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221B Baker Street

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221B Baker Street is the London residence of the famous literary detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In UK postal addresses a number followed by a letter indicates a separate address within a larger, often residential building. In the Baker Street of the Sherlock Holmes Stories this would have been part of a Georgian terrace.

The site of the house — had it ever existed (see below) — has been much disputed by scholars, although the address did not exist at the time when the stories were first published in 1887.

We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows.
(Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, 1887)

221B Baker Street

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The street number 221B was assigned to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on 27 March 1990, when the Leader of Westminster City Council, Lady Shirley Porter, unveiled a blue plaque signifying the address of "221b Baker Street". She was invited to renumber the museum's building to coincide with its official opening (and because the number 221b had not been included in the original planning consent for the museum granted in October 1989). The building number had never been assigned to any premises in Baker Street prior to the museum's opening.

The plaque on the former Abbey House HQ

A long-running dispute then arose between the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the building society Abbey National (who had previously answered the mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes), and subsequently the local Westminster City Council. In 2005, Abbey National vacated their headquarters in Baker Street, which left the museum to battle with Westminster City Council to obtain the kudos of the street numbering official's 'rubber-stamp' and to try to end the dispute over the number, which had created negative publicity.

In the period in which the Sherlock Holmes stories were set, street numbers in Baker Street only went up to 100, which was presumably why Conan Doyle chose a higher number.

The section north of Marylebone Road, near Regent's Park, now including 221 Baker Street, was known in Conan Doyle's lifetime as Upper Baker Street, and in the first manuscript, Conan Doyle put Holmes' house in "Upper Baker Street", indicating that if he had a house in mind it would have been there. However, a British crime novelist named Nigel Morland claimed that, late in Conan Doyle's life, he identified the intersection of Baker Street and George Street, about 500 metres south of Marylebone Road, as the location of 221b.

Problems have arisen over the address because when street numbers were re-allocated in the 1930s, the block of odd numbers from 215 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House, constructed in 1932 for the Abbey Road Building Society, which the society and its successor (which subsequently became Abbey National plc) occupied until 2002.

Almost immediately, the building society started receiving correspondence from Sherlock Holmes fans all over the world, in such volumes that it appointed a permanent "secretary to Sherlock Holmes" to deal with it. A bronze plaque on the front of Abbey House carried a picture of Holmes and a quotation, but was removed from the building several years ago and its whereabouts is presently unknown. In 1999, Abbey National sponsored the creation of a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes that now stands at the entrance to Baker Street tube station.

Holmes scholars have had a number of theories as to the "real" address, but with much of Baker Street devastated during the Blitz, little trace is left of the original buildings except in the section previously called Upper Baker Street, which today form a part of a Georgian terrace of houses originally built in 1815.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

221b Baker Street, London

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is situated within an 1815 townhouse very similar to the 221B described in the stories and is located between 237 and 241 Baker Street. It displays exhibits in period rooms, wax figures and Holmes memorabilia, with the famous study overlooking Baker Street the highlight of the museum. The description of the house can be found throughout the stories - including the 17 steps leading from the ground floor hallway to the 1st floor study.[1]

According to the published stories, "221B Baker Street" was a suite of rooms on the first floor of a lodging house above a flight of 17 steps.[2] The main study overlooked Baker Street, and Holmes' bedroom was adjacent to this room at the rear of the house, with Dr Watson's bedroom being on the 2nd floor (i.e., the 3rd floor in American usage), overlooking a rear yard that had a plane tree in it.[3][4]

The Museum's blue plaque signifying the location of 221B on the first floor of the property was officially unveiled by Dame Shirley Porter, the Leader of Westminster City Council, on 27 March 1990. The museum nevertheless had difficulty in obtaining the mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes and for some years openly tussled with the Abbey National Building Society over it. The main objection to the Museum's role in answering the letters was the prosaic fact that the number 221B bestowed on the Museum by the Council was out of sequence with other numbers in the street: an issue that has since vexed local bureaucrats, who have striven for years to keep street numbers in sequence. Sherlockian experts have also held to alternative theories as to where the original 221B was located and have maintained that it was further down Baker Street.[5]

