4 ms·

Accurate re-creation of Sherlock Holme's rooms based on readings from all novels

jacquesm 17y ago
I'd say that's a creation, not a 're-creation' since it never actually existed in real life, Sherlock Holmes is after all a work of fiction. It also can't be accurate since the original is (for the most part) imaginary, and everybody that reads the books will see this different with their own imagination augmenting the text. Taking it to the point of reconciling all the bits of data in the stories without finding contradictions suggests that Conan Doyle had a pretty extensive series of notes on his characters lodgings.
- junklight 17y ago
  Surely your last point does indeed point to a "re-creation". Its a re-creation of the detailed model Conan Doyle had either in mind or in his notes. Which as you point out is supported strongly by the fact that a coherent model can be made from the stories
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Good point, so not re-creating the rooms but the description of them. Were any notes supporting a detailed model ever found? Most authors that write long running stories or sequels keep notes of some sort to avoid contradicting themselves, given the length of the Sherlock Holmes run I would be more surprised if such notes were not used, that would be an amazing feat of memory. I have trouble envisioning the room next door in great detail, for instance, I know there is a chest of drawers there, but I couldn't tell you if it has 5 or 6 drawers even though I've seen it a hundred times.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Such talents vary; for example I can describe every room in my house and those at work in extreme detail. Places I go to at intervals (say once a month to a friends house) I can describe pretty accurately. And places I've visited once but in the last month or so I can pull up a pretty good image of. You find this a very common factor in many writers; particularly ye-olde ones (where keeping and searching notes was not as easy as now) whereby they would have a detailed and vivid scene in their mind - which was easier to remember.
- Nekojoe 17y ago
  Sherlock Holmes is a work of fiction, but 221b Baker Street is a real address. You can go there today and visit it in London. It's a popular tourist destination. Conan Doyle did visit the house and I've been told that details match up with the building that's in the books (such as number of stairs). They've decorated the rooms there to match the details from the books too.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    London also exists... Baker Street 221b is a setting, the fact that it is real and that Conan Doyle visited it is parallel to any author documenting the 'setting' of their story. The article is all about the stuff in Holmes' rooms.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      According to the notes the main problems were in consolidating the layout etc. of the rooms in relation to each other. (that they agree with the current museum building is possibly due to the current building being chosen because it fitted the description - rather than it being known as the correct address)
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Interesting! Art imitating life imitating art again. edit: Apropos Conan Doyle: A cabbie picked up the great writer at a Paris railroad station to drive him to his hotel. Upon parting the cabbie said: "Goodbye mr. Doyle". Conan Doyle taken aback by this responded: "How do you know who I am, do you recognize me from my picture?" the cabbie: "No, sir, I've never seen a picture of you before, but I read you were going to be vacationing in France, your coat has the cut of an English gentleman, you have an ink spot on your finger indicating you are a writer and the train I picked you up on hails from the coast. All these clues together made it very likely that you were the great writer himself." Doyle: "Amazing feats of deduction, you are worthy of being an incarnation of Sherlock himself!" Cabbie: "Oh, and one more thing, your bag has your name written on it".
  - ableal 17y ago
- dmlorenzetti 17y ago
  On contradictions in literature-- I once heard Joseph Heller speaking about Catch-22. He said somebody had sent him the results of a computer program designed to arrange the events in "Catch-22" in order to minimize the number of unresolvable contradictions between forward and backward references (e.g., "A was before B" and "B was before C" but "A was after C"). I don't remember the exact count, but it was in the hundreds.
hackermom 17y ago
I couldn't help to notice that the poor man has no toilet.
- user24 17y ago
  There's probably a toilet elsewhere in the building.
  - junklight 17y ago
    or he used a chamber pot I guess
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    There quite possibly wasn't. The stories start in 1887, interior flush toilets were something of a luxury at the time, having only been popularized two years prior (by a guy called Twyford). Houses that already existed did not have room for a 'privy' unless they were extensively remodeled (a toilet needs a lot of plumbing). If there was a toilet it was most likely on the ground floor, near the front of the house (to economize on the runs of big diameter pipes).
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  Not unlikely. The stories are set from 1880 to 1900 or so, and indoor plumbing was first documented in the 1840's and remained a considerable luxury for some time. In a building of the age of 221b Baker Street it's unlikely that it was overhauled to allow the necessary plumbing for indoor toilets.
- ableal 17y ago
  > the poor man has no toilet Around 1900, rich men might not have toilets either. What they did have was servants to take out the chamberpots. Said chamberpots might reside in a wooden arm-chair, where the bottom part was enclosed (with a front door, a mini-cupboard, if you will), and the seat would have a manhole-like cover, of the same wood. In the country (and perhaps not only), chamberpot contents would go into the manure pile. Which might be under an outhouse with a similar seat arrangement.
barrytapas 17y ago
Not a huge surprise to many that there is only one bed?
- paulreiners 17y ago
  Watson's bedroom was presumably on the floor above the pictured floor. (They also don't show Mrs. Hudson's bedroom.) Watson moved out pretty early in the series after marrying Mary Morstan.
paulreiners 17y ago
I can't see (let alone observe) whether they got the seventeen steps right or not.

