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| Sherlock Holmes |
Today, The Grandma has started to read a new story about Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Grandma has chosen this book because she loves Sherlock and his stories and because she wants to remember one of her beautiful families, The Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes has his headquarters in 221B Baker Street and The Grandma wants to talk about this amazing place. Before starting the new book, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 50).
More information: Prepositions and Adverbials of Place and Position
221B Baker Street is the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the United Kingdom, postal addresses with a number followed by a letter may indicate a separate address within a larger, often residential building. Baker Street in the late 19th century was a high-class residential district, and Holmes' flat would probably have been part of a Georgian terrace.
At the time the Holmes stories were published, addresses in Baker Street did not go as high as 221. Baker Street was later extended, and in 1932 the Abbey National Building Society moved into premises at 219–229 Baker Street. For many years, Abbey National employed a full-time secretary to answer mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes.
In 1990, a blue plaque signifying 221B Baker Street was installed at the Sherlock Holmes Museum, situated elsewhere on the same block, and there followed a 15-year dispute between Abbey National and the Holmes Museum for the right to receive mail addressed to 221B Baker Street. Since the closure of Abbey House in 2005, ownership of the address by the Holmes Museum has not been challenged, despite its location between 237 and 241 Baker Street.
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| Sherlock Holmes |
When the Sherlock Holmes stories were first published, street numbers in Baker Street did not go as high as 221. The section north of Marylebone Road near Regent's Park -now including 221 Baker Street -was known in Conan Doyle's lifetime as Upper Baker Street. In his first manuscript, Conan Doyle put Holmes' house in Upper Baker Street.
However, a British crime novelist named Nigel Morland claimed that, late in Conan Doyle's life, he identified the junction of Baker Street and George Street, about 500 metres south of the Marylebone Road, as the location of 221B. Sherlockian experts have also held to alternative theories as to where the original 221B was located and have maintained that it was further down Baker Street.
When street numbers were reallocated in the 1930s, the block of odd numbers from 215 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House, constructed in 1932 for the Abbey Road Building Society, which the society and its successor, which subsequently became Abbey National plc, occupied until 2002.
More information: Sherlock Holmes Museum
Almost immediately, the building society started receiving correspondence from Sherlock Holmes fans 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 carried a picture of Holmes and a quotation, but was removed from the building several years ago. Its present whereabouts are unknown. In 1999, Abbey National sponsored the creation of a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes that now stands at the entrance to Baker Street Underground station.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum is situated within an 1815 townhouse very similar to the 221B described in the stories and is located between 237 and 241 Baker Street. It displays exhibits in period rooms, wax figures and Holmes memorabilia, with the famous study overlooking Baker Street the highlight of the museum. The description of the house can be found throughout the stories, including the 17 steps leading from the ground-floor hallway to the first-floor study.
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| Sherlock Holmes & Dr Watson |
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' bedroom was adjacent to this room at the rear of the house, with Dr. Watson's bedroom being on the floor above, overlooking a rear yard that had a plane tree in it.
The street number 221B was assigned to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on 27 March 1990, replacing the logical address 239 Baker Street, when the Leader of Westminster City Council, Lady Shirley Porter, unveiled a blue plaque signifying the address of 221B Baker Street. She was invited to renumber the museum's building to coincide with its official opening and because the number 221B had not been included in the original planning consent for the museum granted in October 1989.
More information: Smithsonian
A long-running dispute over the number arose between the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the building society Abbey National, which had previously answered the mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes, and subsequently the local Westminster City Council. The main objection to the Museum's role in answering the letters was that the number 221B bestowed on the Museum by the Council was out of sequence with the other numbers in the street: an issue that has since vexed local bureaucrats, who have striven for years to keep street numbers in sequence.
In 2005, Abbey National vacated their headquarters in Baker Street, which left the museum to battle with Westminster City Council to end the dispute over the number, which had created negative publicity. Eventually the museum was granted special permission by the City of Westminster to bear the address of 221B Baker Street.
More information: Atlas Obscura
My name is Sherlock Holmes.
It is my business to know what other people don’t know.
Sherlock Holmes
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