Conan Doyle, however, originally placed the location of 221B in Upper Baker Street, which is where the Museum is currently situated (see A Study in Scarlet manuscript) and only later amended the address to 221B Baker Street, possibly to avoid problems with local residents who would have had to fend off many strange visitors at unearthly hours seeking the services of Mr Holmes, 'Consulting Detective'.Vorlage:Citation needed

After the closure of Abbey House in 2005, the Post Office recognised the museum's exclusive right to receive mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes and the original decision to number the building as 221B in 1990 has stood the test of time: the famous 221B plaque is the most popular blue plaque in London. As of 11 November 2009, the building number 221 no longer exists in Baker Street and is now a reserved number, but 221B is still represented by the Museum's official blue plaque.Vorlage:Citation needed

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is listed as Grade II, of "special architectural and historical interest".Vorlage:Citation needed The address of 221b Baker Street is recorded on the Ordnance Survey Map of London and at the UK Land Registry.

The Sherlock Holmes pub

The Sherlock Holmes pub

Another version of Sherlock Holmes' apartment is at the Sherlock Holmes pub in Northumberland Street near Charing Cross railway station. This was originally a small hotel, the Northumberland Arms, but was refurbished and reopened under its present name in December 1957. Its owners, Whitbread & Co, were fortunate to own the entire Sherlock Holmes exhibit put together by Marylebone Borough Library and the Abbey National for the 1951 Festival of Britain. The pub was restored to a late Victorian form and the exhibit, a detailed replica of Holmes' fictional apartment, was installed on the upstairs floor.

Satire and homage

The fictional address has been satirized in the following pastiches of Sherlock Holmes:

  • In an episode of The Suite Life On Deck, titled "Rollin' With the Holmies", Cody, Bailey, and Woody visit the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street.
  • Private detective Louie Knight moves into an office at 22/1B Stryd-y-Popty (which translates as Baker Street in Welsh) in Malcolm Pryce's Welsh Noir parody The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth, ISBN 978-0-7475-7894-9.
  • The 1987 CBS movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes (not to be confused with the 1986 British television series of the same name) features Holmes, cryogenically frozen in 1899 and awakened in modern times, trying to adapt with the aid of Watson's granddaughter, Jane. He seeks out his old residence and finds the spot occupied by a McDonald's franchise.
  • In the Jake 2.0 episode "The Good, the Bad, and the Geeky," Jake's secondary safe house in Berlin is "221B Bakerstrasse."
  • Danger Mouse, in the cartoon show of the same name, is said to live in a post box near 221b Baker Street. However, Danger Mouse is a loose parody of Danger Man and James Bond, rather than Sherlock Holmes.
  • Shinichi Kudo, the protagonist of the Detective Conan series by Gosho Aoyama, resides in 2/21B Beika ("Baker" when transcribed to English) Street. Most landmarks and brand names in the series pay homage to this famous address as well, including the Beika Elementary School where Conan Edogawa studies.
  • In the Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood, the detective Hon. Phryne Fisher resides at 221 The Esplanade, St Kilda (Melbourne, Australia), which she renumbers to 221B in homage to Holmes.
  • In Due South the Canadian TV program, the main character Benton Fraser lives at an apartment which has the address 221.
  • In the mmorpg Wizard101, a detective named Sherlock Bones lives in an apartment at 221B Barker Street in Marleybone, a spoof of 19th century London populated by dogs.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Vorlage:Citation (Vorlage:Gutenberg).
  2. ↑ Vorlage:Citation (Vorlage:Gutenberg).
  3. ↑ Vorlage:Citation.
  4. ↑ Vorlage:Citation
  5. ↑ Baker Street By-Ways by James Edward Holroyd ISBN 9781883402716
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