221b Baker Street

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four (1890)

Gillette as Holmes

Erratic, arrogant, cold as well as passionate, methodical, bohemian, pipe-smoker, cocaine-user, perhaps manic-depressive, inquisitive, morally ambiguous, genius. There is no one quite like Sherlock Holmes. Created by the Scottish author and physicist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes has appeared in four novels and fifty-six short stories, not to mention the countless "inspired-by" tales, television shows, plays, musicals, and films (BBC is better than you, Robert Downey Jr!).

The deerstalker cap (see note) and the curved pipe that are now synonymous with the character at Holmes were first introduced by the actor William Gillette in 1899. Gillette assumed the role of Holmes more than 1,300 times in twenty years, starred in in a silent film based on the Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio. Coining the bastardized phrase, "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow," which was later whittled down to the infamous, "Elementary, my dear Watson," Gillette was, in a way, the father of the commercial Holmes we know today. I am lucky enough to live a mere twenty minutes from Gillette's castle, situated in the lovely East Haddam, Connecticut. The castle is riddled with intricate wooden locks, trick bars, curiously-placed mirrors, and stairs that lead nowhere--a veritable fantasy world of the man who lived the eccentric genius detective. But I digress. 

The Sherlock Holmes Museum and Mrs. Hudson's Restaurant.

The home of Gillette is preserved in all its weirdness, yet the home of Sherlock Holmes himself is meticulously fabricated to celebrate the eccentricity of the true character--"fabricated" being the key word. As a visitor to the "home," you can tell it has been created in the spirit of a movie set: the details are rich and plentiful, but the atmosphere does not let the visitor at any point believe a man has actually lived in the space. Regardless, it was still a lovely little museum.

There was no 221 Baker Street during the years of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Baker Street was less than a mile long with numbered addresses ranging from 1 to 85. It was only in 1930 that some of the surrounding streets were renamed, buildings renumbered, and 221 Baker Street became a real address.

Holmes's study.

My friend Ilia and I first encountered a whiff of the cult of Holmes when we first got off at the Baker Street tube station: the walls were tiled with Holmes's silhouette. A little ways down the street was the home of the infamous detective himself. The first floor of the building is a lovely gift shop with everything ranging from shot glasses, post cards, books and magnifying glasses, to deerstalker hats, matchbooks, and old fashioned imperial mints. Everything was overpriced but of that range of quality one only finds in the original museum shop. I bought a box of Sherlock Holmes matches for 80p. 

A great part of 221 seemed to be made of the staircase trunk. Rooms branched off of it "like leaves or some kind of hollow fruit" (the words of Ilia). The first was the study of Sherlock. We were greeted by an elderly man dressed in Victorian garb who spoke in the mumbled English only a true Englishman can properly understand. We introduced ourselves as being from Massachusetts, and he cheekily responded that indeed, Boston is known for throwing some excellent tea parties. 

In The Musgrave Ritual, Watson describes Holmes lifestyle thus: 

"Although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind...[he] keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantlepiece...He had a horror of destroying documents...Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner."

Watson and Holmes peer down at a body on the floor.

True to the stories, there were things everywhere! Papers, books, statuettes, telescopes, vials, glass instruments, a violin, discarded newspapers, pipes, candles, photos, knives, a gun...It was elegantly cluttered. Watson's room was much more organized and simple, true to his character. In the other rooms, details from various stories were brought to life, such as the head of a hound from The Hound of the Baskervilles, a poison dart from The Sign of the Four, and the wax statue of Professor Moriarty!
Even though the museum never lost its museum-y quality, the ability to touch and interact with everything in the "movie set" was wonderful. I wonder what Holmes would have thought of all these strangers messing with his personal effects. I can just picture him, reclining in some chair, smoking a pipe, and observing us all as we reverently pay homage to rooms he never once stepped foot in.

Note: The deerstalker hat was really first linked to Holmes via illustrations by Sidney Paget, but Gillette really celebrated the look and brought it to the forefront of the characterization. 

Ilia and me, playing Holmes and Watson.