High above the High Street

There is a place that feels like it should not exist. Well, OK, I suppose there are many places that feel like they should not exit, but the one I am thinking of is the Roof Gardens high above Kensington High Street. I had been there several years before, for a work dinner, and at the time had been astonished by the place. A few months ago, whilst visiting the new Design Museum in Kensington, I decided to pay it another visit, and was not disappointed. To enter this strange world, you have to present yourself at a reception desk behind a door up a side street, and provide some ID. By and large, you don't have to book, and entrance is free. After signing in, you are pointed towards a lift lined with pictures of flamingos, and are sent to the top of the building.

When you emerge, you are in a somewhat anonymous corridor, but after wandering around a little, you emerge into the daylight where you may find yourself, miraculously, in a Spanish garden, a medieval courtyard, or an English woodland. All six stories up, beside a busy London thoroughfare. The unreality of the place brings to mind the original film Westworld, and from certain angles, you could easily be forgiven for believing you were in Grenada, or the grounds of a well-preserved Tudor mansion. Only the spire of St Mary Abbots church peeking out over the moorish colonnade, perhaps, gives the game away.

The gardens opened to the public in May 1938, having been built over the course of two. The original idea came from Trevor Bowen, the vice president of John Barker & Co., the original owners of the building on which the gardens sit. He hired the landscape architect Ralph Hancock to turn his idea into reality, which Hancock did to incredible effect. Appropriately enough, although they take a little finding, being hidden away in one corder of the woodland garden beside a quirky 1930s house, there are plaques to both gentlemen, commemorating their work.

The garden is not just an oasis of calm in a busy city, although it assuredly is this; it is also a miniature wildlife garden. Walking from the Tudor garden to the woodland, past natural-looking ponds (six floors up, remember) you are likely to come face to beak with the flamingos pictured in the lift, along with a variety of exotic ducks. On a bright, quiet, weekday morning, I walked around this delightful folly, which I had largely to myself, and felt like I had travelled to another world.

221B or not 221B, that is the question

Sherlock Holmes arouses fierce passions in some people, which may be regarded as unusual, given that he never actually existed. This existential hindrance has not, however, prevented thousands of people across the globe writing to the famous (fictional) sleuth for assistance, as evidenced by the book "Letters to Sherlock Holmes", and the presence of the Sherlock Holmes Museum on - where else? - Baker Street in London. Strictly speaking, and despite the number above the doorway to the contrary, this is not 221B Baker Street, but 239 Baker Street, although as with anything with its origins in fiction, we must allow quite a wide leeway for suspension of disbelief.

I thought of my visit to the Museum recently, having passed (for the millionth time) the Sherlock Homes pub in Northumberland Street near Charing Cross. For some reason, on this occasion, I decided to take a look inside, because I knew, and had known for many years, that the pub contains a replica of Holmes' apartment on the first floor. This was originally an exhibit for the 1951 Festival of Britain, put together by Marylebone Borough Library and the Abbey National, and I was pleased to see a small plaque outside the pub confirming it was still there. One might wonder why the Abbey National would have been involved in such an exhibit but, from the 1930s until 2005, the bank actually occupied 221B Baker Street, and had a full-time secretary to answer mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes.

The exhibit in the Sherlock Holmes pub is smaller than the Museum, being limited to one small room (above), although it does contain a wax bust of Holmes, bullet hole and all, which Holmes fans may recognise from The Adventure of the Empty House. It took me a long time, however, to spot the Turkish slipper beside the fireplace, containing tobacco, which is a detail of Holmes' consulting room that always caught my attention. The Museum also has a Turkish slipper and, to my delight, also has "VR" in bullet holes on the wall, as described in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual. Nevertheless, the little exhibit reminded me of my visit to the Museum, a few years ago.

The Museum is an altogether odd place, although none the worse for that. My favourite part was the living room, where most of the stories begin, although in the upper rooms are eerily lifelike waxworks, including one of Professor James Moriarty, which are just realistic enough to make you wonder if they might be about to move. I have long enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories, and went through a period of reading the complete works (finally giving up towards the middle of the final book, when it became apparent that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's heart really wasn't in it any more). The Museum is filled with clues (appropriately enough) to many of the stories (including the "stuffed" head of the Hound of the Baskervilles), and one can spend a pleasant time wandering around the little house, trying to spot them.

Not too far from the Museum, if you are in the mood, is 187 North Gower Street, which is the location for 221B Baker Street in the BBC's recent series Sherlock. It is also, as a blue plaque testifies, the former home of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805 - 1872), an Italian politician, journalist and activist for the unification of Italy. If you have seen the programme, and this is news to you, that is because the blue plaque is hidden behind set decoration (a distinctive round light). With the success of Sherlock and the CBS show Elementary, both of which reimagine the detective in the modern world, there seems to be no likelihood of interest in the original resident of 221B Baker Street ending soon.