Today, the 2 corner shops of Goodge Street on to Tottenham Court Road are Hamburger Union and Cards Galore. One of these 2 modern buildings was likely the corner store where the “row” took place outside of in Sherlock Holmes, The Blue Carbuncle. Maybe the assailants worked at Hamburger Union and were low on deli meat that night. HA!

It is interesting why there was a crime that broke out on the corner of Goodge Street being that this location is within 100 yards of the police station. It is no wonder the assailants fled after Henry Baker broke the window behind him. The Sherlock Holmes text says that the man, Henry Baker, “dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road.” Since the police station was located on Tottenham Court Road, it can be inferred that the assailants and Ryder himself, ran the opposite way across Whitfield and Charlotte Street.

Using the Old Bailey Proceedings Archive, I searched Goodge Street and discovered a prevalent crime was counterfeit coinage. I checked the Charles Booth online archive for the poverty map and observed that Goodge Street is primarily middle class.

According to British History online, Goodge Street used to be a shopping district. If there was coin forgery prevalent in the early 19^th century, it is no question Goodge Street was potentially home to similar acts of deceit and defiance. Another search in Old Bailey Proceedings Archive revealed that in 1889, a man broke into a house on Goodge Street and stole 18 pairs of trousers. That is a lot of trousers—what an odd thing to steal. However, the band of assailants in Sherlock Holmes were trying to steal a goose so it doesn’t seem too unreasonable that a similarly oddly chosen burglary item was on the line in real life.

In “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” Goodge Street is mentioned as the place in which James Ryder was attacked by the street gang while fleeing with the stolen gem inside the goose. I looked at the real Goodge Street to see if there was any outside information which may have influenced Doyle’s representation of that street.

Goodge Street is located right next to the Goodge Street Underground Station. The first fact that there is tube station located on this street is one sign for why Doyle may have written that there was minor violence and physical attacks near this location. Street crime is attached to locations near train and tube stations, as people are usually quick on the move and not paying attention. This knowledge paired with the late night that James Ryder was walking down this street would suggest that violence could happen in this location.

Other sites that I attempted to research this street turned up with no information, except for British History Online. This site writes that Goodge Street was mainly commercial and more of a shopping district, rather than residential. This information makes sense within the context of the story, as not many people were around in the area and the window James Ryder broke was a shop’s window. Some type of violence late at night, by an underground station, and in a shopping district would make total sense, and Conan Doyle’s representation seems accurate according to my outside research.

For my mapping project, I decided to focus on The Adventure of the Speckled Band. The story doesn’t prominently feature many locations in London–in fact, there are pretty much only two that are real. That being said, I chose too look into the location of Waterloo.

I specifically searched for Waterloo Station on Victorian Google Maps, as the three mentions of the location in the story are all references to travel. Geographically, the station is located in close proximity to the River Thames, with several factories and a timber yard wedged between the two.

Upon searching for “Waterloo” on the Old Bailey Online archive, I found that the vast majority of crime involved theft, from pickpocketing to grand larceny. Within the first 30 results, the only other crimes mentioned are one case of murder and two cases of coining offenses. In the description of the crime for the murder case, Water is only mentioned in that the comrades of the deceased had intended to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo.

The economic classes of the areas surrounding the station were highly varied. Given that there seemed to be businesses in the area, it makes sense that they would fall in the pinkish-red range. Still, there is a significant portion of the map in light blue, suggesting a poorer population.

Despite the appearance of moderate wealth in the businesses, according to the entry about Waterloo Road on British History Online, the business district seemed to be mostly confined to “bonnet-shapes, playbills, and pale dry cigars.” The houses along the road were all extended through series of cellars, “the lowest of which no eye may fathom,” due to the height of the road as it neared the bridge.

One of the notes following the story as published in The Strand reads, “Waterloo Station serves the south and southwest rail corridor from London. Miss Stoner must have taken a cab across the Thames for four miles to reach Baker Street from Waterloo.” Throughout The Speckled Band, Waterloo is referred to as a sort of waypoint. The rail station is traversed by Ms. Stoner, Sherlock, and Watson, and it is never suggested that they remain there for any length of time. As far as its presence in Doyle’s story, it is not a place to stay – it is simply a place to move through.

 I used the area of Wimpole Street from the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

Using the Charles Booth Online Archive I  was able to find my street and see how the area around it was wealth wise. You can see by the yellow on the right side of the street it is an Upper-Middle and Upper class area. The people who lived in this area were wealthy and respected. On the right side of the map the area is mainly Middle-Class people who were well to do. The divide is pretty clear but the classes are pretty close so I do not believe it would create a large conflict. There is one small area that is light blue meaning it is a poor area. This could create conflict and devalue the houses around the area. It could possibly be a small ghetto or maybe even a shelter of some sort. I also got information for the Old Bailey website, I was able to see about the crime that took place in the area. I was rather surprised by the crime since was a wealthy area. I thought that there would be less crime because of this but there are several cases of grand larceny. All the thefts could be due to the area being wealthy, they had more money to spend on nicer objects and others may want to still those. The small area of poorer people could also account for the crime, this is not to say that being who are poor are more likely to steal but they could be without certain objects that those in the richer area have.

Overall, I was not surprised to see that the area was more upper and middle class people because Sherlock himself is of middle-class so he would associate with people of similar class levels.