DOZENS of amateur detectives, decked out in deerstalkers and tweeds, will be tracking the Hound of the Baskervilles over Dartmoor next week.

Fifty five Sherlock Holmes devotees from Japan, the USA, Canada and Germany will be scouring the moor for evidence of their hero as Arthur Conan-Doyle was writing his most famous story a hundred years ago. They will be dressed as characters from one of the sixty Holmes stories.

The week-long convention, organised by the Baskerville Hounds — the Dartmoor Sherlock Holmes study group — will be based at Ashburton. The group will visit Tavistock and the High Moorland Centre, Princetown on Wednesday. The High Moorland Centre was once Rowe's Duchy Hotel where Conan-Doyle stayed while gathering local colour.

Later that afternoon 'The Hound of the Baskervilles — Hunting the Dartmoor Legend', an extensive study of the writing of the book by Holmes expert Philip Weller will be launched.

The group will also visit Lewtrenchard House, home of writer Sabine Baring-Gould, widely believed to have influenced Conan-Doyle's writing, Dartmoor Prison and the Dart Valley Steam Railway featured in two of the films.