This project is archived. Return to current Museums Sheffield homepage or view more projects.
Skip Navigation

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Author of the Sherlock Holmes detective novels

 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at his desk

Colour photograph of the exterior of New Roots Café, Spital Hill.
The New Roots café on Spital Hill where Conan Doyle worked as a doctor's assistant. © Nikky Wilson

Arthur Conan Doyle had a brief acquaintance with Burngreave. In 1878 he came to Sheffield to work as an assistant to Dr Charles Sydney Richardson on Spital Hill. This was in the building on the corner of Spital Hill and Hallcar Street, which is now the New Roots Café and Burngreave Ashram. It seems that Conan Doyle did not get along with Dr Richardson or Sheffield patients as he later wrote:

'These Sheffielders would rather be poisoned by a man with a beard than saved by a man without one.'