IF the legendary Hound of the Baskervilles still gallops across Dartmoor, growling, howling and slavering, might he only be missing his native Herefordshire?

This question is perhaps worth asking, now a new show, "The Singular Exploits of Sherlock Holmes" is set to entertain a local audience, just over the border in Worcestershire, at the Evesham Arts Centre, on Friday, September 16.

The nights by then will be drawing in, and so it is timely to ask if a grim Herefordshire legend inspired the creator of Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to create his tale of the great demonic hound, an omen of death to those who behold it.

And the more nervous among us might enquire what is the chance today of encountering such a beast, along the highways and byways of a still very rural county.

The Herefordshire-based novelist, Phil Rickman, in an interview back in 2004, made a strong case for Hergest Court, and its associated legends, being a major inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Conan Doyle was related to the family who owned Hergest Court at Kington, and he stayed there.

He must have known the legend of the evil medieval lord, Black Vaughan, whose restless spirit tormented the people of Kington and whose spectral companion was phantom hound.

Remarkably, the legend of a spectral black dog is still associated with Hergest Court, and it is even believed to haunt a room at the top of the house.

Apparently, and worryingly, there is evidence that the hound may be more than a legend.

In 2004, when he first revealed his theory, Mr Rickman said: "A former tenant farmer at Hergest Court told me of hearing the patter of huge paws in an upstairs room and seeing a dog-like shadow padding in front of him and into the inner hall."

The late Roy Palmer, a superb folklorist who lived in Malvern, recorded in his book "Herefordshire Folklore (2002), that both Doyle and the Vaughans (of Hergest Court) were connected by marriage to the Baskerville family". So it seems the plot thickens as the evidence certainly begins to accumulate.

Black dogs, however, are not entirely in short supply in the British Isles.

A article on the "Mysterious Britain and Ireland" website puts the case succinctly: "Stories of phantom black dogs abound in Britain, almost every county has its own variant, from the Black Shuck of East Anglia to the Padfoot and Bogey Beast of Yorkshire.

"There are various theories to explain the phenomena and they seem to have many common traits from sighting to sighting."

One idea is that the legend of black dog hauntings is somehow a folk memory of more ancient, pagan beliefs, perhaps going back to Saxon or Viking times, or even into pre-history.

Some more modern sightings of phantom hounds are harder to explain.

A story doing the rounds more than a decade ago concerned Eastnor Lake, near Ledbury, although hard facts have since proved impossible to come by.

Apparently, so the story goes, a father and son were camping by the lake, on a fishing trip, when they were awakened by the sound of a barking dog.

Peering from the tent, they saw a large white dog, which was glowing and entirely spectral, and which floated up into the night sky, before vanishing.

One cannot help but wonder what Conan Doyle would have made of that.

Tickets for "The Singular Exploits of Sherlock Holmes" at Evesham Arts Centre are available now at www.dontgointothecellar.com