2 3 First edition published in 2009 © Copyright 2009 Alistair Duncan The right of Alistair Duncan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage. Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this book, as of the date of publication, nothing herein should be construed as giving advice. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not of MX Publishing. Paperback ISBN 9781904312502 Published in the UK by MX Publishing 335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX www.mx-publishing.co.uk 4 This book is dedicated to my wife (my own Mary Morstan) and to the memory of Pippa 5 Contents About the author Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction Baker Street Upper Wimpole Street to Regent Street Regent Street to Pall Mall Pall Mall Northumberland Avenue and its hotel mysteries The Strand The Lyceum Theatre and William Gillette Sherlock Holmes and the railways British Museum and Museum Tavern Holborn Tottenham Court Road Covent Garden St Bartholomew’s Hospital Brook Street Scotland Yard Royal College of Surgeons Kennington Road The Three Norwoods Croydon Conclusion Bibliography Index 6 About the author Alistair Duncan is an I.T. Consultant and Sherlock Holmes enthusiast. Since the early 1980s he has been a fan of the Great Detective and in February 2008 he released his first book Eliminate the Impossible which was a look at the Sherlock Holmes stories and films. He is a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and a member of the Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment. He lives with his wife in South London. 7 Acknowledgements I would like to formally acknowledge the following: Steve Ball, Catherine Cooke (Sherlock Holmes Collection: Marylebone Library, Westminster Libraries), Phil Cornell (Vice- President of the Sydney Passengers), Christine Corner et al. (Croydon Local Studies Library), Crystal Palace Library, John Hickman, Roger Johnson (Sherlock Holmes Society of London), Brian Pugh and Paul Spiring (authors of Bertram Fletcher Robinson - A Footnote to the Hound of the Baskervilles). Efforts have been made to identify material still under copyright and seek permission for use. If I have overlooked any item the copyright holder is asked to contact the publisher so that the matter can be rectified in any future edition of this book. Cover design by Staunch with central illustration by Phil Cornell. 8 Foreword Of the dozen or so guides to Sherlock Holmes’s London there are two that I recommend to visitors: Arthur Alexander’s Hot on the Scent and Thomas Wheeler’s Finding Sherlock’s London. Now, thanks to Alistair Duncan, I’ll have to add a third. The point being that the three books complement each other. Mr Alexander offers thirty-five walking tours, all within an area stretching from Whitechapel in the east to Kensington in the west, and all enhanced with anecdote and description. Mr Wheeler deals with each story separately, directing the traveller to the nearest Underground station to each site, and pithily summarising the essential details. Mr Duncan takes a different approach, as the subtitle of this book indicates. Most importantly, it is, I think, the first of its kind to give equal emphasis to those places associated with Arthur Conan Doyle. We may have wondered why so many of Sherlock Holmes’s cases took him south of the Thames, but Alistair Duncan makes all clear: that was the part of London that his creator knew best. Reading Close to Holmes we feel that we are in the company of a knowledgeable, enthusiastic and witty friend. He guides us through most, but not all, of Holmesian London. He doesn’t follow Irene Adler to St John’s Wood, or Charles Augustus Milverton to Hampstead, but perhaps that would have taken us too far from Conan Doyle. On the other hand, in mentioning “The Priory School,” an investigation that took place far from the capital, he advances an interesting and, as far as I’m aware, original idea about the location of “Mackleton” in the Peak District. In any case, I couldn’t possibly be unenthusiastic about a book 9 that features a photograph of the beautiful Maude Fealy! (Intrigued? Then read on…) Roger Johnson Editor, The Sherlock Holmes Journal 10