard III.
Local lore goes that on the anniversary of his death every year, the squire could be found leading this phantom pack across the moor. If not, the ferocious pack could be seen moving around his grave, howling and screaming.
The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924), an antiquarian who studied the supernatural legends of Devon, wrote about Richard III’s tomb in Devonshire in The Little Guides (1907): “Before the S porch (of Holy Trinity) is the enclosed tomb of Richard Cabell of Brooke, who died in 1677. He was the last male of his race, and died with such an evil reputation that he was placed under a heavy stone, and a sort of penthouse was built over that with iron gratings to it to prevent his coming up and haunting the neighbourhood. When he died the story goes that fiends and black dogs breathing fire raced over Dartmoor and surrounded Brooke, howling.”
Doyle, who had worked as a doctor in Durnford Street, Plymouth, incorporated the interesting story into his book about a diabolical hound of supernatural origin who killed Sir Hugo Baskerville after he abducted and murdered a woman in the mires of Dartmoor.
“Doyle visited the area with his friends, Bertram Fletcher Robinson and Reverend Robert Duins Cooke, during the rebuild and learnt of the tales that surrounded the ill-fated church and the folklore that dictated the fear in the locals. There was only one man for the job, one man to solve this curse of the hounds, Sherlock Holmes himself,” Lakeman says.
Doyle’s novel stays pretty close to its source material, focusing on a curse that has run in the Baskerville family since the time of the English Civil War, when Sir Hugo Baskerville kidnapped a farmer’s daughter. The girl escaped, leading Hugo to make a deal with the devil as he pursued her. Much later, his companions find the girl dead and Hugo killed by a demonic hound, which has since then haunted Dartmoor and caused the premature death of many Baskerville heirs.
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face distorted in what seems like sheer terror, Holmes has no choice but to step in to keep the new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, safe. “Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend … and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted,” Holmes tells Sir Henry in a bid to convince him to stay off the moor.
In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Doyle put the spotlight on the mysterious atmosphere, shadowy surroundings, and eerie setting, letting his detective ultimately pull off the big reveal – which, in deference to new generations of Sherlock Holmes fans, will not be uncovered here.
Lakeman says the tales of ghostly dealings with the devil, a bloodthirsty pack of hounds, and the evil doings of Squire Cabell “did inspire Doyle to pen the novel and set it on Dartmoor”.
The Hound of the Baskervilles was ranked the best of the four Holmes novels in a poll of “Sherlockians”. A footnote to the first edition states: “This story owes its inception to my friend Fletcher Robinson who has helped me.”
The author may have immortalised the church and its legend in his novel, but the trajectory of tragedies didn’t end for the church. “In WW2, a bombing raid by a German fleet hit Plymouth and on their route back one bomb was dropped, and sadly hit the recently rebuilt church. It burnt to the ground once again,” Lakeman says.
After the war, with a celebration of Britain afoot, mass rebuilds of bombed sites were undertaken. The Holy Trinity Church was rebuilt, once again. “However, disturbances continued off and on, allegedly by descendants of Cabell, and ended only when arson in 1992 left the church in the state we see it in today- no roof, glass or any internal features; just a shell of its former self. No one was ever brought to justice and Cabell still lies sealed in his tomb awaiting the Devil to collect his trapped soul to pay the debt that still remains unpaid,” says Lakeman.
Teja Lele is an independent editor and writes on books, travel and lifestyle.
