The Sherlock Holmes Museum in London
221B Baker Street – Mrs Hudson, Dr Watson and Mr Holmes
Nov 10, 2009
The London of the 1880s and 90s was gaslit London, the London of smoke and fog and the hansom cab, the London of Sherlock Holmes. And the great man may still be seen today at his old address, for he who never lived can certainly never die – not even if he plunges into the Reichenbach Falls.
But where did Sherlock Holmes live? The question is not as easy as it sounds, for in Holmes’s day, the Baker Street numbers stopped at 85. Number 221B Baker Street, where Mrs Hudson kept her lodging house, was the invention of Holmes’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Then in 1930, number 221 was created by the incorporation of Upper Baker Street into Baker Street itself. The building so honored was, however, soon demolished, and odd numbers 215 to 229 were assigned to the new Abbey House, headquarters of the Abbey Road Building Society (later the Abbey National, now simply Abbey) from 1932. Letters to Sherlock Holmes poured in from all over the world, in such numbers that Abbey House decided to appoint a “secretary to Sherlock Holmes”.
221B Baker Street
All was well until 1990, when the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened just down the road at number 239. Determined to lay claim to Sherlock Holmes's address, the museum gained the right to put the appropriate number on the door by the expedient of registering a company by the name of 221B Ltd.
But Abbey House was not ready to relinquish its role as guardian of the great man’s memory without a fight. Matters came to a head in 1994, when the Sherlock Holmes Museum failed in its attempt to be officially designated number 221B Baker Street.
And the building society was not doing a bad job in honoring the illustrious detective, even commissioning in 1999 the bronze statue which now stands outside Baker Street Tube Station. But when Abbey moved on in 2002, the wrangling ended. Since then, no one has been in any doubt that the Sherlock Holmes Museum occupies the Sherlock Holmes address.
Watson and Holmes Move In
There was once a bronze plaque on the wall of Abbey House. Under a profile of the detective was a brief quote from the account given in A Study in Scarlet by his friend and chronicler Dr Watson of how he and Holmes took up residence at number 221B Baker Street.
The memorial is no longer there, but another one survives. To the front of the museum is affixed one of those plaques which commemorate famous Londoners. The Sherlock Holmes blue plaque identifies Mr Holmes as a consulting detective, and records that he lived there from 1881 until 1904.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum
In Sherlock Holmes’s day, 221B Baker street, accessed by a flight of seventeen steps, was a suite of rooms on the first floor of a lodging house. The study overlooked Baker Street, with Holmes’s bedroom adjacent to it at the back. On the floor above, landlady Mrs Hudson had the front room, the back one being occupied by Dr Watson.
And so it remains to this day in the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The main attraction is, of course, Holmes’s study, where his best-known possessions are all to be seen – deerstalker, pipe, magnifying glass, violin and so on.
A recent third-floor addition is an arrangement of wax models offering a three-dimensional view of scenes from the stories. There Holmes is to be seen together with his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty.
Sherlock Holmes Books and Memorabilia
On the ground floor is the museum shop. In addition to a wide selection of Sherlock Holmes books, it offers a wealth of memorabilia – anything from a small model of an 1880 hansom cab (£160) to a fake cigarette (£1). A pewter statue of the great detective may be had for as little as £10, while a deerstalker hat costs £20.
A Sherlock Holmes Museum at the Reichenbach Falls
Strange as it might seem, two more Sherlock Holmes museums are to be found in Switzerland. One is at Lucens between Lausanne and Bern, but better known is the one at Meiringen south of Lucerne. Located in the cellar of the former English Church, it features a full-size replica of the Baker Street study, protected by a glass wall. Outside sits a statue of the great detective.
In fact, it isn't so odd that the museum should be there, for it was near Meiringen that Holmes finally came to grips with Moriarty, in a struggle which culminated in a terrifying plunge over the Reichenbach Falls.
So the great sleuth is quite at home in Switzerland. But then, with his stories translated into more than sixty languages, he is at home just about anywhere. Sherlock Holmes is international. He is also immortal.
Further Information:
The Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221B Baker Street, London NW1 6XE
Telephone 01+44+207 224 3688
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