“Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road.”

And thus, we have the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: a case starting off with a bang (or rather, a lost Christmas goose and hat) along Tottenham Court Road. Going into Victorian Google maps, the street seemed fairly civil in structure, though this idea changed after moving around the street a bit. At the end of the street to the north, a tramway line stops. And along the southern stretch of the road, there is in fact a labyrinth of small streets.

 

And this being just a bit down from Goodge Street, where Peterson had seen the man with the Goose being attacked. Then looking to the Charles Booth Online Archive, it appears that the area in which Tottenham Court Road situates itself had been fairly well to do during this time. The neighboring streets, by contrast, were more poverty stricken than not, with the map from the Charles Booth archive showing numerous bouts of light and dark blue (no black however — which would indicate the worst crime rate possible). That it was a well off neighborhood, it must have been increasingly shocking that the man with the goose (who we later find out is James Ryder) had broken a window exactly there, with Peterson — in official uniform — rushing towards him further perpetuating this sentiment.

Looking at the proceedings containing the street name as the key words, 2756 results turn up. Listed among the first ten there were four cases of theft, a case of murder, and a case of sexual assault. Bringing the time period searched down to the years between 1880 and 1899, the number of results dropped down to 354. Narrowing it down, the majority of offenses appear to be cases of fraud, coining, deception, property damage, burglary, robbery and theft.

Using the street view function built into Locating London’s Past, it appears that nowadays the area were Goodge Street meets Tottenham Court Road is highly commercial and bustling with people.

This commercialization isn’t necessarily surprising. From British History Online, a search result from a 1878 publication details Tottenham Court Road as being located in one of the fashionable districts in London. However, he aesthetic makeup of this meeting between Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road has changed. Again from British History Online, a result from a 1949 text mentions that there had been some destruction to the area as a result of air raids.