Sherlock Holmes - Shhh, He's Not Real

There are some things in life that are so quintessentially British, the bull dog, red pillar boxes, queues and ...Sherlock Holmes!  We are big fans of this detective in all his different guises and decades of films in my house, so I thought it would be good to take a planned trip to The Museum of London and visit their Sherlock Holmes Exhibition -The Man who Never Lived and Will Never Die before it finished.

With Miss Teen and Miss B with me and huge Sherlock fans, the exhibition was waiting for us and what a way to start a tour by finding the secret panel in amongst the book lined wall.

Of course our Sherlock wouldn't have etched himself on our minds and imagination in books without a certain Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his incredible mind for writing.  I am a self confessed collector of exercise books with a fear of soiling the books with my writing, so I was in absolute awe of Sir Arthur's neat hand and skill of writing his detective stories.  To see the exercise books for myself was the highlight of this exhibition.  

The exhibits showed all the stereotypical Holmes paraphernalia with boxes of potions that were good enough for Snape in Harry Potter (also not real!).  Quinine was on the table ready to be used along with a jar of poison.  A box of dangerous substances ready to cause trouble and to try and outdo the famous detective.

Smoking implements such as an array of pipes, matches and lighters along with some rather dandy carpet slippers were shown in this cabinet.

Then of course the suggestion of Holmes' ability to disguise himself.  I love the nose at the top of the picture!

We all have our favourite Sherlock don't we, mine being Basil Rathbone followed closely by Jeremy Brett.  However Miss Teen loves the modern version played by Benedict Cumberbatch, so this exhibit was lovingly gazed upon - the coat that he wore on Sherlock (and hopefully will be again soon!)

Of course the famous deerstalker cap had to be shown somewhere, after all, Sherlock is not Sherlock without this trademark piece of apparel.

This outfit has me thinking of my favourite Sherlock adventure - The Hound of the Baskervilles.  I can just imagine this outline walking through the mist of the moor.

Another trademark - the violin that was played while he thought through the clues.

This exhibit was great to see, especially as I tap out my post on the gentle keyboard of my laptop.  Can you remember using typewriters similar to these with the faint 'p' and 'q' every time you plunged your little finger down on them (I'm talking to touch typers here).  The soreness of your fingers when you missed the keys and got caught between two, and then if you typed too fast untangling the letter arms - how I miss those days!

However, I have never heard or seen one of these - The Home Blick with its keys on the cylinder.  I would have trouble typing on this as the keys are all wrong - I much prefer the QWERTY style!

Other items of times gone by such as the candlestick phone and the telegraph, yes I know technology is amazing but the tactile qualities of these antiques makes me so happy.

So there we have it, the Sherlock Holmes Exhibition which is about to finish and I'm so happy I got to see this and share it with you before it gets boxed up on the 12 April to make way for the next exhibition at the Museum.

The Museum of London is full of curiosities and we spent the whole day here this time around taking in all the centuries of this great city, but that would be a HUGE post, so I will put together some other bite sized pieces on future posts (or you can visit the Museum online too in my sidebar).

I hope you have all had a good week, mine has been incredibly busy but I am now looking forward to quite a few days off to catch up with myself and with you all.

Take care