BUILDING work is now complete at Undershaw – the new home for Stepping Stones special school... and an official opening has been set in September, when Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the South West Surrey MP, will cut the ribbon.

The David Forbes-Nixon Foundation spent £800,000 on the restoration of Conan Doyle’s original building at Hindhead. And after demolishing a 1930s extension, the project including a modern extension housing a performance hall, hydrotherapy pool and classrooms has cost around £7million.

Work on landscaping the grounds will continue during the school holidays, restoring the views from the house which had become obstructed by self-seeded trees. But a raised walkway for which planning permission had been given earlier this year will probably not now be built because of lack of funds.

Norman Stromsoy, chief executive of the DFN Foundation, told The Herald while the restoration of Conan Doyle’s Undershaw had been faithful and painstakingly to historical detail, the modern extension while echoing the gabled roofline, is deliberately distinct from the original house, in line with “best practice” advice from English Heritage.

The modern extension is set at a slight angle to the main house and has been designed to let in as much natural light as possible.

In addition, a 1930s kitchen extension at the back of the main house has also been demolished and replaced with a cafe and catering hospitality area and includes a glass skylight which throws light onto a restored stained glass window in the hallway.

As part of planning permission granted in 2015, the DFN Foundation pledged to restore the special features associated with the author, including the stained glass windows which bear the Doyle’s family crests, which were damaged by vandals while Undershaw lay empty after 2004.

There are a further three stained glass lights over the stairway, originally containing three coats of arms of Conan Doyle’s mother’s family. However one crest was irreparably damaged and one panel has been replaced with a DFN Foundation motif.

Restoration has taken the house back to Doyle’s time, with partition walls from the hotel era taken down, fireplaces restored and walls and ceilings repaired using traditional techniques.

Overlooking the gardens to the south is Conan Doyle’s study, which has been recreated and lined with photographs of the original interiors. The author lived at Undershaw for a decade between 1897 and 1907 and the house was the place where many his most famous works were written including The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Gerard, The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Nigel.

“We wanted to make sure that the building can still be ‘read’ as it was in Conan Doyle’s day, and to be as faithful to the original as we can,” said Mr Stromsoy.

Elsewhere, however, some of the original features have been sacrificed in order to allow adaptions for disabled pupils, including the well shaft and parts of the coach house building, where a stable stall has been moved aside.

But the wooden ‘airing shed’ in the grounds which allowed Doyle’s wife, Touie, to sit outside in the fresh air has been restored and will be replaced once the landscape work is complete.

Four acres of overgrown garden looking south towards Nutcombe Valley will be cleared and replanted over the summer, ready for Undershaw to be the home to older pupils from Stepping Stones School, who will move from the school’s present Tower Road site in Hindhead.

At the same time the full school will be able to use the specialist facilities such as hydo pool and performance hall, which will also be available to the local community.