Sherlock's London- Not by accident, but by design

With the BBC miniseries Sherlock all set to return this month and a third Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr in the pipeline, KARISHMA UPADHYAY walks in the footsteps of the famous sleuth in Central London and makes interesting new discoveries.

- Karishma Upadhyay

Few characters in literature are as intrinsically linked to a city as Sherlock Holmes is to London. Victorian London’s fog-bound back alleys and shadowy quarters illuminated by gaslight are characters as distinctive as Holmes himself. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first short story— A Study in Scarlet, where the murder victim is found on Brixton Road—to the BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, that’s filmed across many busy Central London locations, including Trafalgar Square and Russell Square Garden, London has been consistent in the adventures of Holmes and Watson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The utter failure of his medical practice gave Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plenty of time to write about a consulting detective who solves crimes by applying deduction and logic. It is believed that Sir Arthur was inspired by Dr Joseph Bell, one of his tutors from medical school in Edinburgh, while creating the character. Dr Bell’s great grandfather— Benjamin Bell was credited with the invention of the science of deduction. 

In the early drafts of A Study of Scarlet, which was initially called A Tangled Skein, Sir Arthur described ‘Sherringford Holmes’ as someone who works in a chemical laboratory and collects rare violins. 

However, he didn’t want Holmes to be the narrator of the story, so he created Ormond Sacker, who had seen military service in Sudan. In the story that finally got published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in August 1887, Sir Arthur changed Sacker to Dr John Watson, an invalid military doctor who was shot in the shoulder in Afghanistan. Since then, the duo has gone to enjoy stellar careers in books, on stage, in film, and on television.

RETRACING FOOTSTEPS