Conan Doyle archive 'languishing'

Many of the Conan Doyle items have never been displayed

A row has broken out over claims a major collection material on Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is languishing in "dusty vaults".

Conan Doyle expert Richard Lancelyn Green left his entire collection to Portsmouth City Council's library service after his death in 2004.

But the council has been criticised by a Conservative councillor for the time taken to catalogue the 40,000 items.

A collection spokesman said that the cataloguing was a "gargantuan task".

Councillor Simon Bosher, the Tories' spokesman for economic development, criticised the council for tasking only one full-time worker and three volunteers on the project.

He said: "We are sitting on a goldmine here. It's going to bring in a lot of money to the city but it is frustrating that it is taking so long to put together."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a medical practice in Portsmouth

It is thought it will be another year before the job is completed.

Only part of the collection has ever been displayed and a new partial exhibition, A Study in Sherlock, is set to open later this month.

Stephen Bailey, the council's head of culture, said £70,000 had been spent on refurbishing an old gallery in the city's museum where the collection will be housed over the next three years.

Dr Neil McCaw, academic director of the collection, added: "There are more than 40,000 items in the collection - all of which were uncatalogued.

Family 'delighted'

"It was therefore a gargantuan task facing the city council and the collection's patron, Stephen Fry, suggested that it would take at least four years to do justice to what we have.

"Nearly two years on, there's every indication that he wasn't too far off."

Scirard Lancelyn Green, the executor of the will, said the family was "delighted" with the way the city council had dealt with the collection.

Conan Doyle had a medical practice in Portsmouth and also wrote his first two Sherlock Holmes books there.

The collection includes a small medical book by a Doctor Sherlock which is believed to have been the inspiration for the name of Conan Doyle's detective.