Baker Street and Beyond

The life of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was played out in the real streets of Victorian London, and stories of him continue to enchant London’s visitors today

It’s an unassuming sounding address, 221B Baker Street, yet it is one that is renowned around the globe. For this is where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes, lived – sharing lodgings with Dr. John Watson, his partner-in-crime-solving.

While the French have gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, the British have the sharp-witted and unorthodox Sherlock Holmes, a character so big he almost had a life of his own.

Scottish writer Conan Doyle reportedly based his iconic creation on his old Edinburgh University professor, who must have been a fascinating individual. Sherlock, possessed of deductive powers, logical reasoning, and forensic skills that most would call genius but he himself would call “elementary,” is regularly labeled a cold, aloof, antisocial, narcissistic sociopath.

Somehow, though, the eccentric, violin-playing, pipe-smoking “consulting detective” and his investigations into London’s most dastardly doings have captured our hearts, minds, and imaginations.

Sherlock Holmes was first conjured into being in 1887, when Conan Doyle published A Study in Scarlet, a twisty-turny, London-based murder mystery, which also introduced us to Dr. Watson, a surgeon injured in the Afghan War.

The extremely clever author gave his protagonist crime-solving skills way ahead of their time. Conan Doyle had studied and practiced medicine for 15 years, and science played a big role in Sherlock’s methods. Fingerprint and handwriting analysis, code-breaking, and ciphers – and even the use of dogs – in detective work all made Sherlock an innovative genius.

Conan Doyle had inherited storytelling skills from his mother. His use of flashbacks to relate many of the stories transported readers to different times and exotic destinations, adding layers of intrigue. The author was also fascinated by spiritualism, and so paranormal elements – a vampire, bizarre burials, a phantom hound – often crept into the cases.

Although the books were phenomenally successful, Conan Doyle soon tired of Sherlock and wished to focus on more serious writing projects. In 1893 he sent his popular protagonist plunging to his death over Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls. Readers were in an uproar! Some were so distraught that they wore black armbands in mourning. Others inundated the author with angry letters. Conan Doyle was forced to revive his revered detective, and Sherlock lived on to solve many more crimes.

In total, four novels were published, along with 56 short stories. But many screen and stage adaptations have followed since. Indeed, Sherlock Holmes has been recorded by Guinness World Records as the most portrayed literary character in film and television history.

Actors ranging from Basil Rathbone to Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr. have played the part of the legendary detective, while in 1985, an American movie depicted a young John Watson and Sherlock Holmes meeting for the first time at a London school. British author Andrew Lane has since written a series of Young Sherlock Holmes thrillers for young adults, which are currently being filmed for a television series on Prime Video. The compelling allure of this quintessentially British detective continues.

Visitors to the city can enjoy a gleeful foray into the atmospheric stomping ground of Conan Doyle’s creation. London brims with historical streets and buildings recalling Sherlock’s Victorian surroundings. To walk down cobbled alleyways is to imagine a foggy, gaslit world of shady, cloaked characters and horse-drawn hansom cabs. A world where James Moriarty, Sherlock’s arch nemesis, is always a step ahead, or where Irene Adler, the only character to outsmart the detective – a woman! – slinks along behind him in disguise.

Take a stroll around Covent Garden, The Strand, and St. James’s to feel as if you’ve jumped into the pages of the books. Start at The Sherlock Holmes pub on Northumberland Street, near Charing Cross, where Sherlock went to track down Francis Hay Moulton, the not-so-dead husband of Hatty Doran in The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor. 

Continue to The Lyceum Theatre, just off The Strand, a meeting place for Sherlock, John Watson, and Mary Morstan in The Sign of the Four. Pay a visit to Simpson’s in The Strand, an illustrious dining venue since 1828 and a favorite of both Conan Doyle and Sherlock. Currently closed, it is due to reopen to great fanfare this year. Wander past the site of the old Turkish baths at 25 Northumberland Avenue, where, lying side by side on two couches, John described Sherlock as “less reticent and more human than anywhere else.”

Try to find Mycroft Holmes’ fictional Diogenes Club in Pall Mall, which is believed to have been inspired by The Reform Club, of which Conan Doyle was a member. Finally, finish in the courtyard of The Royal Academy, on Piccadilly, where Sherlock was made an honorary fellow of the Academy of Chemistry.

From here, it’s a short journey on the Bakerloo line or by black cab to the legendary 221B Baker Street, where you can step back in time and immerse yourself in Sherlock’s London at The Sherlock Holmes Museum. Here, a Victorian sitting room is decked out just as the super sleuth would have had it.

An array of guided walks uncovers secrets from the tales of Sherlock Holmes and other London histories and mysteries.

The Sherlock Holmes Mystery Trail with London Walking Tours is a one-hour, 45-minute walk from Nelson’s Column to The Lyceum Theatre. The tour includes interesting facts about both Sherlock and his creator.

Visit London’s Sherlock Holmes Walking Tour takes you from Piccadilly Circus to The Strand on a two-hour, guided route. Locations include those featured in some of the books, movies, and television series.

London’s Spymasters will have you unearth covert settings, where spies, assassins, and double agents plied their trade, on a two-hour stroll from St. James’s Park Underground station. This tour is arranged by London Walks.