For this assignment I researched Hyde Park in London which features in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”.

 

The location is near Kensington Park and the Marble Arch. The Marble Arch and the Park serve as something of a landmark for the area. Even though this particular park is known for crime it is near streets lined with mansions.

The park has been host to a number of incidents. At several times in history it has been used as an encampment for soldiers. There have even been reports of small, unofficial battles breaking out on the area, although these skirmishes were just a handful of deaths at a time. It also has held a world’s fair and other types of events. It was proposed in 1840 that it should be the site of an annual fair, but that was shot down in the planning stages.

The area is known for some crime. In earlier centuries the level of crime was more dangerous; there were a number of murders that were linked to this location. However as time went on it is more common to see simple pickpocketings and thefts with violence involved.

Here is one particular murder where one man shot his victim in the chest and killed him, in part of a conspiracy to commit the murder with another man who was at the scene. The language of the old time indictment is complicated but it’s interesting that both the person who committed the murder and his accomplice are charged with the same crime.

**Certain sources spell Hyde as Hide, but they are one in the same.