Although he might have dismissed it as elementary, Sherlock Holmes would have been impressed with the detective work of Mr Ted Portwin, of Braziers, Chipperfield.

For in the deeds of Braziers he has discovered that the man who created the visual image of Mr Holmes – deerstalker cap and all – once lived there.

Braziers, a Queen Anne Grade II-listed building set in 12 acres and boasting seven lavatories, five bathrooms, 12 rooms in the main house, including eight bedrooms, a self-contained two-bedroom flat on one side, has a large studio in a corner of the grounds.

The house once belonged to a Mary Blackwell, one of the Crosse and Blackwell family, who also owned the Manor House. She leased it to Sidney Paget in 1897, and it was there during a 12-year stay that he illustrated Conan Doyle’s work, including the Sherlock Holmes stories. He was there until about 1910.

This summer [the property] will be on the market in the £100,000-plus range complete with that 30ft by 22ft studio where the lean-faced features, cape-style coat and distinctive pipe took shape on paper and became the prototype of a character familiar enough to seem real.

Mr Paget is also known to have used the forge at Chipperfield as background material, dressing up the smith in old-fashioned clothes. The resulting painting was used by Conan Doyle to illustrate Rodney Stone.

[From the Watford Observer of March 24, 1978]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: Chipperfield’s official website features an extract from Ted Portwin’s funeral address when he died, aged 94, in 2006. It confirms that the Portwins left Braziers in 1978, but didn’t move far – only to Little Braziers, a bungalow Ted had built in the grounds of the larger home.

Among the interesting other facts on the website is that he claimed to have changed his name from Portwine to Portwin when he was offered a job on the Methodist News, a journal that opposed alcohol! To read more, go to www.chipperfield. org.uk and search for Ted Brazier.

“Rodney Stone” was a Gothic mystery and boxing novel written by Conan Doyle and first published in 1896.