THE BLACK DOG OF HERGEST
[RADIO-SCRIPT]
Every shire and county in England has its share of local legends and spectral spottings, but the
folklore surrounding the Black Dog of Hergest (pronounced “ar-gyst”) has acquired a special place
in the nation’s folklore due to its being claimed by many sources as the inspiration for Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.
[Herefordshire Gazetteer] “Near Kington in NE Herefordshire, a long rugged ridge famous in
local folklore for its legendary Black Dog, generally believed to be the shape-shifted form of 16th
Century local thug, Black Vaughan. The Black Dog of Hergest is also believed to have been the
proto-type for the Hound of the Baskervilles as Conan Doyle is known to have stayed at nearby
Hergest Hall shortly before he wrote the novel. To meet the Black Dog was locally regarded as an
omen of death. (Hergest is pronounced as “Argist” with a hard ‘g’.)”
[BBC Wales] “Was Arthur Conan Doyle inspired to write his famous novel after staying at
Baskerville Hall in Clyro, Hay-on-Wye? Some say ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is based on the
local legend of ‘The Black Dog of Hergest’ which Doyle heard while staying in Clyro. The book
itself is set on Dartmoor.”
[The Independent, August 25, 1989] “A mysterious animal is running amok near the village
from which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got his inspiration for his story ‘The Hound of the
Baskervilles’, writes David Thomas. Dozens of sheep have had their throats ripped out on
farmland a few miles from Powys village Clyro… Conan Doyle wrote the ‘Hound of the
Baskervilles’, which he set in Dartmoor, after hearing the tale of ‘The Black Dog of Hergest’ while
staying twelve miles from Clyro. Pamela Harnsworth, Landlady of the ‘Baskerville Arms Inn,’
Clyro said, ‘At least two people have seen it. It’s bigger than a fox and dark in color. Many think
it’s a large dog.’ Traces of the animal, such as a footprint, have not been found… A Dyfed-Powys
Police spokesman said, ‘As unlikely as it seems something appears to be going on out there.’”
[Bob Bibby, Walking the Offa’s Dyke Path] “Conan Doyle himself said that the idea for the
Baskerville hound came from a golfing trip he made to Cromer in Norfolk with a friend. When a
storm drove them indoors, the friend entertained Doyle with tales of a phantom dog called Black
Shuck, which allegedly haunted the local countryside.
“…there is a legend in Kington about Thomas ‘Black’ Vaughan of Hergest whose ghost allegedly
tormented the inhabitants of the town… Black Vaughan’s dog allegedly continued to haunt the
territory its master had once operated in. And it is this Black Dog of Hergest which Conan Doyle
was told about when he was staying at nearby Clyro Court with one Thomas Baskerville, whose
family had lived there for centuries.
It is also likely that Doyle was familiar with W. S. Symonds’ 1881 historical novel Malvern Chase
and its ninth chapter—co-titled “The Shadow Hound”—in which the Yorkist narrator visits
“Black” Vaughan at the Grange at Hargest and passes a harrowing night in a chamber haunted by
the Black Dog.
“I could not have been asleep above a quarter of an hour when I was awakened by something
moving at the foot of my bed, and, starting up, I saw the figure of an enormous black boar-hound
with glaring eyes and a most savage expression, making as if he were about to spring upon the
bed… …eyes which flamed like torches… I was about to shout for aid, when gradually the form of
the animal faded away…
“I related to him [Robin] my adventures, when he exclaimed, ‘By heavens! Then you have seen
the black dog of Hergest!’ In replay to my inquiries as to what he referred to, he said that it was a
strange tale and appertained to an ancestor of the Vaughans, adding that the house must have
been full of guests to overflowing before the host of Hergest would have put a guest to sleep in the
chamber of the ‘shadow hound’!”
[Jennifer Westwood] “Black Dogs commonly haunt lanes, footpaths, bridges, crossroads and
gateways—all points of transition, from ancient times held to be weak spots in the fabric dividing
the mortal world from the supernatural.”
[CHRONOLOGY]
(MIDLAND REGIONAL PROGRAMME—BBC)
[Monday—8:00-8:45 PM]
October 22, 1934 “The Black Dog of Hergest”
[“…a dramatization of a Herefordshire folk-tale…”]
SCRIPT: Helen Enoch.
PERSONNEL: Martyn C. Webster (producer).
CAST: Godfrey Baseley, John Bentley, Hilda Birch, Alfred Butler, Helen Enoch,
Denis Folwell, Mabel France, Gladys Joiner, John Lang, Nita Valerie.
[Monday—8:15-9:00 PM]
January 7, 1935 “The Black Dog of Hergest”