“Your grasp of the profoundly self-evident is in rare form.”
-Sherlock Holmes
“We can’t stop the march of time simply by marking it.”
-Sherlock Holmes
“The mind of man is capable of distinguishing truth from fallacy through dispassionate reason.”
-Seneca (as repeated by Sherlock Holmes)
“Omnes vulnerant, postuma necat -All Hours Wound, The Final One Kills”
-Dr. John Watson, Sherlock Holmes
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
-Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
• Victoria & Albert Museum
• London Streets
• Sherlock Holmes Museum
Go-Date: Day 156, Thursday, June 27
Lesson Learned: This is the second time Ellen and I have been to London together. Each time, they seem to be hitting temperature records. They may not need air conditioning often in this country, but every time we arrive we bloody well would appreciate it. Yesterday it was 32 (86F) and today it’s a more comfortable 24C (75F) but we get very little breeze in this apartment, especially the living room.
Oh well, its better than -5C.
Many of the museums here are free. Hoooray! That is a huge change from Greece, Egypt, Croatia, and France. Its nice not to have to fork out $30 to $50 a day just to see a couple of museums. The exhibits still cost, but I’d rather see the museums.
Al & Vicki Have a Museum
This place is free, except for special exhibits.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the world’s largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and did I mention it’s free?
This place is big, it covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. However, the art of antiquity in most areas is not collected (which means a lot of the stuff that looks really old is a cast reproduction of the original). The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851, with which Henry Cole, the museum’s first director, was involved in planning. Initially it was known as the Museum of Manufactures, first opening in May 1852 at Marlborough House. The official opening by Queen Victoria was on 20 June 1857.
The collecting areas of the museum are not easy to summarize, having evolved partly through attempts to avoid too much overlap with other national museums in London. Generally, the classical world of the West and the Ancient Near East is left to the British Museum, and Western paintings to the National Gallery, though there are all sorts of exceptions, for example painted portrait miniatures, where the V&A has the main national collection.
The Victoria & Albert Museum is split into four Collections departments: 1) Asia; 2) Furniture, Textiles and Fashion; 3) Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics & Glass; and, 4) Word & Image.[citation needed][84] The museum curators care for the objects in the collection and provide access to objects that are not currently on display to the public and scholars.
We’d come here before in 1995. We enjoyed it then as we enjoyed it now. They’ve got a nice new garden where you can grab a drink or sandwich and just enjoy the architecture of the buildings and people watch.
London Streets
Come Watson, The Game’s Afoot
First off, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. So many around London act as if he actually existed. This is not a novel (ha ha) condition around the world. If you read historical references in Athens, you may get the feeling that Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Heracles, and all the demi-gods of Greek Mythology were also real. Such a world we live in, I guess you could make the same statements about religion. Belief in the fantastic with no realistic proof.
The world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street between 1881-1904, according to the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mr. Holmes shared his rooms with his loyal friend and colleague Dr Watson and the house is protected by the government due to its “special architectural and historical interest.” The 1st (2nd) floor study overlooking Baker Street is faithfully maintained for posterity and just as it was kept by Mrs. Hudson in Victorian Times (or as the owners of the museum surmise)!
The Sherlock Holmes Museum is a privately run dedicated to the famous fictional detective. Supposedly, it’s the world´s first museum dedicated to a fictional literary character. I haven’t checked this out, I suppose there could be a David Copperfield, Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, or Prince Valiant museum out there that is older. I do know there was a Dr. Who museum in Wales back in 1995, because Ellen and I visited it.
The Georgian town house which the museum occupies as “221B Baker Street” was built in 1815 and was formerly used as a boarding house from 1860 to 1936, and covers the period of 1881 to 1904 when the stories describe Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson residing there as tenants. The house is listed as “Historical” by the Government because of its special architectural and historical features (creaking floors, narrow halls, small rooms, toilet on the 3rd (4th floor). The museum features exhibit items from several different adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, and recreations of scenes from the 1984 Granada Television series Sherlock Holmes.
The address 221B was the subject of a protracted dispute between the museum and the nearby Abbey National building. Since the 1930s, the Royal Mail had been delivering mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes to the Abbey National Bank, and they had employed a special secretary to deal with such correspondence, which raises the question “What happened to all that mail? Were there any interesting cases waiting for the sleuth to solve? Were there any royalty checks for Mr. Doyle in there? and finally, “What kind of a knuckle head would write to a dead fictional character?” Who did they think he was, Santa Claus?.
The museum went through several appeals for such mail to be delivered to it, on the grounds that it was the most appropriate organization to respond to the mail, rather than the bank whose primary business was to lend money out on interest. Although these initiatives were all unsuccessful, the issue was finally resolved in 2002 when the Abbey National vacated its headquarters after seventy years, and the mail is currently delivered to the museum.
Family Objections
Jean Conan Doyle made clear her lack of enthusiasm for the museum when she was asked about it. She didn’t like the idea of perpetuating the myth that her father’s creation was a real person, and knew that the presence of the museum would reinforce the idea in the minds of many feeble-minded shut-ins. Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, James Bond, and Spiderman also do not exist. This idea was strengthened further by the presence of a commemorative blue plaque on the outside that states the years of Holmes’s supposed residency.
Well, we had to check it out, if for no other reason that I’ve always been a huge fan of S.H. and have read quite a few of the books and short stories by Sir Conan Arthur Doyle.
Sherlock Holmes first appearing in print in 1887’s A Study in Scarlet, the character’s popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine. Additional tales appeared until 1927, eventually totaling four novels and 56 short stories. All but one were set in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, between about 1880 and 1914. Most are narrated by the character of Holmes’s friend and biographer Dr. Watson.
Sherlock Holmes is arguably the best known fictional detective, with Guinness World Records listing him as the “most portrayed movie character” in history (narrowly beating out Rocky Balboa and the 43 releases of Rocky). Holmes’s popularity and fame are such that many have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual. Numerous literary and fan societies have been founded that pretend to operate on this principle, there is also a strong movement to validate the existence of the Tooth Fairy as well.
Widely considered a British cultural icon, the character and stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture as a whole, with the original tales as well as thousands written by authors other than Conan Doyle being adapted into stage and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over one hundred years. I guess the copyright to Sherlock Holmes has expired, otherwise how can all these other authors and movie companies keep cranking out new releases.