Statue of Sherlock Holmes, London facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Sherlock Holmes |
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| Artist | John Doubleday |
| Year | 1999 |
| Type | Pedestrian statue |
| Medium | Bronze |
| Subject | Sherlock Holmes |
| Location | London, NW1 United Kingdom |
| 51°31′21″N 0°09′24″W / 51.52250°N 0.15659°W | |
The Sherlock Holmes statue is a cool sculpture by John Doubleday. It stands in London, close to where the famous detective Sherlock Holmes supposedly lived at 221B Baker Street. This statue was officially revealed on September 23, 1999.
A company called Abbey National helped pay for the statue. Their main office was right where Sherlock Holmes's fictional home was thought to be. Since there wasn't space on Baker Street itself, the statue was placed outside the Baker Street tube station on Marylebone Road. John Doubleday had actually made another Sherlock Holmes statue before this one. That one is in Meiringen, Switzerland, near the Reichenbach Falls. This is the place where Holmes seemed to fall to his death in the story "The Final Problem" from 1893.
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What the Statue Looks Like
This statue is about 3 meters (10 feet) tall. It shows Sherlock Holmes wearing his famous Inverness cape and a deerstalker hat. He is also holding a pipe. These items were first drawn by Sidney Paget, who illustrated Arthur Conan Doyle's stories for The Strand Magazine.
You can find the statue outside the Baker Street tube station on Marylebone Road. This spot is very close to both Holmes's fictional address at 221B Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The museum is located between numbers 237 and 241 Baker Street.
How the Statue Came to Be
London wasn't the first city to get a Sherlock Holmes statue! Other statues were already in places like Meiringen, Switzerland, Japan, and Edinburgh (where Arthur Conan Doyle was born).
Early Ideas for a Statue
Back in 1927, a writer named G. K. Chesterton first suggested putting a statue of Holmes in London. But his idea didn't happen. Later, in 1996, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London started a new effort. The society's president, Anthony Howlett, said they had spent "a decade or two" talking about putting a statue right in the middle of Baker Street.
Funding and Creation
To manage the project, a group called The Sherlock Holmes Statue Company Limited was formed. In 1998, Abbey National agreed to pay for the statue. They had a special connection to Holmes because their headquarters were at 215-229 Baker Street. They even had someone on staff who would answer letters sent to Holmes at 221B!
John Doubleday, who made the first Holmes statue in Switzerland, was chosen to create the London statue on March 31, 1998.
Public Reaction and Unveiling
When the plans for the statue were announced, some local people and the St Marylebone Society weren't happy. They felt it wasn't "very appropriate" and thought it should have been on Baker Street itself, which is a quieter area. Despite this, the statue was officially revealed by Lord Tugendhat, who was the chairman of Abbey National, on September 23, 1999.
Since 2014, this statue has been part of a cool project called "Talking Statues" in London. If you walk by, you can scan a QR code or visit a website link. Then, you'll get a pretend phone call from Sherlock Holmes himself! The actor Ed Stoppard provides the voice for the statue. The script was written by the English novelist Anthony Horowitz. It's a funny script that shares details about the statue's look.
