Regent's Park and Sherlock Holmes

I am in love with the green earth. -Charles Lamb

For those who were put off by my last blog about Kensal Cemetery and all the death such places feature, this cheerful one is about gardens, birds and squirrels, open spaces--and Sherlock Holmes.

Having spent several hours in The Regent's Park, I walked through Marylebone and discovered I had an hour before my train. I thought, "Why not visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum?" Here I am sitting in Holmes' Study, contemplating my next case--er, blog. More at the end.

I came to The Regent's Park via York Gate; looking back towards Marylebone Parish Church.

The Regent's Park was started in 1811 by John Nash, the famous Regency architect, commissioned by the Prince Regent--later King George IV--first envisioned as a site for a palace and villas for courtiers. The land has been owned by the Crown since 1538, when Henry VIII appropriated it and set it aside as a hunting park or royal chase, called Marylebone Park until 1649. Named for the nearby village, it was leased for farming until 1811.

The gates into Queen Mary's Gardens, the magnificent circular gardens named for the wife of King George IV.

These gardens, featuring world-famous rose beds, were created in the 1930s. The site was originally Regent's Park nurseries.

The Prince Regent's Park comprises 166 hectares (410 acres) so I had to pick and choose what I would be able to see this day. I skipped the London Zoo, at the north end of the Park. I skipped the sporting fields and the boating lake.

But I wouldn't skip lunch in the newly renovated Garden Café. Here I enjoyed the soup of the day, herb-baked chicken with cherry tomatoes and polenta, and a first-rate, fresh strawberry pavlova.

There is something pleasant about seeing holly growing profusely. Not to mention more roses than I have ever seen in one place. (One source said there are 400 varieties; several others suggest that every known rose is grown here.)

I would like to enjoy this summer flower by flower, as if it were the last one for me. -Andre Gide

The web site for the Park says that Queen Mary's Gardens has herbaceous beds, 9,000 Begonias, Delphiniums, and shrubbery. The rose gardens were re-designed in the 1990s.

The web site refers to the mystery of hidden gardens. This one is tucked into the centre of Queen Mary's round garden, and one just comes upon it unexpectedly.

Gardens should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive impulses, and still more curves. -H. E. Bates, A Love of Flowers

The Triton Fountain in Queen Mary's Garden.

Presumably, summer bedding plants have been removed and something new will go into this bed and amongst the boxed hedges. Is this a typical Knot Garden?

There are thousands of specimen trees, including many oaks.

God almighty first planted a garden.

And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

-Francis Bacon

In Queen Mary's Gardens there is a small lake, full of waterfowl of many types. This sculpted bird is next to the small alpine-planted island called Rockery Island. (The lake was prominent in the 2002 Hugh Grant film, About a Boy, in which he courts single mothers in the Park, assuming they will be available and thus responsive.)

"One for sorrow, one for joy . . ."

Amongst the many birds here is, of course, the common Magpie. This bird is found throughout British folklore, a common superstition being that if you see one alone, you should salute it, but the formality can be foregone if the Magpie looks you directly in the eye, which shows he respects you. This one turned his back on me, so what I really wanted to do was to "flip him the bird"! Another bit of lore is that if you see a Magpie whilst walking with someone, you should pinch your companion. In Devon, the custom is to spit three times to ward off bad luck.

One of Britain's most exotic birds is also quite common: the Jay. With its dusty pink and bold black and white markings, and beautiful blue shoulders, it is hard to believe that the Jay is just another crow!

I know this is a Heron.

And that this is a black Swan.

The Ornamental Waterfowl Collection was started in the 1930s, and expanded to include 90 species of ducks, swans and geese in the '80s & '90s. Today, The Park is the breeding site for all the waterfowl in all eight of the Royal Parks of England. There are 650 waterfowl on the Boating Lake itself.

There are more than 250 pairs of breeding ducks, of many types, including many domesticated breeds, which I assume this fellow represents.

The Regent's Park is full of Grey Squirrels. Sometimes they pose for photos and sometimes they are camera shy.

Clearly they are quite tame. I saw one old man holding one in his hand, feeding him with the other.

This little one, munching on acorns on the edge of The Marylebone Commons, was disinterested in me.

At one point, in the flowers along the Avenue of Gardens, I saw a head poke out from amongst some begonias, and sneaked up for a photo, hoping he wanted to pose. Not a squirrel but an ugly Regent's Park Brown Rat! (Apparently there are also foxes, a few remaining hedgehogs and five species of bats.)

Queen Mary's Garden also has organic statuary!

I have been unable to learn much about the statuary, although I noticed this one is called "The Lost Bow."

All gardening is landscape painting. -Horace Walpole (1780)

Specimens of fossil wood from the Lower Purbeck Becks on the Isle of Portland in Devon. These coniferous tree trunks were submerged and petrified many millions of years ago. They were probably related to Norwich Pines or Monkey Puzzle trees (araucaria: see my Kew Blog). The specimens were placed in the Park in the 1840s by the Royal Botanic Society, according to a nearby plaque.

In the truest sense of the word, Regent's Park--especially Queen Mary's Gardens--is a verdant oasis in the city of London.

There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Chester Road Gate into Queen Mary's Gardens, on the Inner Circle Road. Chester Road leads to Broad Walk. Vehicular traffic is only permitted on the Inner Circle Road, but it must be somewhat restricted as there was very little.

