Enchanted on Dartmoor: Uncanny experiences and more-than-human affects on the trail of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’

To speak of enchantment and being enchanted is to speak of an experience of or perhaps simply an awareness of ‘being otherwise’. Tourism scholars have identified the importance of enchantment, both as an experience grounded in landscapes or sites (see Faris 2004) or one created by engineers, tourism, and spectacle providers (see Lovell and Griffin 2019, 2022) or even attempted by tourists themselves (see Lovell 2023). In this chapter, I visit Dartmoor armed with a map produced by Sherlock Holmes fan Philip Weller. This map buys wholly into a dark, Gothic, and enchanting image of Dartmoor and represents this region as a place where fact and fiction blur into each other. The map is ‘a catalyst for [Philip Weller’s] own enchanted encounters with Dartmoor and with The Hound’ (McLaughlin 2023: 273). Here, I attempt to answer the question: ‘To what extent does Weller’s Dartmoor map [as a guidebook intended to be read] influence other enchanted encounters?’ (McLaughlin 2023: 273). I discuss my own touristic experiences of being enchanted on Dartmoor whilst using the Weller map, ranging across dislocation and difference, haunting and the uncanny, and affect, atavism, and atmospheres.