Never known not to name drop when the occasion demands it, South East Tour Guides are delighted to share our researched Kentish connections with Sherlock Holmes the original, his adventures and his current re-incarntion.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, spent much time in Kent straying into the county from his home in Crowborough. He perhaps spent too long in the Garden of England, as once on his way home, he picked up a speeding ticket not far from Folkestone, thought to be one of the first ones ever issued. He was so incensed that he wrote a blistering letter to the Daily Mail.
Sherlock Holmes stories have been set in various parts of Kent such as Margate, and filmed in many atmospheric parts of Kent over the years, Chatham Historic Royal Dockyard, to name just one.
Three additional Sherlock Holmes short stories are set in Canterbury. These ‘alternative Sherlock Holmes’ stories are not by Doyle but by Miles Elward; The Missing Cleric draws inevitably on magnificent Canterbury Cathedral, Kent as well as St Martin’s Church.
The current BBC TV’s hit show Sherlock has transferred with great aplomb, the adventures of the Baker Street sleuth & his accomplice Dr John Watson to the 21st century. The show’s creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis have disclosed that it was from the work of Ashford (Kent again) author Michael Hardwick that they drew their inspiration. Hardwick created many new Sherlock Holmes adventures in the Conan Doyle style, as well as writing the novelisation of the irreverent film made by American director Billy Wilder The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock’s last episode on BBC 1 at 10pm on Sunday, stars Benedict Cumberbatch (prep school Brambletye, West Sussex – nearly Kent) as Holmes with Martin Freeman as his colleague Dr Watson.
The coming episode is entitled The Reichenbach Fall a pun on the location in Switzerland (sadly, not Kent) where the original literary Holmes had a fatal confrontation with arch enemy Professor James Moriarty.
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