Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes in Edinburgh

Hello dear Readers and curious Visitors!

Today is the 22nd of May and on this day, 163 years ago, a wee bairn was born in the heart of Edinburgh. His name : Arthur Conan Doyle. It rings a bell right?

Known for creating the famous detective Sherlock Holmes along with his sidekick Doctor John Waston, there have been countless films and adaptations of his books and many people flock to visit 221B Baker Street in London. And yet...

... although the author set his plot in London, the links with his homeland and his youth in Edinburgh played a very important role in the writing of his novels and short stories about the detective.

Born in Edinburgh on the 22nd of May 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle was not only a writer but also a physician.

And it is in this too often forgotten detail that the origin of Sherlock Holmes lies.

Have you heard of Surgeon's Hall ? Or The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ?

The Royal College was founded in 1505 and has since welcomed some of the great names and pioneers of modern medicine and dentistry

For over 517 years, the College has been a seat of learning and advancement which attracted a number of British and international students, including a certain Arthur Conan Doyle who had returned to the capital after spending seven years at a Jesuit boarding school in England.

During his years of medical studies he met doctors and professors who helped him to create his character Sherlock Holmes with a deductive mind and scientific research methods. The human body, its anatomy and even its gestures no longer escape the detective's sharp eyes.

Since then, of course, movies, plays, series, comics, video games, and so on, have taken over the image of the detective and his story to adapt it in so many ways that the original Sherlock Holmes, has become confused with his counterparts.

Does the detective really wear the deerstalker? Is Moriarty really Sherlock Holmes' number one enemy? Does Watson really wear a moustache (because according to Martin Freeman's version it's best to forget)?

Is Sherlock Holmes really a violin virtuoso in the Arthur Conan Doyles books? Did Sherlock Holmes even really exist?

To all of this I can answer: yes and no

With all these questions and the links between the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Edinburgh, I decided to do some research on the subject. But then, with all that I have discovered and learned, the idea of creating a guided tour or even a whole theme came to me. Without a second thought, I used all the data, stories and anecdotes I gathered to adapt them into a guided tour and a storytelling game.

And so was born a brand new category that Marie and I have been working on for several months now : The Dectective Holiday with its flagship: the Sherlock Holmes Walking tour in Edinburgh to follow in the footsteps of his author through the streets of the city with the emergence of crime fiction in the Victorian era.

Curious to know more ? 🔎

Click here and discover all our offers about the famous dectective and its author :