I'd say that's a creation, not a 're-creation' since it never actually existed in real life, Sherlock Holmes is after all a work of fiction. It also can't be accurate since the original is (for the most part) imaginary, and everybody that reads the books will see this different with their own imagination augmenting the text. Taking it to the point of reconciling all the bits of data in the stories without finding contradictions suggests that Conan Doyle had a pretty extensive series of notes on his characters lodgings.

junklight 17y ago
Surely your last point does indeed point to a "re-creation". Its a re-creation of the detailed model Conan Doyle had either in mind or in his notes. Which as you point out is supported strongly by the fact that a coherent model can be made from the stories
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Good point, so not re-creating the rooms but the description of them. Were any notes supporting a detailed model ever found? Most authors that write long running stories or sequels keep notes of some sort to avoid contradicting themselves, given the length of the Sherlock Holmes run I would be more surprised if such notes were not used, that would be an amazing feat of memory. I have trouble envisioning the room next door in great detail, for instance, I know there is a chest of drawers there, but I couldn't tell you if it has 5 or 6 drawers even though I've seen it a hundred times.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Such talents vary; for example I can describe every room in my house and those at work in extreme detail. Places I go to at intervals (say once a month to a friends house) I can describe pretty accurately. And places I've visited once but in the last month or so I can pull up a pretty good image of. You find this a very common factor in many writers; particularly ye-olde ones (where keeping and searching notes was not as easy as now) whereby they would have a detailed and vivid scene in their mind - which was easier to remember.
Nekojoe 17y ago
Sherlock Holmes is a work of fiction, but 221b Baker Street is a real address. You can go there today and visit it in London. It's a popular tourist destination. Conan Doyle did visit the house and I've been told that details match up with the building that's in the books (such as number of stairs). They've decorated the rooms there to match the details from the books too.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  London also exists... Baker Street 221b is a setting, the fact that it is real and that Conan Doyle visited it is parallel to any author documenting the 'setting' of their story. The article is all about the stuff in Holmes' rooms.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    According to the notes the main problems were in consolidating the layout etc. of the rooms in relation to each other. (that they agree with the current museum building is possibly due to the current building being chosen because it fitted the description - rather than it being known as the correct address)
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Interesting! Art imitating life imitating art again. edit: Apropos Conan Doyle: A cabbie picked up the great writer at a Paris railroad station to drive him to his hotel. Upon parting the cabbie said: "Goodbye mr. Doyle". Conan Doyle taken aback by this responded: "How do you know who I am, do you recognize me from my picture?" the cabbie: "No, sir, I've never seen a picture of you before, but I read you were going to be vacationing in France, your coat has the cut of an English gentleman, you have an ink spot on your finger indicating you are a writer and the train I picked you up on hails from the coast. All these clues together made it very likely that you were the great writer himself." Doyle: "Amazing feats of deduction, you are worthy of being an incarnation of Sherlock himself!" Cabbie: "Oh, and one more thing, your bag has your name written on it".
- ableal 17y ago
dmlorenzetti 17y ago
On contradictions in literature-- I once heard Joseph Heller speaking about Catch-22. He said somebody had sent him the results of a computer program designed to arrange the events in "Catch-22" in order to minimize the number of unresolvable contradictions between forward and backward references (e.g., "A was before B" and "B was before C" but "A was after C"). I don't remember the exact count, but it was in the hundreds.

hackermom 17y ago

I couldn't help to notice that the poor man has no toilet.

user24 17y ago
There's probably a toilet elsewhere in the building.
- junklight 17y ago
  or he used a chamber pot I guess
- jacquesm 17y ago
  There quite possibly wasn't. The stories start in 1887, interior flush toilets were something of a luxury at the time, having only been popularized two years prior (by a guy called Twyford). Houses that already existed did not have room for a 'privy' unless they were extensively remodeled (a toilet needs a lot of plumbing). If there was a toilet it was most likely on the ground floor, near the front of the house (to economize on the runs of big diameter pipes).
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Not unlikely. The stories are set from 1880 to 1900 or so, and indoor plumbing was first documented in the 1840's and remained a considerable luxury for some time. In a building of the age of 221b Baker Street it's unlikely that it was overhauled to allow the necessary plumbing for indoor toilets.
ableal 17y ago
> the poor man has no toilet Around 1900, rich men might not have toilets either. What they did have was servants to take out the chamberpots. Said chamberpots might reside in a wooden arm-chair, where the bottom part was enclosed (with a front door, a mini-cupboard, if you will), and the seat would have a manhole-like cover, of the same wood. In the country (and perhaps not only), chamberpot contents would go into the manure pile. Which might be under an outhouse with a similar seat arrangement.

barrytapas 17y ago

Not a huge surprise to many that there is only one bed?

paulreiners 17y ago
Watson's bedroom was presumably on the floor above the pictured floor. (They also don't show Mrs. Hudson's bedroom.) Watson moved out pretty early in the series after marrying Mary Morstan.

paulreiners 17y ago

I can't see (let alone observe) whether they got the seventeen steps right or not.