Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett)

[Wilfried Mueller]

Does anybody know if the 221B Baker Street, used in the series, is a real street or if it was a set?
If it's real: Where is it?

[Santonix]

It was a street created by Granada TV specifically for the series. It was built at the rear of Granada's Quay Street Manchester HQ. For some years you could visit it as part of the Granada Studio Tour, along with Coronation Street and other attractions. The tours stopped a few years ago.

[Freddy]

I wondered that myself, according to imdb the locations were all in the North West, Knutsford etc. which is a lovely part of the world.

Granada TV did some marvellous things in their time.

[jaycad]

I'm sure that I read that the Baker Street set now forms part of the 'Coronation Street' set? I do hope not-I would rather it had been razed to the ground.

[batman]

I would rather it had been razed to the ground.

I think that's what happened. IIRC the Baker Street set was demolished so that they could add new buildings to the Corrie set.

[didi-5]

Annoyingly when you did the Granada tour you could never actually walk along 'Baker Street' (which was just around the corner from 'Coronation Street'). It formed part of the Checkpoint Charlie tram bit ... and the indoor set was also part of the tour but again, you couldn't go and look at it close up.

The indoor set (i.e. the sitting room) is now at the London Film Museum but is not currently part of the public exhibits.

[Poppy-Hopkins]

5:20 - Baker Street

[Timmy_Lea]

[stevenmtaylor]

Annoyingly when you did the Granada tour you could never actually walk along 'Baker Street' (which was just around the corner from 'Coronation Street'). It formed part of the Checkpoint Charlie tram bit ... and the indoor set was also part of the tour but again, you couldn't go and look at it close up.

The indoor set (i.e. the sitting room) is now at the London Film Museum but is not currently part of the public exhibits.

You could certainly walk down Baker Street when I did the tour in early 1993; hadn't realised it had been demolished since - I believe it was covered over some time after Holmes finshed for good (Edit: as the first video above would seem to suggest!) and leased out to other productions, I seem to recall it appearing in a Christmas advert of some sort about a decade back.

[didi-5]

You could certainly walk down Baker Street when I did the tour in early 1993; hadn't realised it had been demolished since - I believe it was covered over some time after Holmes finshed for good (Edit: as the first video above would seem to suggest!) and leased out to other productions, I seem to recall it appearing in a Christmas advert of some sort about a decade back.

I did the tour in its first year (whenever that was) - glad to hear they changed it afterwards. My main memory of that tour was breaking the letterbox on Emily Bishop's Coronation Street house ...

[Timmy_Lea]

[stevenmtaylor]

I did the tour in its first year (whenever that was) - glad to hear they changed it afterwards. My main memory of that tour was breaking the letterbox on Emily Bishop's Coronation Street house ...

I was a huge fan of the Granada series at the time and just found it utterly surreal. And then Coronation Street had much the same effect on my poor mum...

[Freddy]

I have noticed at the start of each episode where the street sign says "Baker Street W" there is no district number after it, was this common practice in Victorian London?

[Steve Crook]

I have noticed at the start of each episode where the street sign says "Baker Street W" there is no district number after it, was this common practice in Victorian London?

Yes, the original scheme, as devised by Rowland Hill, just divided London into 8 districts by the cardinal (and semi-cardinal) points of the compass


(1857 map)

The NE and S divisions were abolished following a report by Anthony Trollope. In 1866 NE was merged into the E district. In 1868 the S district was split between SE and SW.

The numbered districts came into effect in 1917.

Here's the current map of London postal districts



Who can detect any order in that chaos?
SE1 is close to the centre of London but SE2 is way out on the eastern boundary
SW1 is close to the centre, SW2 is quite a long way south and SW3 is back close to the centre again

Steve


Steve