The other residences of Sherlock Holmes, besides 221b Baker Street

Photo by Graham Tiller (sourced through Wikimedia Commons)

Cross-posted to r/ImaginaryLondon 

Bernard Mellin's 'Holmes Trail' claims to follow in the lesser-known footsteps of the celebrated London detective. Mellin was seriously injured by a falling shop sign during the 1987 hurricane and died in hospital a few months later, having never regained consciousness. His guided walks were continued by his two daughters who have since passed on the responsibility to a niece.

Among the landmarks featured in Mellin's six-hour tour (which leans heavily on the London bus and Underground network) are four private dwellings, besides 221b Baker Street, where Holmes is known to have been resident in some capacity.

9 Lowry Court

Holmes is believed to have owned 9 Lowry Court, in the London borough of Kensington, though he did not live in the building, having turned it over to tenants. He retained exclusive access to the rooftop where he tended a small garden that he referred to as Hillah (which his erstwhile companion, Dr Watson, famously mistakes for the name of a female client in The Torn Portrait).

The garden is first mentioned in The Maple Bough, which opens with Holmes overseeing a parade tradesmen lugging heavy bags of soil up three narrow flights of stairs, while a resident in the first floor apartment remarks darkly that their landlord "plans to bury us all”.

Holmes' use of exothermic soils created a tropical microclimate that allowed him to grow a great variety of exotic plants, that were non-native to the British Isles, in the open air. Watson notes that, during the infamous blizzard of 1886, the rooftop of 9 Lowry Court was the only location in London where the snow did not settle.

Following the death of Holmes, the deeds to 9 Lowry Court were transferred to Watson, who subsequently donated the property to Kew Gardens. Kew maintain ownership of the building to this day, preserving the garden in a manner that is sympathetic to the ethos of its creator, and using the flats on the lower floors as accommodation for visiting fellows.

The Steeple House, Limehouse

This two-room, former alms house was added to the base of the bell tower of St Margaret's church, in the East London district of Limehouse, in 1802. By 1880 it was no longer used as accommodation but as a place of storage by the church. Holmes rented the property in 1882 and is known to have sporadically run a lost dog and cat surgery on the site, where he focused his powers of detection on the task of tracking down missing pets. In the story Lost cats and dogs (which is actually more of a list, to be found among Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes ephemera) the writer documents a 77% success rate for the detective, adding that "his conclusions were not always happy ones". In The Absent Minute. Dr Watson records that Holmes had successfully located seven missing pets in the space of an hour, all without rising from his desk.

Percival's Confectioners, Mayfair

In The Blackened Violin, Holmes assumes the identity of one James Percival – a bookkeeper who has recently returned to England from Cairo, and who has set up a sweet shop on the north-facing side of Gladman's Square that specialises in foreign confectionery. Among the items for sale are Dokki Drops (a hard candy naturally flavoured with pomegranates and dates) that Holmes imports exclusively from Egypt in an attempt to lure the loathsome Albert Lupton from his hiding place. Lupton, you may recall, comes to a grisly end on The Mall, where he is tossed between the wheels of a procession of carriages, as he attempts to flee Inspector Lestrade's pursuing officers.

Holmes evidently enjoyed the time that he spent behind the counter of the shop. Although he would leave the business under the management of a caretaker, he would often return there to work in the guise of Percival, eventually becoming a much-loved figure in the community, who were, of course, oblivious to his true identity. Holmes 'retired' James Percival in 1902 sending him to stay with family in Devon. The shop remained in business for another four decades, closing down during the war and never re-opening. The premises is now a jewellers.

The Counterpoint, Spellman Street

While it may resemble the disembodied keep of a long-absent castle, the Counterpoint was constructed as a means of offsetting and absorbing unanticipated architectural stress placed upon the Calver Railway Bridge; the result of its lopsided design.

The square, six-floor tower occupies a man-made mound and is fused to the aforementioned bridge by the lower three storeys, along its west side. Holmes rented a tiny corner room on the topmost floor, that was otherwise used as offices by the Crosgray Railway Company, who owned the building.

During his sole visit to the room, Dr Watson noted a telescope, mounted on a tripod by the window, oriented so that it was pointing towards a window on the penultimate level of the nearby Archway Prison.

Following Holmes' 'first' death at the Reichenbach Falls, Watson discovered correspondence between the detective and 'the occupant of cell 54, Archway prison, whoever this man may be'.

Out of respect for the privacy of his friend, the good doctor did not delve into the contents of these letters. To this day the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and the occupant, or occupants, of the cell remains a mystery.

The Counterpoint is now in private ownership. The bottom two floors comprise office space, while the upper levels form a domestic residence. Archway Prison was demolished in 2011, having stood vacant for three years. The site has since been redeveloped.

~ Sam Redlark