Sherlock: A Study in Locatioining (9) Devil dogs and muddy hollows pt 1
Before we start working on exactly HOW to get to the location for Dewer's Hollow (Three Bears Pit in Fforest Fawr a mile or so north of Cardiff) I feel like providing a little bit more information about how where I am living now has some strong Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle links.
When I first moved to my new home in Lowestoft I didn't even know Conan Doyle used to holiday a few miles up the coast, or about how the original Hound of the Baskervilles story came about during one of his stays. The Dancing Men, which oddly enough modern Sherlock's The Blind Banker was based on, also has local connections too
Most of the information is in this post in which I wrote back in March this year when I was doing location work for Murder Rooms (a BBC drama shown in 2000 advertised as "The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes").
It really is interesting how a local East Anglian phantom hound can be taken and turned into a character in a detective novel, be used in many many films and then get modernised into something that was more to do with a scifi story from Dr Who than Sherlock Holmes.
.
Now, yet again, as is often the case with these locations I have found, the site I was looking for has been used twice before on our screens. Apparently we were just as likely to bump into the BBC's Merlin or operatives from Torchwood as we were scary dogs caused by hallucinogenic gas.
The Sherlockology site, and the Dr Who location website, both suggest you park at Castel Coch and then walk up a path from there into the woods and to this location. This is something I would strongly advise against. There are two paths you can walk up here, both on quite a gradient, both a long way from where you need to end up. For one of them you would, to quote linda_joyce who was out locationing with garienos and I, "need to be a mountain goat, have a sherpa or at least carry three days food with you".
This is a photo that linda_joyce took of the view from the bottom. See what I mean?!
Now I instead can suggest something a little easier. I knew the TV people would not have dragged their actors, technical people, cameras and lights, up a mile and a half of rough, barely there paths. While garienos had a look round inside Castel Coch linda_joyce and I consulted maps, checkedd things up on Nubbin the locationing Notebook via mobile broadband and used our brains. We realised that if we went up to the north of Fforest Fawr and parked at the car park for the Sculpture Trail there next to the golf club, we'd have a nice forest track to walk down.
The Three Bears Pit is indicated here by an arrow. It's about 1/2 a mile down the path from the car park.
The car park has lots of sculptures and a lovely dragon there to photograph. (Hello there linda_joyce!) We immediately christened him Smaug because he reminded us of someone else who came here and who has been playing a dragon recently ... didn't spot any Hobbits though ...
Next you have to walk along the track which is behind the fence behind Smaug's head here;
Keep going straight on straight past this turn off - that takes you along the Sculpture Trail, but not where we need to go (nice clear track for the TV 4-by-4s to roll along here, and possibly a parking spot for some of them too!)
Another 100 yards and a newish fence turns up on your right, keep going!
I'd already plunged into the woods here, my locationers sixth sense sending me rushing off going, 'I recognise this, it looks familiar!' In fact I had to walk all the way round the fence to get in. You need to look for this post on the left and a gap in the trees on your right.
The walk this path is part of is (aptly enough) called Sir Henry's Trail:
Turn into the woods and you will see a fenced off area. The fence is easily climbed!
And here are two of your intrepid locationers, having dumped their bags on the ground in excitement, and trying to work out how on earth we get down into there safely ...
When I first moved to my new home in Lowestoft I didn't even know Conan Doyle used to holiday a few miles up the coast, or about how the original Hound of the Baskervilles story came about during one of his stays. The Dancing Men, which oddly enough modern Sherlock's The Blind Banker was based on, also has local connections too
Most of the information is in this post in which I wrote back in March this year when I was doing location work for Murder Rooms (a BBC drama shown in 2000 advertised as "The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes").
It really is interesting how a local East Anglian phantom hound can be taken and turned into a character in a detective novel, be used in many many films and then get modernised into something that was more to do with a scifi story from Dr Who than Sherlock Holmes.
.
Now, yet again, as is often the case with these locations I have found, the site I was looking for has been used twice before on our screens. Apparently we were just as likely to bump into the BBC's Merlin or operatives from Torchwood as we were scary dogs caused by hallucinogenic gas.
The Sherlockology site, and the Dr Who location website, both suggest you park at Castel Coch and then walk up a path from there into the woods and to this location. This is something I would strongly advise against. There are two paths you can walk up here, both on quite a gradient, both a long way from where you need to end up. For one of them you would, to quote linda_joyce who was out locationing with garienos and I, "need to be a mountain goat, have a sherpa or at least carry three days food with you".
This is a photo that linda_joyce took of the view from the bottom. See what I mean?!
Now I instead can suggest something a little easier. I knew the TV people would not have dragged their actors, technical people, cameras and lights, up a mile and a half of rough, barely there paths. While garienos had a look round inside Castel Coch linda_joyce and I consulted maps, checkedd things up on Nubbin the locationing Notebook via mobile broadband and used our brains. We realised that if we went up to the north of Fforest Fawr and parked at the car park for the Sculpture Trail there next to the golf club, we'd have a nice forest track to walk down.
The Three Bears Pit is indicated here by an arrow. It's about 1/2 a mile down the path from the car park.
The car park has lots of sculptures and a lovely dragon there to photograph. (Hello there linda_joyce!) We immediately christened him Smaug because he reminded us of someone else who came here and who has been playing a dragon recently ... didn't spot any Hobbits though ...
Next you have to walk along the track which is behind the fence behind Smaug's head here;
Keep going straight on straight past this turn off - that takes you along the Sculpture Trail, but not where we need to go (nice clear track for the TV 4-by-4s to roll along here, and possibly a parking spot for some of them too!)
Another 100 yards and a newish fence turns up on your right, keep going!
I'd already plunged into the woods here, my locationers sixth sense sending me rushing off going, 'I recognise this, it looks familiar!' In fact I had to walk all the way round the fence to get in. You need to look for this post on the left and a gap in the trees on your right.
The walk this path is part of is (aptly enough) called Sir Henry's Trail:
Turn into the woods and you will see a fenced off area. The fence is easily climbed!
And here are two of your intrepid locationers, having dumped their bags on the ground in excitement, and trying to work out how on earth we get down into there safely ...