Sherlock Holmes London Walk Guide
See 221b Baker Street, Scotland Yard, Conan Doyle's Medical Practice
The Sherlock Holmes Walk from Louis' London Walks leads fans of the detective to 221b Baker Street, Scotland Yard, Conan Doyle's surgery and many more Holmes locations.
The Sherlock Holmes London of 1895 is where this walking guide from Louis' London Walks tries to take visitors. The Sherlock Holmes Walk booklet, one of a series of very good London walking guides, does its very best to bring the great fictional detective, and the Victorian London in which he lived, back to life. Users of the book can travel back in time to a London of hansom cabs, foggy streets, of Dr Watson and Moriarty, and of a London address almost as famous as Buckingham Palace or 10 Downing Street: 221b Baker Street.
SHERLOCK HOLMES LONDON WALK
The Sherlock Holmes Walk is actually two walks in one book. The first begins at Baker Street underground station and weaves its way through the streets of London to end at Oxford Circus tube station. From here you could continue to walk down Regent Street, or take the tube one stop to Piccadilly Circus underground, where the second part of the walk begins. This then ends at Covent Garden underground station. The whole walk together should take about three hours.
221b BAKER STREET
The Sherlock Holmes Walk couldn't begin anywhere else than on Baker Street, Holmes's home sweet home. His address of 221b Baker Street never existed in reality, but so many people go looking for it that there is now a Sherlock Holmes statue, a memorabilia shop, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
Further down Baker Street is the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel, too, and this walking guide does a good job of integrating walk directions with snippets of text from the Sherlock Holmes books, and interesting background historical information. Some of the other interesting Holmes London locations include:
- 2 Devonshire Place, where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his medical practice
- 15 Welbeck Street, where Moriarty made an attempt on Sherlock Holmes's life
- 9 Queen Anne Street, where Dr Watson had his rooms
In the second part of the Sherlock Holmes London Walk, the author introduces some more intriguing addresses, including the former site of Scotland Yard (which got its name because there was once a palace here belonging to the Kings of Scotland. Around the corner is the Sherlock Holmes Pub, which appears in The Hound of the Baskervilles as the Northumberland Hotel.
Other stopping points include Charing Cross Station, the Adelphi Theatre, the Savoy Hotel, Simpson's-in-the-Strand, and the Bow Street Police Court. Sherlock Holmes fans can see how well they know their stuff by trying to name the Holmes connections. A Sherlock shrine is 12 Burleigh Street, which used to be the offices of The Strand magazine, where many of the Sherlock Holmes stories were first published.
The Sherlock Holmes Walk is a 20-page pocket-sized book, with two maps and detailed walking directions. It has everything the Holmes fan needs in order to put together a do-it-yourself stroll through Sherlock Holmes's London.
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Other titles in the Louis' London Walks series are:
- The Kray Twins Walk
- A Walk Around Haunted London
- A Historical Walk through William Shakespeare's London
- The Beatles in London Walk
- The Jack the Ripper Walk
- A Walk Around Charles Dickens' London
- Historical Riverside London Pubs Walk
- A Walk through Princess Diana's London (currently being reprinted)
The Sherlock Holmes Walk is published by Louis' London Walks at £2.50 plus postage, and available from their website.
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