The Duchy Hotel

The Duchy Hotel is a hotel located at Princetown, the main town in the middle of Dartmoor and where the prison is located. In the novel The Sittaford Mystery, Inspector Narracott asks a subordinate to do some checks on hotels near Princetown. The subordinate came back to report that the inspector's hunch was right, but it was not "The Duchy at Princetown. It was the hotel at Two Bridges." The context of the following conversation suggests that they had been tracing the whereabouts of some "young man", likely to be Brian Pearson. Brian Pearson had helped Freemantle Freddy escape from prison. It is likely that Brian needed to stay nearby the prison.

The Duchy Hotel was an actual hotel in Princetown whose building still exists. It was originally built to house the officers who commanded the troops which provided the guard for the prison. Around 1850, the facility was converted into a hotel. In 1941, with the hotel in decline, the building was taken over again as the officers mess for prison warders. In 1991 refurbishment works began on the building and in 1993 it was reopened as the Visitors Centre for Dartmoor. The Visitors Centre is open to the public and includes a museum about Dartmoor life.