Tottenham Court Road, as you step out of the tube today, is a bustling area with theatres, offices and high-end shops. It was less grand in Holmes’ day, but still very busy, and the scene of dramatic happenings at the beginning of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.
The British Museum. Holmes had rooms in Montague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum when he first came up to London. Mr Henry Baker in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle is to be found there during the day and several characters in other stories live close by. Holmes spends a morning researching in the museum during The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.
Covent Garden has been used by many writers both as a place to live and in their works (see text). Holmes and Watson go looking for a goose here as this area, nowadays filled with tourists eating and drinking, was then a market. It was and is, also, the centre of theatre-land.
The Royal Opera House, where Holmes and Watson rush to catch the Second Act of a Wagner evening in The Adventure of the Red Circle.
The imposing frontage of the Lyceum Theatre is where Mary Morstan, Holmes and Watson wait for a mysterious contact in The Sign of Four.