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The Sherlock Holmes Museum
17 steps lead to literature's greatest address hoax. This 1815 Georgian townhouse proudly wears number 221B as the world's first Sherlock Holmes museum, but that address never existed when Conan Doyle wrote his stories - Baker Street numbers only reached 100 then. See that classic Georgian facade with perfectly proportioned sash windows? For 76 years this was just a boarding house with real tenants, not fictional detectives. Inside, Holmes's legendary study overlooks Baker Street exactly as described, complete with deerstalker and pipe. The brilliant deception continues - Westminster Council artificially granted 221B in 1990, though this building actually sits between numbers 237 and 241. Before opening, Abbey National Bank employed a full-time secretary answering thousands of letters to Sherlock Holmes, politely explaining the detective had retired to Sussex.
Did You Know?
- The Sherlock Holmes Museum is housed in a genuine Georgian townhouse built in 1815 and listed as a Grade II heritage building, but its famous address—221B Baker Street—is a fiction made real: the museum actually sits between numbers 237 and 241, and only received permission from the City of Westminster to display the iconic 221B plaque due to its cultural significance as the literary home of the world’s most famous detective.
- For decades, the Royal Mail delivered letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street to the nearby Abbey National Bank, which even employed a special secretary to handle the detective’s fan mail; it wasn’t until 2002, after the bank moved and a long dispute ended, that the museum finally became the official recipient of Sherlock’s correspondence—a quirky testament to the character’s enduring cultural impact.
- Inside, the museum meticulously recreates the late Victorian world of Holmes and Watson, complete with period-appropriate wallpaper, gaslight lamps, and artifacts mentioned in the stories—like Holmes’s magnifying glass, pipe, violin, and deerstalker hat—offering visitors, especially families and children, a chance to step directly into the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and experience the detective’s ‘home’ as described in the books.