Sherlock, a study in Locationing (17) A street of many coincidences (pt 1)
The location I am going to report on properly tonight, now I have finally got round to it, is the junction of Charlotte Street and Percy Street off Tottenham Court Road in London. This is the street providing a walk-and-talk scenario for John and Sherlock in A Study in Pink on the way to Angelo’s Restaurant. It’s also rather near a lot of other locations being near the Gower Street /Bloomsbury environs used in Series One. You'll find it only two streets down from the American Church in London where John’s sniper took up position on the staircase. Whitcombe Street (where Sherlock got saved from being mown down by a car one of the Baker Street Assassins in The Reichenbach Fall) is just next to that. As you'll see, Central London, once you get to know it, is actually quite a small place.
Once I know a location is there I tend to gravitate towards it, making it part of my walking repertoire in London, even more so if it’s actually on my route on legitimate business. I’ve used this street to move students about when I have been herding groups from the college, and even done a couple of location tours including it taking people to show them round.
Here is kalypso cosplaying in September, wearing a coat and scarf that was really too warm for the time of year. It felt totally right to be escorting the replica costume and it’s wearer onto a location, and I was very glad to do it (can we do a few more soon please?). What I’d really, really like too is for us to have a cosplay John to join us. Volunteers anyone?
The other thing before you get the nitty gritty of this location is to explain about the pleasing puns in location street names that occasionally crop up in Sherlock. This location, the first joke to appear in the show, has triple humour riding on it as there are two streets at this junction aptly used because of their names.
Part one of the punning is where Sherlock says they are heading to 22 Northumberland Street which is ‘five minutes’ from Baker Street. Now, I would say it’s about ten minutes walk from North Gower Street to Percy Street if you walk fast, but then The Percy / Northumberland link (as I well know having been born and grown up in the North East of England) comes because the family have been lords of Northumbria for many years. Anyone who has familiarity with Shakespeare’s Henry IV pt 1 will have heard of Harry Percy, otherwise known as Hotspur, who Prince Hal kills at the battle of Shrewsbury. The Percy family’s residence in Northumberland is Alnwick Castle which stood, in part, BTW, along with the also local Durham Cathedral, for Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter Film.
To return to Sherlock the second part of the street-joke comes from the fact, as many followers of Arthur Conan Doyle’s character know, there is a Sherlock Holmes pub at number 10 -11 of the actual Northumberland Street in London. This is not anywhere near the location I am talking about, and in fact nearer the river and just off Trafalgar Square.
The final amusement I got immediately, and groaned a lot when I saw the name of the street at the end of Percy Street.
A certain previous, film Sherlock Holmes, would be turning in his grave ...
On to Part Two
Once I know a location is there I tend to gravitate towards it, making it part of my walking repertoire in London, even more so if it’s actually on my route on legitimate business. I’ve used this street to move students about when I have been herding groups from the college, and even done a couple of location tours including it taking people to show them round.
Here is kalypso cosplaying in September, wearing a coat and scarf that was really too warm for the time of year. It felt totally right to be escorting the replica costume and it’s wearer onto a location, and I was very glad to do it (can we do a few more soon please?). What I’d really, really like too is for us to have a cosplay John to join us. Volunteers anyone?
The other thing before you get the nitty gritty of this location is to explain about the pleasing puns in location street names that occasionally crop up in Sherlock. This location, the first joke to appear in the show, has triple humour riding on it as there are two streets at this junction aptly used because of their names.
Part one of the punning is where Sherlock says they are heading to 22 Northumberland Street which is ‘five minutes’ from Baker Street. Now, I would say it’s about ten minutes walk from North Gower Street to Percy Street if you walk fast, but then The Percy / Northumberland link (as I well know having been born and grown up in the North East of England) comes because the family have been lords of Northumbria for many years. Anyone who has familiarity with Shakespeare’s Henry IV pt 1 will have heard of Harry Percy, otherwise known as Hotspur, who Prince Hal kills at the battle of Shrewsbury. The Percy family’s residence in Northumberland is Alnwick Castle which stood, in part, BTW, along with the also local Durham Cathedral, for Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter Film.
To return to Sherlock the second part of the street-joke comes from the fact, as many followers of Arthur Conan Doyle’s character know, there is a Sherlock Holmes pub at number 10 -11 of the actual Northumberland Street in London. This is not anywhere near the location I am talking about, and in fact nearer the river and just off Trafalgar Square.
The final amusement I got immediately, and groaned a lot when I saw the name of the street at the end of Percy Street.
A certain previous, film Sherlock Holmes, would be turning in his grave ...
On to Part Two