Talk:221B Baker Street/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

So where's the description, quoted from Arthur Conan Doyle eh? Wetman 06:01, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Tsk, impatience! :-) I've added it now. -- ChrisO 22:52, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

clock tower

According to http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/news/tower.html "The current owners and developers of the block are a company called "Baskerville Estates". - can anyone confrim this? Jooler 03:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

lost image

File:Abbey National Clock Baker Street.jpg

The old headquarters of the Abbey National is being converted (as of 2005) into a block of luxury apartments. The art-deco clock tower is under a preservation order; it was left untouched, supported by a steel framework while the new building is constructed beneath it. The clock is set to 12 o'clock

I uploaded a picture of the Baker Street Clock Tower and it seems to have disappeard!! What the hell happened? The image was in the public domain. Jooler 22:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Damnit I can't find the orignal source. It was a bloody good picture. What the hell happened? 22:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Capitalisation: 221B or 221b?

I was surprised to see this article is "221B" Baker Street, since it's more common for multiple apartments which share a number to append lower case letters. The article is itself inconsistent and starts talking about "221b" towards the end. Could somebody confirm from the original books whether the B is capitalised, and having done so, standardise the capitalisation in this article? --AlexChurchill 01:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

A Study in Scarlet at Project Gutenberg has 221b, i.e. it is a small capital. MTJM (talk) 16:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe the 'b' it's written in the lower case Gyumri (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems that different editions variously use either the "221b" or the "221B" capitalization, at the whim of the publisher. The article should probably use one form or the other consistently, including in the article title. Ideally, Arthur Conan Doyle's preference should be used, assuming one can be positively ascertained.Yeng-Wang-Yeh (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I just watched A STUDY IN SCARLET 1933 and the movie pans over to the address which is listed as 221A. Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. Thought it was interesting. Pat 75.135.100.197 (talk) 23:38, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

221b Blue Plaque Photograph

This photograph is an historically important record of the Leader of Wesminster City Council renumbering the Sherlock Holmes Museum as 221b Baker Street on 27th March 1990. It should not be removed from the article and if it is removed again then the page will be protected against changes. Gyumri (talk) 22:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

But who decided that the person unveiling the plaque was called Lady 'Penny' Porter? Surely the ex leader of Leader of Westminster City Council is Lady Shirley Porter - the person who The Guardian described as "...the most corrupt British political figure in living memory, with the possible exception of Robert Maxwell" -- SteveCrook (talk) 03:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Renumbered in 1990? I distinctly remember reading in their local paper in 1994 that Westminster City Council had turned down a request from the museum to renumber to 221b. The erection of the plaque didn't necessarily mean they were officially conferring the number on the building. Jess Cully (talk) 20:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

If folks are going to claim that "such and such" is a matter of law (see opening paragraph), then please state the law in question ... (there isn't one in the terms stated nor has there ever been) as for the rest that I've edited - in the UK "apartments" is a word that is very rarely used the word "flat" is far more common. As for "lodging house" in English usage this refers to a place where predominantly travellers - say commercial salesmen or sailors would stay for a few nights whilst in a particular district. It certainly does not refer to a residential premises split up into flats (apartments). Furthermore in English usage (and this is an English address) a suffix on a street number does not necessarily mean that a premises is either residential or even that a premises forms part of a larger building. For instance on street numbers 2, 4, 6, 10 etc if a new building was placed between 2 and 4 it would be numbered 2A (or B etc) - in English streets numbers are even one side, odd the other (with some exceptions).

By all means edit away at my contribution but please don't replace it with inaccurate nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.106.106.240 (talk) 14:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

John Wilkie Collins ?

Many years ago my wife and I lived in a flat in a home that used to belong to John Wilkie Collins, a writer often thought of as the first writer of detective books. The house was right across the street from what would have been 221 Baker Street if it existed. I have always thought that this was not a coincidence, but a homage to Collins. Your thought are welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bestner2 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a very interesting story. Unfortunately, unless you can find a reliable source that makes this connection, it is original research and cannot be included in the Wikipedia article. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 13:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Westminster vs London

