One of my favorite museum visits is that of a famous writer or poet's home. Wherever I am in the world, I always make a bee-line for the literary domestic front. To wander through rooms once inhabited by a great writer is to absorb the essence of his or her character and personality, personal space and home comforts. A writer's desk is best of all.
When it is the fictional home of a literary character, it's just as exciting, if not more so, to visit and step into the inner world of a million words that have poured onto pages that have, over time, become as real as any living creature ever was.
So be it with the small and intimate setting of one of the most famous addresses in the world of books and film — The Sherlock Holmes Museum, situated at 221B Baker Street, London
According to the brainchild of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock the super sleuth made this his residence from 1881 to 1904. His storied rooms are faithfully maintained to provide a visceral insight into the life and stories of the world’s first consulting detective in the days of gas-lit, Victorian London.
I had a couple of hours to spare during a recent few days in London in between visits with friends and families and, having taken a close look at a map, I figured I would tie-in a half-hour morning walk from Paddington canal area to stop in at the four-story Georgian townhouse that dated back to 1815. Now the listed Museum building, it served for decades as a lodging house. It wasn't hard to spot, with a short line of people waiting by its blue plaque that commemorates the period of Holmes’ fictional residency. That's where the line blurs between fictional world and fact. It's hard to believe that Sherlock was a figment of Conan Doyle's imagination and not the living, breathing legend fans around the world continue to obsess on.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum first opened its door to visitors from all over the world in 1990. A chirpy London ‘Bobby’ in traditional uniform greeted me at the door, as did welcoming, knowledgeable parlor maids in mop caps, black frocks and white aprons as they guided me along with a small group though the private rooms of London’s iconic detective.
Authentic Victorian furniture and curiosities and a treasure trove of items like those that belonged to the fictional Sherlock, his friends and adversaries complete the feeling of having stepped back in time and dropped in for tea, maybe even with a case plea to investigate.
This was my first visit to the museum. If you're looking for something fun and fairly quick to take in when in central London, I recommend you do. The life-size dummies on the upper floor were a little grizzly for younger kids, I wouldn't take this tour with under tens.
As we continue to lap up modern detective and murder mystery books, movies and shows these days , it's clear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the master of its class. Sherlock Holmes continues to inspire and intrigue in his many modern guises.
I asked one of the guides if it is creepy in the museum later on in the day. She said as the winter evenings draw in and light falls fast mid-afternoon, there have been stories . . .
Click here for the museum website.
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
"You know my methods, Watson"
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1893
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Sign of the Four, 1890
"Excellent, I cried. Elementary said he."
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1893
“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
The man behind the myth — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!”
The Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes , Vol 1
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