Richard_Cabell
Richard Cabell (died 5 July 1677), of Brook Hall, in the parish of Buckfastleigh on the south-eastern edge of Dartmoor, in Devon,[1] is believed to be the inspiration for the wicked Hugo Baskerville, "the first of his family to be hounded to death when he hunted an innocent maiden over the moor by night",[2] one of the central characters in Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-2),[3] the tale of a hellish hound and a cursed country squire. When asked in 1907 about his inspiration for the novel Conan Doyle wrote in reply: "My story was really based on nothing save a remark of my friend Fletcher Robinson's that there was a legend about a dog on the moor connected with some old family". [4][5] Cabell's tomb survives in the village of Buckfastleigh.[6][7]