I've heard 221B Baker described as being in London and Westminster. (In the program "Sherlock" 221B is described as being in "Central London", but the street signs say "Baker St., City of Westminster") One could conclude that Westminster is a district of London, but in many articles, including this page, there are references to the "City of Westminster", and I don't believe the word "city" is used to describe a location within another city anywhere in the world. One possible exception is that if one considered the City of Westminster to be within the London Metropolitan Area, similar to the way Malibu is considered to be in Los Angeles even though it is an independent entity. What is the relationship between London and Westminster? Can someone clarify that for this page? This should be understood by everyone, not just Londoners. 98.230.199.85 (talk) 23:07, 14 August 2012 (UTC) (Moved from article space by --145.100.194.165 (talk) 02:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC))

A very belated reply. The City of Westminster is indeed a city within a city, as is the City of London. The Vatican is perhaps another example. KJP1 (talk) 17:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

They're not the same. For an explanation, see the articles Westminster, City of Westminster, London, and City of London. —Lowellian (reply) 12:35, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Origin of 221B

I suggested some years ago, the following, as published in the Sherlock Holmes Journal, 2004:

"Then, as it happened, I was researching for a forthcoming set of stories concerning McLevy, the famous Edinburgh detective. Now, Doyle would have known all about James McLevy. Although his hey-day was in the 1830s to 1850s, he was still active in the 1860s and produced a series of wildly popular books of his crime-fighting reminiscences, with titles like “Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh” and “The Disclosures of a Detective”, plus stories in magazines of the time.

Doyle would have been a mere infant when the first of McLevy’s books appeared in 1861, but there is every likelihood that he came across them in his adolescent reading, along with the purportedly true but actually fictional “memoirs” of Edinburgh policeman James McGovan in the 1870s (in fact penned by William Crawford Honeyman). These books may well have had a lasting effect on the young and impressionable Doyle with their descriptions of the dens and stews around the top of Leith Walk, a mere street or two from where Doyle was born.

And both of these great detectives worked out of the Police Headquarters in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The address? 221 High Street.

So, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that in defining an address for his own creation, Holmes, Doyle might have taken the number in emulation of the greatest detective of the time and one of the first detectives in crime fiction, both from his boyhood reading."

Bruce Durie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.209.204 (talk) 16:25, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Sounds speculative to me, but it could be worth mentioning as speculation that has been made by reliable sources if you can show that it has been. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 16:59, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

In the Introduction the blue plaque is mentioned "a blue plaque signifying 221B Baker Street", but on the picture of the plaque [1] the letter B is in lower case? Also in the Introduction we find the text "in 1932 the Abbey National Building Society moved into premises at 219–229 Baker Street", but in the section Abbey National it reads "the block of odd numbers from 215 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House". Is it now 219-229 or 215-229? --212.95.7.13 (talk) 10:28, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

On the first, I would maintain the capitalization, even if the plaque does not, as it is easier to read.

On the second, thanks for spotting the inconsistency. If you can find any reliable source that supports one or the other, then go with that. Thanks, --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 11:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the rapid answer. I see. Well, I've found here the sentence "Cependant, en 1935, cette partie de la rue fut détruite et un nouvel immeuble de bureaux (appartenant à la société Abbey National) fut construit à la place, et pris le n°215-229.", and a source is given there too. Would this be a reliable source? --212.95.7.13 (talk) 12:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not itself a reliable source. However, you can look at that French Wikipedia page and see if it uses a source for that statement that we could also use. I see that the statement does carry a citation to a French-language book about Sherlock Holmes. Personally, I would rather not simply assume that the source really says anything about the address, and it's hard to check as it does not appear to be online.

While the French source may support 215-229. However, by googling "abbey national baker street", I turned up this, which supports 219-229, and also this, which seems to be a pretty good source and supports 215-235! --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:38, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Alright. I've now looked up the address here (street view). It reads in the introduction of the article "Abbey National Building Society moved into premises at 219–229 Baker Street", and it seems to me, that they just didn't use up the whole building ("215 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House"). The whole building would be 215-229, and Abbey National was only located at 219-229. This is supported by this, where we find a restaurant at 215, but still in the building.<br\>As we know, even a pretty good source can contain errors, and I think -235 would go way to far, because 231/233 would be already another shop-building.<br\>So after all the article seems to be correct in this point. --212.95.7.32 (talk) 08:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. The two different locations in the article that use different numbers are actually referring to different things. Thanks for straightening that out. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 14:12, 1 July 2014 (UTC)