Was Norfolk's Black Shuck the black dog that inspired
The Hound of the Baskervilles?
One of the first ghost stories based in Norfolk that I heard was that of Black Shuck. For some reason the story captivated me and stayed with me until, years later, I wrote the book Black Shuck: The Devil's Dog. It was only later that I heard that Black Shuck may indeed have been the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write one of his most famous Sherlock Holmes stories: The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Apparently in 1901 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took a golfing holiday in West Runton and Cromer in Norfolk where he heard the tale of Black Shuck. The following year he published The Hound of The Baskervilles, so it's not surprising that many have though his inspiration came from the Norfolk legend.
For some reason Conan Doyle replaced Norfolk with the wilds of Dartmoor as the setting for the book, but his description of Baskerville Hall certainly bears a likeness to Cromer Hall.
Although there have been many classic film and TV versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, there is a fresh and growing interest in Conan Doyle's stories thanks to the BBC series Sherlock, written by Mark Gatiss and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. The second programme of Series 2 is entitled The Hounds of Baskerville and is to be broadcast on BBC One on 8th January 2012.
And the interest in all things Sherlock and hounds is also leading to a growing interest in other tales of hellish black dogs ...
