Finally, Euston station was also the site of the start of a business which still exists today. W H Smith opened their first book stall at Euston Station on November 1st 184855.
Waterloo station opened in the same year and was one of the most regularly used stations by Holmes, Watson and their clients. The station is explicitly referred to in six stories.
Waterloo Station main entrance (2008) Photograph by Sunil060902
The station was originally owned by the London and South Western Railway and was initially called Waterloo Bridge Station after the bridge which was close by. It only adopted its current name in 1886. At the time it opened it had only three platforms and a maximum service of fourteen trains a day56.
As remarked above, this was a significant station in no less than six stories. The first of these was The Five Orange Pips where the unfortunate John Openshaw’s body is fished out of the Thames by Waterloo Bridge after his visit to Holmes. This is one of the few cases where Holmes’s client is murdered before the solution to the case is determined and one of the few cases where Holmes comes close to taking events personally.
John Openshaw arrives at Baker Street, from Waterloo, to see Holmes shortly before his death (as drawn by Sidney Paget)
The second of the stories to concern the station was The Speckled Band. It is this story, as already mentioned, that enjoys the distinction of being Conan Doyle’s favourite of all the Holmes adventures. Helen Stoner arrives at Waterloo from Stoke Moran en route to consult Holmes regarding the events surrounding the strange death of her sister Julia.
The station is also the point of departure for Holmes and Watson when they head to Aldershot to investigate the death of Colonel Barclay as told in The Crooked Man. It is used again to head to Woking in The Naval Treaty and to head to Farnham in Surrey during The Solitary Cyclist.
Victoria Embankment c1900 – Waterloo Bridge, the site of John Openshaw’s murder, can be seen in the distance
The most famous story to contain references to this station is The Hound of the Baskervilles. This story was published before The Solitary Cyclist but after all the others stories involving the station. It is not only the station at which Dr Mortimer and Baskerville meet but it is also the station to which Stapleton flees after his tailing of Baskerville is discovered by Holmes. This in itself provides an interesting line of enquiry. Earlier, in our look at the Northumberland Avenue hotels, we examined the conversation between Holmes and the cabman John Clayton. Clayton mentions in this conversation that he was ordered suddenly to get from Regent Street to Waterloo Station. This course of action, as we know, was triggered by Stapleton realising that he had been spotted. Clayton reports that Stapleton then disappeared into the station presumably to catch a train back to Dartmoor.
Train leaving Waterloo Station c1904
This does not make sense. We know from the end of the story that Stapleton had brought his wife up to London with him and had imprisoned her at the hotel in which they had been staying. Therefore if he had fled to Waterloo and boarded a train he would have left his wife in London. This is clearly unlikely. So we are left with only two possibilities. The first is that Stapleton had sent his wife to the station to either wait for him or travel ahead of him. This is highly unlikely as the whole reason he had brought her to London in the first place was the fact that he did not trust her after her refusal to assist him in bringing about the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Therefore he was unlikely to leave her free and to her own devices.
The only remaining possibility therefore is that after Clayton had left him at Waterloo Stapleton must have caught another cab all the way back to his hotel in order to collect his imprisoned wife and return via Waterloo back to Dartmoor. It is not a satisfying answer as it is decidedly impractical but it is the only theory that fits the events as described.
Liverpool Street Station 1896
Liverpool Street Station opened in 1874 and was fully operational in 1875. The station was designed by Edward Wilson57 and built on the site of the first Bethlem Royal Hospital otherwise known as Bedlam. The former Great Eastern Hotel which adjoins the station was designed by E. M. Barry who was also responsible for the hotels at Charing Cross station and Cannon Street station (see later). The station was named after the street which in turn was named after the former Prime Minister Lord Liverpool (1770 – 1828).
Conan Doyle and his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson enjoyed a golfing holiday in Cromer during 190158. It is highly probable that they travelled from Liverpool Street as this is the only station from which you can reach Cromer directly59. Robinson and Conan Doyle had, during a trip between South Africa and England in 1901, discussed legends of phantom hounds but it was a resumption of this discussion while in Cromer that eventually led to them agreeing to work on a story together60. The proposed joint project did not materialise61 but Conan Doyle went on to use the idea as the basis for his most famous Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles. More details on Conan Doyle’s friendship with Robinson and how the story was conceived can be found in Bertram Fletcher Robinson: A Footnote to The Hound of the Baskervilles by Brian Pugh and Paul Spiring.
As mentioned earlier, Conan Doyle enjoyed a number of holidays in Norfolk and it was on one such holiday in 1903 that he penned the adventure The Dancing Men. In this he named Holmes’s client Hilton Cubitt. As we have already seen the Cubitt name is common in Norfolk and Conan Doyle borrowed the name from his hosts. In the story Hilton Cubitt travels from North Walsham in Norfolk to London arriving at Liverpool Street Station before heading to Baker Street. Naturally it is also from here that Holmes and Watson travel to Cubitt’s house to ultimately aid in the capture of Cubitt’s killer Abe Slaney.
Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister between 1812 and 1827, after whom Liverpool Street and, by extension, the station are named.
