221B Baker Street is the fictional London residence of the detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Arthur Conan Doyle. The address could indicate an upstairs apartment of a residential house on what was originally a Georgian terrace. The B of the address might, however, refer to the whole house. Baker Street is considerably wider than is portrayed in some film versions of Holmes's adventures and is a substantial and busy north-south thoroughfare, which is at least as congested now as it would have been in Holmes's day. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. ... 94 Baker Street, formerly the Apple Boutique. ...

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

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)

The 'real' 221B Baker Street

The street number 221B has never been assigned to any property in Baker Street. In Sherlock Holmes's time, street numbers in Baker Street only went up to No 100, which was presumably why Conan Doyle chose the fictional number.

The part now encompassing 221 Baker Street was known in Conan Doyle's lifetime as Upper Baker Street, and in the first manuscript, Conan Doyle put Holmes's home in "Upper Baker Street", indicating that if he had a house in mind it would have been in the section north of Marylebone Road, near Regent's Park. When street numbers were re-allocated in the 1930s, the block of odd numbers from 219 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House, constructed in 1932 for the Abbey Road Building Society (subsequently the Abbey National), which the company occupied until 2002. Asheville City Hall. ... Abbey National plc is the UKs sixth biggest bank, and Europes second largest mortgage lender, after Halifax. ...

Almost immediately, the building society started receiving correspondence to Sherlock Holmes from 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 carries a picture of Holmes and Conan Doyle's narrative detailing Holmes and Watson moving in at 221B. 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. With much of Baker Street devastated during the blitz, little trace is left of the original buildings, and most of them are post-war, except those in what was known as Upper Baker Street. Heinkel He 111 German bomber over the Surrey Docks, Southwark, London (German propaganda photomontage). ...

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

Baker Street 221 B, London

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is housed in an 1815 house similar to the fictional 221B. Its official address is 239 Baker Street. Opened in 1990, it displays exhibits in period rooms, wax figures and Holmes memorabilia. Both Abbey House and the Sherlock Holmes Museum declared themselves to be the "real" 221B: the outcome of a dispute between the two in 1994, when the museum applied unsuccessfully for permission to renumber itself 221. Today both have a claim: Abbey House is where 221B "could have been" and the museum is where Sherlock Holmes's post is delivered.^[1] Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (768x1024, 352 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): 221B Baker Street Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (768x1024, 352 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): 221B Baker Street Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or... The Sherlock Holmes Museum is a privately-run museum and popular tourist attraction dedicated to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. ...

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. The main study overlooked Baker Street, and Holmes's bedroom was adjacent to this room at the rear of the house, with Dr Watson's bedroom being on the 2nd floor, overlooking a rear yard that had a plane tree in it.^[2]

The Museum adopted the street number '221b' from the time it opened to the public, but it faced significant bureaucratic hurdles in getting official acceptance of its claims to being the real '221b Baker Street', as described in the stories.

In order to physically display the number "221b" on its front door without falling foul of planning regulations, it had to register a company called "221b Ltd", because companies do not require planning permission to display a company name on the entrance to a building.

This ruse did not go down well with local planning officers, particularly Westminster City Council's Street Naming and Numbering Officer.

After the closure of Abbey House, the museum insisted on having any post addressed to Sherlock Holmes delivered to its premises.

The Sherlock Holmes pub

The Sherlock Holmes pub

Another version of Sherlock Holmes's 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's fictional apartment, was installed on the upstairs floor. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 457 pixel Image in higher resolution (2083 × 1191 pixel, file size: 634 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) The Sherlock Holmes pub in London, taken by me. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 457 pixel Image in higher resolution (2083 × 1191 pixel, file size: 634 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) The Sherlock Holmes pub in London, taken by me. ... Charing Cross Charing Cross railway station is a central London railway terminus. ... The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition which opened in May 1951 in London. ... Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her accession to the Throne, 20 June 1837) gave her name to the historic era The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ...

Satire

The fictional address has been satired by the following pastiches of Sherlock Holmes: A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ...

• Basil of Baker Street resides in 221½ Baker Street, a mouse-hole beneath 221B Baker Street.

• In Solar Pons, Pons and Dr. Lyndon Parker both reside in 7B Praed Street, which is a street near Paddington Station, well to the southwest of Baker Street.

• In May 2007 221 was shown as the street address of the central character in the medical drama House M.D.

Basil of Baker Street is a mouse detective created by Eve Titus based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyles famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. ... Solar Pons is a fictional detective created by August Derleth as a pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes. ... Praed Street (pronounced prayd, rhymes with laid) is a street in Londons Paddington district (now part of the City of Westminster, most notable for the fact that Paddington Station is situated on it. ... House, M.D. (commonly promoted as just House) is an American television series aired by the Fox Broadcasting Company. ...

See also

• Baker Street
• Baker Street Irregulars
• List of fictional addresses

94 Baker Street, formerly the Apple Boutique. ... The Baker Street Irregulars are several different groups, all named after the original, from various Sherlock Holmes stories. ... This is a list of the addresses of fictional characters, from various mediums such as television, literature, or film. ...

References

...

External links

• The Sherlock Holmes Museum
• The Baker Street Journal an Irregular quarterly of Sherlockiana