LEGEND OF BLACK SHUCK

The legend dates back hundreds if not thousands of years. No one knows for sure where Black Shuck came from but there are plenty of theories and as the years have passed, like all legends, the stories have become more and more elaborate. Hence there are now probably as many variations on the legend as there are varieties of Gin. 

It has been suggested that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took inspiration from Black Shuck when writing the classic thriller, Hound of the Baskervilles. In 1901 Sir Arthur returned from South Africa suffering from Typhoid Fever. Whilst recovering, he and his companion, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, took a golfing holiday in North Norfolk. They stayed at the Cromer Links Hotel and visited Cromer Hall where Doyle and Robinson, a collector of strange myths and local legends, would undoubtedly have been regaled with tales of the legendary Black Shuck.