The next station of interest is Cannon Street Station which opened on September 1st 1866. It was designed by Sir John Hawkshaw (the designer of Charing Cross Station) and his pupil John Wolfe-Barry62 (1836 – 1918).
John Wolfe-Barry co-designer of Cannon Street Station
It is from this station that Neville St. Clair caught his train home to Lee from the City after plying his trade as the beggar Hugh Boone in The Man with the Twisted Lip. Holmes, when explaining the background of the case to Watson, states that St. Clair always took the 5.14pm train from Cannon Street back to Lee each evening.
Illustration of the Cannon Street Hotel c1910
In 1867 a hotel was added to the station at a cost of £100,00063 (see above picture). This was designed by E. M. Barry who, as we have already mentioned, designed the hotel in front of Charing Cross Station. In many respects the design was very similar right down to the forecourt in front of the hotel. Presumably because of its position in relation to the city, the function rooms were greatly in demand by local businesses for meetings and even when the hotel closed the rooms were still hired out by the building’s owners for the use of financial institutions and other businesses.
Illustration of Cannon Street Station as it was c1910
Cannon Street (2005)
The final station of interest is London Bridge. This station opened in December 1836 and was for many years the most important station in the south of London64. This importance stemmed primarily from its role as the destination station for City workers. In 1853 the station was expanded65 in anticipation of the extra traffic that would need to get to and from the relocated and soon to be opened Crystal Palace (see later).
In 1861 the London Bridge Terminus Hotel opened but it was destined to be a very short lived hotel. A mere thirty-one years later it was turned into offices for the railway company and was finally demolished in 194166. Sir John Hawkshaw, who as we have seen designed Charing Cross Station, also had a hand in the design of London Bridge. The roof that covered the newly extended station in 1866 was designed by Hawkshaw along with a F. D. Banister.
It was to this station that Jonas Oldacre came from Norwood en rou
te to visit John Hector McFarlane in The Norwood Builder (see later). It was also at this station that Watson spotted Holmes’s rival Barker on his way back from Blackheath in The Retired Colourman.
From the mid 1800s right up to the 1960s the standard reference for train times was Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide known as the Bradshaw for short.
George Bradshaw creator of the Bradshaw Railway Timetable (1841)
The timetable was created by George Bradshaw (1801 – 1853) a cartographer, printer and publisher. He was already well known having published books mapping the canals of Lancashire and Yorkshire. In 1839 the first collection of railway timetables was published entitled Bradshaw’s Railway Time Tables and Assistant to Railway Travelling.
In 1841 the timetable began to be published monthly and was a mere eight pages long. Fifty-seven years later it would reach nearly a thousand. So popular were the timetables that Bradshaw’s name became synonymous with timetables even when they had been produced by someone else.
Example of a Bradshaw listing from 1850
The last official Bradshaw guide was published in 1961 over one hundred years after its founder’s death in 1853. Bradshaw died in Norway from cholera and was buried in Oslo. The guide is referenced in two Sherlock Holmes adventures. In The Copper Beeches Holmes instructs Watson to look up the trains from London and Watson discovers the 9.30am from Waterloo which arrives in Winchester at 11.3067. The second reference to the Bradshaw guide comes from The Valley of Fear when Holmes and Watson briefly consider it the book required to decipher the code sent to them by Porlock – Holmes’s informer from inside Professor Moriarty’s organisation.
45 Source: Network Rail.
46 This event and the efforts to clean up the damage were reported in the Times issued Thursday 28th February 1884.
47 The Face of London.
48 Source: Network Rail Website.
49 There was also another brother called William (1791 – 1863). He had less interest in architecture but was interested in engineering and politics. Towards the end of his life he served two terms as Lord Mayor of London.
50 The routes that travel through Cambridge often end in Kings Lynn.
51 More on this can be found in the later section on Liverpool Street Station.
52 This would not be the only time that the son succeeded the father. They also both held the same position at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (see later).
53 Mackleton does not exist as a place but we can surmise where Conan Doyle got the name from. The school is described as being in the ‘Peak country’. This, of course, means the Peak District which covers land in several counties. One of these counties is Cheshire and, according to the 1891 census, people of the name Mackleton only lived in that county. It could just be a coincidence but, if so, a remarkable one.
54 According to The Face of London the hope was that the arch would be re-erected in the station gardens. Alas this was not to be.
55 The Face of London.
56 The Face of London. By the time Clunn wrote his book the station had increased in size and accommodated twenty-one platforms and a normal service of one thousand two hundred trains a day.
57 Born 1821, date of death unknown.
58 Source: On the Trail of Arthur Conan Doyle: An Illustrated Devon Tour by Brian Pugh and Paul Spiring.
59 The argument for the journey being made by train is also strengthened by the fact that Conan Doyle is not known to have bought a car until 1903. According to authors Brian Pugh and Paul Spiring, Fletcher Robinson wrote articles about motor racing for Pearson’s Magazine in 1902 and 1903 and therefore may well have been able to drive but he was not in possession of a car at the time of his death.
