Sherlockian Sojourns #39: “I think that I may get started for London at once.” [LAST]

Being in central London to meet Wolf Kahler (The King of Bohemia in the Granada ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’), I decided to visit a few sites missed on a previous sojourn. Catching the tube to Marble Arch, it was a seven minute walk to Connaught Street, identified as ‘Little Ryder Street’ where Nathan Garrideb was a permanent resident who needed to be lured away by ‘Killer Evans’ in ‘The Three Garridebs’. I could not find any properties with two deep bay windows, so took photos of the road and possible properties.

 

  

“It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular house to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early Georgian edifice, with a flat brick face broken only by two deep bay windows on the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our client lived, and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of the huge room in which he spent his waking hours.”   [3GAR]

 

Retracing my steps to Marble Arch, I walked along to Bond Street Station, making my way down its left side until I reached Claridge’s Hotel. It was from here that J. Neil Gibson wrote to Holmes requesting his help to clear the name of Grace Dunbar in ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’, and also where Holmes told Martha he could be contacted having captured Von Bork in ‘His Last Bow’.  

     

Another short walk brought me to Grosvenor Square again, previously visited as containing the residences of Lord St. Simon [NOBL] and Isadora Klein  [3GAB], but also the location for the Spanish Embassy visited by John Scott Eccles to enquire about the mysterious Garcia in ‘Wisteria Lodge’.

 

It was then another short walk to Conduit Street, where ‘the second most dangerous man in London’, Colonel Sebastian Moran, lived, according to Holmes’ index of biographies in ‘The Empty House’.

     

Walking on past Berkley Square, and the residence of General De Merville [ILLU], I reached Half Moon Street, where the fictional ‘Dr. Hill Barton’ (played by Watson) resided in the same story.

    

Reaching the end of Half Moon Street, I turned left onto Piccadilly, where I found Green Park station closed due to crowds leaving flowers in the Park following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. I therefore made my way along Piccadilly until finally I reached Piccadilly Circus, where I could catch a tube.