Home
Memorials
Ship Index
Searching
Site Information
Contact
Sources
Disclaimer
What's New
 
 

Location
On the side of Bush House, Elm Grove, Southsea.
 

Memorial Plaque
Arthur Conan Doyle Plaque
 
Bush House (Part)
Arthur Conan Doyle Plaque
 
Bush Villas
Bush Villas
 
Elm Grove/Kings Road 1900
Elm Grove 1900
 
Elm Grove/Kings Road 2007
Elm Grove 1900
 
 Inscription
Arthur Conan Doyle began his professional career as a GP at No. 1 Bush Villas in the summer of 1882. He had arrived in Portsmouth in the June of that year, from Plymouth, with no job, nowhere to live and little more than £10 to his name.
 
While he lived in Portsmouth, Conan Doyle threw himself into the life of the City. He joined the local Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society, gave numerous speeches on topics of the day, and played for the local cricket and bowls teams, as well as being the first goalkeeper for what is now Portsmouth Football Club. He also began a second career, writing successful novels including Micah Clarke and The White Company, as well as the first two Sherlock Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. Portsmouth was, in this sense, the birthplace of the world's greatest fictional detective.
 
By the time Arthur Conan Doyle left Portsmouth he had proved himself to be a great friend to many Portsmouth residents, an active local sportsman, and a successful and valued doctor. He had discovered spiritualism, become a father, and created one of the most famous literary figures the world has ever known.
 
It is little wonder that he remembered the City with such great fondness for the rest of his life.

 

Further Information
 
It is curious that this plaque doesn't mention the reason it is sited on a rather undistinguished block of flats. There is a clue of course in that Doyle lived in Bush Villas and this block of flats is called Bush House, but the latter did not simply replace the former which existed on an Elm Grove that has since been utterly transformed, mainly due to heavy bombing in WW2. Nowadays there is little to indicate that the junction of Elm Grove, Kings Road, Castle Road and Green Road was one of the most significant in Southsea, nor that the Elm Grove and Kings Road have been 'straightened' whilst Castle Road has been given a bend such that it longer forms a crossroad with Green Road.
 
Photos 3 and 4 (see left) from c1900 shows Bush Villas and the road junction as Doyle would have known it. The large building on the right is the Bush Hotel, whilst behind it, sandwiched between the hotel and the church, is Bush Villas). The image from 2007 is taken from a similar place and clearly shows the straightening of the main road and the marginalisation of Castle Road and Green Road.
 
Portsmouth City Museum, a few hundred yards from this plaque, now houses the world's most extensive collection of Conan Doyle artefacts, thanks to the Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest.