CAMPAIGNERS battling to save an historic New Forest hotel have uncovered evidence that part of it was designed by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Lyndhurst Park closed in 2014 with the loss of more than 20 jobs and was later bought by Hampshire-based developer PegasusLife for a reported £5 million.

Earlier this year the company’s application to bulldoze the building and replace it with 74 apartments and 12 holiday lets was thrown out.

PegasusLife has now submitted a new application to the New Forest National Park Authority for 75 flats and 15 affordable homes.

But conservationists want the complex restored to its former glory and are hoping the Conan Doyle connection will boost their campaign.

The author had a home at Bignell Wood, near Minstead, and is buried in the local churchyard.

Speaking at a meeting of Lyndhurst Parish Council, Hampshire historian Brice Stratford said Conan Doyle designed the 1912 redevelopment of the building, then known as Glasshayes House.

The original Glasshayes was built by George Buck as a gift for his wife, who died there in 1826.

Conan Doyle became a regular visitor after it was converted into a hotel and in 1912 submitted sketches for the proposed redesign, which focused on the east wing.

According to documents stored at the Hampshire Record Office work based on his ideas started later that year.

Conan Doyle’s original designs became part of the Lancelyn Green archive now held at Portsmouth Library, where they were discovered by Mr Stratford.

Parish councillors heard that his research had been validated by the Conan Doyle Estate and the Victorian Society.

Mr Stratford said the two organisations had told him they would fight any proposals to demolish the east wing.

The Rev Caroline Wilkins, vice-chairman of the parish council, said Mr Stratford’s research had produced a “significant find”.

A spokesman for the Friends of Glasshayes action group added: “Conan Doyle was a famous spiritualist and paranormal researcher who often held seances to contact the dead.

“He was likely to have been drawn to the hotel due to its reputation for hauntings.”

Since the end of the 19th century workmen have reported seeing the ghosts of Mrs Buck and the 1st Duc de Stacpoole, who lived at Glasshayes until 1848.

The Victorian Society, the national charity campaigning for the preservation of Victorian and Edwardian buildings and landscapes, says the building should now be listed.

Victorian Society conservation advisor Tom Taylor said: "It is now of paramount importance that the building is reconsidered for listing, as that would offer it valuable protection against demolition and insensitive redevelopment.

"The fact that Glasshayes House is thought to be the last remaining building designed by Arthur Conan Doyle makes it unique, and therefore highly historically significant and certainly worthy of reassessment."