[1] Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Priory School" tenth in his list of his twelve favourite Holmes stories.

He beseeches Holmes to come back to Mackleton with him to look into the disappearance of one of his pupils, the ten-year-old Lord Saltire, whose father is the very rich and famous Duke of Holdernesse.

He conceived a plan to kidnap Lord Saltire to force the Duke to change his will, knowing very well that his father would not call the police on him, as he abhorred the very idea of scandal.

The plan had begun to unravel when Wilder hired Hayes – who has now fled, but been caught on Holmes's information – to do the actual kidnapping.

So anxious had been the Duke to avoid scandal, he agreed to let his younger son remain confined at the inn for another three days, and to keep quiet, so that Hayes could flee justice.

In the dramatisation, Holmes deduces that Wilder is the illegitimate son of the Duke of Holdernesse after comparing his features with those of each ancestral portrait in the Hall.

Also, in this version, Wilder takes Lord Saltire as a hostage in a chase led by Holmes, the Duke and Watson through a cavern under the moor, known as the "Cathedral".

Having climbed to the top of a cliff-like structure with the boy, Wilder slips and falls to his death, while Lord Saltire is rescued.

"The Priory School" was dramatised by Edith Meiser as an episode of the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

[11] An adaptation aired on BBC radio in 1978, starring Barry Foster as Holmes and David Buck as Watson.

[12] "The Adventure of the Priory School" was adapted as an episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater titled "The Vanishing Herd".

The episode, which featured John Beal as Sherlock Holmes and Court Benson as Dr. Watson, first aired in January 1981.

[14] A 2013 episode of The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series on the American radio show Imagination Theatre, was adapted from the story.