60 Source: On the Trail of Arthur Conan Doyle: An Illustrated Devon Tour by Brian Pugh and Paul Spiring.
61 The decision by Conan Doyle to use Sherlock Holmes in the story was probably one of the reasons that the collaboration with Fletcher Robinson did not happen in quite the same way as the two men had originally conceived. At some point after this he must have decided against the idea of collaborating with anyone in the future. In 1911 a man named Arthur Whitaker sent him a Sherlock Holmes pastiche entitled The Man who was Wanted and suggested that they collaborate. Conan Doyle refused citing the reason that if he were to collaborate with anyone it would drive down the price he could get from editors. He offered to buy Whitaker’s idea for ten guineas claiming, in his letter, that he had done this once before (paying the same amount). This however cannot be accurate. We know from On the Trail of Arthur Conan Doyle (see above footnote) that Conan Doyle bought the idea for creating a fake thumbprint with a wax impression from Fletcher Robinson. However this idea, which was used in The Norwood Builder, was purchased for fifty pounds not ten guineas. We also know from Bertram Fletcher Robinson: A Footnote to the Hound of the Baskervilles that Conan Doyle had paid Robinson five hundred pounds in 1901 for his contribution to The Hound of the Baskervilles. Therefore he was being at the least misleading to Whitaker in his letter. Perhaps Whitaker was encouraged to approach Conan Doyle in the first place having been aware of Robinson’s involvement in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
62 On January 22nd 1901 the now knighted Sir John instigated the first meeting of the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers. This body was set up with the aim of standardising the size of iron and steel sections used in construction. This eventually led to the creation of the British Standards Institution in 1929. The British Standard Mark, otherwise known as the Kitemark® came into being in 1903.
63 The Face of London by Harold P. Clunn.
64 It was also the first London Station and was originally two stations. It is for this reason that the station has some terminal platforms as well as some that go through to Charing Cross, Cannon Street and other destinations.
65 The Face of London by Harold P. Clunn.
66 Network Rail.
67 The journey is somewhat faster today and the nearest comparable train leaves Waterloo at 9.35am arriving at 10.32am.
British Museum and Museum Tavern
British Museum 1903
The British Museum opened to the public in 1759 having been established six years earlier. At the time the museum was based at Montague House and it remained there until the 1840s when the building was demolished to make room for the present museum.
The museum was initially based on the royal library of King George II and the natural history collection of Sir Hans Sloane (1660 – 1753) who bequeathed his collection to the nation. Sloane was a man of many talents who was not only an expert in natural history but also a physician, admitted as a fellow to the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. He was also a member of the Royal Society. Some years later he achieved the distinction of becoming president of both organisations. In the latter case succeeding Sir Isaac Newton.
Sir Hans Sloane
The Holmes and Conan Doyle connections to the museum and area are considerable. Conan Doyle was a user of the library and was an occasional customer of the Museum Tavern across the street (see later). For a brief time he also lived very close to the museum at 23 Montague Place. This is one of the four streets that border the museum and runs along the northern side. We know of Conan Doyle’s residence from the 1891 census where his profession was listed as ophthalmic surgeon. As we have already seen he travelled daily from this location to his practice at Upper Wimpole Street. An interesting error appears on the census where Conan Doyle’s wife is listed as being of the same profession as her husband. The error was corrected but it is still interesting to see it there.
Turning to the Holmes connections, clearly Conan Doyle retained some fondness for the area as a number of stories refer to both the museum and surrounding streets. Conan Doyle’s old address of Montague Place is given as the address of Violet Hunter when she writes to Holmes seeking his aid in The Copper Beeches. Regrettably Conan Doyle did not give the exact number of the house at which Miss Hunter stayed but it is tempting to think that he had his
old address in mind when he wrote the story. His decision to use the street as her address may well have been connected to the fact that he had only moved away from the area to South Norwood about a year prior to its publication.
The museum is mentioned in several of the Holmes adventures. In The Red Circle Mrs Warren’s boarding house is described as being located to the north-east of the museum buildings and, in Wisteria Lodge, Holmes visits the museum to read up on Voodoo practices. He visits it again in The Hound of the Baskervilles when he goes to find more information on the villain Stapleton. Finally in the adventure The Blue Carbuncle Henry Baker works at the museum and is an occasional visitor to the nearby Alpha Inn (see later).
The final and arguably most important connection is that one of the other streets bordering the museum is Montague Street. This road is very important to the Holmes enthusiast as it marks the location of Holmes’s first known lodgings upon his arrival in London. We first learn this in The Musgrave Ritual when Holmes describes the case to Watson.
Montague House, seen roughly in the centre of this drawing of 1828, as it was when it held the British Museum collection. The new building is being constructed to the right.
The Museum Tavern was known in the early eighteenth century as The Dog and Duck. This was due to the fact that it wanted to be associated with the hunting that took place in the vicinity. John Creed became landlord in 176268 and renamed the tavern to its present name in an effort to link it with the British Museum which had been established nine years earlier.
The Museum Tavern (2007)
According to the magazine Time Out Conan Doyle was an occasional customer here. Presumably he visited on his return from his ophthalmic practice to his home in Montague Place or after visiting the museum itself.
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