Petition to Support Undershaw

by Scott Monty September 11, 2011

"the signature is typewritten" [IDEN]

The current state of Unders

[Editor's note: Updated with current photos, courtesy of Catherine Cooke, BSI ("The Book of Life")]

We've previously mentioned the plight of Undershaw in these pages. The home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for a decade - and a decade of very prominent work - is in a terrible state of disrepair and under threat of development rather than preservation.

For a very thorough history on the situation, please take a look at "The Undershaw Preservation Trust" written by Jacquelynn Morris, the U.S. representative for the Undershaw Preservation Trust. It gives a good background of what's happened to date.

We have been regularly active about and supportive of these efforts here. Other posts, in chronological order, include:

• Conan Doyle's Undershaw May be Destroyed
• An Undershaw Update from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London
• Letter of Support for Undershaw
• No Grade II Listing for Conan Doyle's Undershaw
• An Expatriate Workaround for the Undershaw Petition
• A Petition to Support Grade II Listing for Undershaw
• The Undershaw Preservation Trust

The lead image above and the three images below show the sad current state of the building and the grounds of Undershaw. They were taken in Hindhead on Saturday, September 10, 2011 by Catherine Cooke. Click the images to enlarge.

    

 
Undershaw Needs Your Help
This historic building faces near destruction if we don't do something now. There are a few simple things you can do to help.

1. Sign the petition to show your support by Friday September 16, 2011.
2. When signing the petition, if you log in with your Facebook account, you can share it as a status update.
3. Share this post with everyone you know and tell them something like this:

If you believe that Undershaw, former home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Homes, should be saved from development, please sign this petition! We need as many American Sherlockians as possible to sign this no later than Friday, September 16. Share this with all your U.S. Sherlockian friends! 

The petition now includes the ability for Americans (unlike the one mentioned in "Shall I Sign Here?" [BLAC] that only applied to British citizens and ex-pats. If you would like to help save this historic monument to a particularly creative time in Conan Doyle's life - one that included The Hound of the Baskervilles, please do your part to help get the word out.

We all bear some responsibility in keeping his memory alive.

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