Off Chester Road is the Avenue of Gardens, part of Broad Walk, featuring a variety of formal plantings. None of the photos I took show the actual avenue; the pathways seen here lead to gardens alongside the Avenue. There is a more natural English Garden off to one side. (I missed it!)

The many great gardens of the world,

of literature and poetry, of painting and music,

of religion and architecture,

all make the point as clear as possible:

The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.

If you don't want paradise, you are not human;

And if you are not human, you don't have a soul.

-Thomas More

I am unsure who finances The Regent's Park; there is no admission, although it may well be that the Zoo and athletic fields generate income. There are gardeners everywhere. Unseen, behind this shrub was a gardener trimming it into shape. My own children all hated what they called "shaved shrubs" so they likely would not have appreciated the formality of the Avenue of Gardens.

The best place to seek God is in a garden.

You can dig for him there.

-George Bernard Shaw

At the end of Broad Walk, one leaves The Regent's Park and faces Park Square Gardens, which were closed for restoration. Fronting the park is Park Crescent, the Neo-Classical Georgian Terraces designed by Nash. The other Regency buildings in the area are also beautiful, perhaps the most stunning at Cumberland Terrace.

The stuccoed exteriors of Park Crescent remain unchanged, but the interiors have been completely re-designed.

Originally, mirrored curved terraces were to be built opposite these, on the north, but they never materialized.

I strolled along Marylebone Road towards the train station, where I found this panel honouring Charles Dickens.

The plaque reads as follows: While living in a house on this site Charles Dickens wrote six of his principal works, characters from which appear on this sculptured panel.

None of the characters is identified, so I must leave it to readers much more familiar with Dickens to name them. I haven't read anything by Dickens since 1966!

Marylebone Parish Church. The present church is the fourth and was completed in 1817 and re-built in 1882. There was a vaulted crypt for parish burials until 1853 but in 1987 the 850 coffins were buried in Surrey.

Charles Dickens' son was baptised here and Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married here in 1846. The church was used as a location for the 1957 movie, The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Nearby are the London Planetarium and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I blogged about Tussaud's in 2008, and honestly, I felt like telling the fifty people waiting in the queue to save their money!

In my research I attempted to identify this art deco structure on Baker Street, but all I found were images that showed it was built in 2005-2006. The posters in the window led me to think it is a bank, but I didn't confirm that.

On Marylebone Road is a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes. London was spitting rain so I decided to visit the Museum at 221B Baker Street.

The Sherlock Holmes' Museum opened in March 1990 to reflect the house where the literary characters lived from 1881-1904.

We know from Dr. Watson's descriptions that the sitting room overlooking Baker Street was "illuminated by two broad windows" and that it was quite small: on one occasion Holmes emerged from his bedroom and took one spring across the study to close the curtains and on another occasion, a man entered their study who was so large he almost filled their little room.

Foolishly, I asked the guide whether anything in the rooms was "authentic." He just rolled his eyes and laughed. (Authentic? To what? Two literary characters? It's hard to remember that the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was NOT Sherlock Holmes.)

Clues for re-creating the detective's house come from the books and from the illustrations by Sidney Paget who has been credited with giving Holmes his deerstalker cap and Inverness Cape.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied medicine there before practising for a short time as an eye doctor. He then began writing short stories and was able to make a living doing so. His first novel featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes was A Study in Scarlet. His literary creations were serialised in THE STRAND magazine, the most famous being "The Hound of the Baskervilles" a story I recall from childhood. I also remember it scared me to death. (Doyle's knighthood was not for detective stories, but for writing a pamphlet about the Boer War.) He died in 1930.

Left: Professor Moriarty, arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes.

Right: The Adventures of Charles Augustus Milverton. Holmes helps stop the blackmailer Milverton from ruining the life of Lady Eva Blackwell: "As the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton's shrinking body I was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes' cold, strong grasp on my wrist."

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson save a woman from being buried alive.

The men shared this loo.

And stored their suitcases at the top of the house.

Hound of the Baskervilles, Dartmoor.

Killed 19th October 1888.

S. Wayland & Son Ltd., Naturalists.

Animals stuffed in the most approved style.

A Scandal in Bohemia. (Read next image.)

Mr. Jabez Wilson: The Case of the Red Headed League. A man is unwittingly deceived into helping with a robbery.

A magnificent bust of Sherlock Holmes.

From The Solitary Cyclist: Bulldog Revolver concealed in a Bible belong to the ex-Rev. Williamson. "The old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a string of foul oaths as I have ever heard, and pulled out a revolver of his own, but before he could raise it he was looking down the barrel of Holmes' weapon."

Framed pictures in the narrow stairwell, presumably the types that Holmes and Watson would have enjoyed.

On the ground floor is the Museum gift-shop with a wonderful skylight, the best place to find all things Holmesian.

The building now housing the recreation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's abode was registered as a lodging house from 1860-1934 and therefore is an authentic site for the characters' home. The house was built in 1812, and is a Grade 2 Listed building.

It had been a good day, albeit drizzly, and I was pleased to have been able to see another aspect of London--the pastoral parts of The Regent's Park. I hope for a return trip, but must face the reality that my time in England is winding down.