Campaigners win fight to preserve Conan Doyle mansion

Campaigners have won their legal battle to block the development of a Surrey mansion where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Hound Of The Baskervilles.

The Victorian building near Haslemere - which is known as Undershaw - was purpose built for the author, who lived there from 1897 to 1907 completing 13 Sherlock Holmes stories in that time.

Developers want to turn the Grade II listed building into eight separate homes.

But a High Court judge said today that, because of legal flaws, the local council's decision to grant planning permission must be quashed.