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Torquay’s Pavilion hosted the creator of Sherlock Holmes twice. But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s visits offered stories of soldiers and spirits rather than crimes and clues.

Could one of the world’s greatest detective fiction writers solve the greatest mystery of them all – is there life after death?

On 27 March 1915, Conan Doyle gave the last lecture in his Great Battles of the War tour. He praised the Devonshire Regiment and called for recruits. But on his second visit to the Pavilion in February 1923, his interest was in spiritualism and the souls of soldiers lost in war. His own son had died in 1918.

Conan Doyle was a significant figure in the national spiritual resurgence during and immediately after World War One. In 1923, he was the guest of the founders of the Paignton Spiritualist Church. It had opened the previous year and was reported to be Devon’s first Spiritualist church.

Conan Doyle published The History of Spiritualism in 1926 as well as the spiritualist novel Land of Mist.

Location: The Pavilion, Torquay TQ2 5EQ
Image of the Torquay Pavilion courtesy of Torbay Library Services
Interviews with Bridget Bennett and Lew Sutton

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