The most famous of all London streets, the residence of Sherlock Holmes from the beginning of the 1880’s to 1903, during the greater part of his professional life as a consulting detective.

Baker Street is situated in the heart of the West End, in the metropolitan borough of St. Marylebone, and extends approximately north and south for just over a quarter of a mile. Its southern continuation Orchard St extends to Oxford Street. To the north it bears the names York Place and then Upper Baker Street before reaching Regent’s Park. It consists of large, closely built, flat-fronted, four-storey Georgian houses which are now divided between residences and business establishments. The street is known of photographers who have their studios here.

Baker Street was laid out late in the eighteenth century by a Dorsetshire businessman and speculator, Edward Berkeley Portman (1771-1823), whose son Edward Berkeley, 1st Viscount Portman (1799-1888) and grandson William Henry Berkeley, 2nd Viscount Portman (1829-1919) continue to own the land upon which much of this quarter of London is built. The thoroughfare is named for a Dorsetshire baronet and friend of the Portman family, Sir Edward Baker (1763-1825).

 

221B consists of a 'couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished and illuminated by two broad windows'. (A Study in Scarlet)