Detective Shaw’s London: Marylebone

Wedged between Regent’s Park to the north and the famous Oxford Street to the south, Marylebone is in central London, within the City of Westminster. It is mainly a residential area, although there are also some diplomatic buildings (consulates) located there. Over the years it has been home to various famous people, such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the author HG Wells (in the photo the plaque indicating his home), Jimi Hendrix, Madonna (at the time of her marriage to Guy Ritchie) and many others, but perhaps its most famous resident, if only in fiction, was and always will be Sherlock Holmes.

Indeed, in this district, there is the address 221B Baker Street, which Arthur Conan Doyle gave as the residence of the protagonist of his detective stories (though the statue in the photo is outside Baker Street Station).
Obviously, Holmes’s house never existed; in fact, Baker Street did not even reach that number at the time of the novels’ publication, but now the same street houses the Sherlock Holmes Museum. It is not exactly at number 221B (it is located between 237 and 241), but since 1990 after a long dispute, the museum has obtained it to become its official address, despite this altering the numbering of the street.

Willing somehow to pay homage to the character created by Arthur Conan Doyle, I put DCI Eric Shaw’s home (equally imaginary) in a side street of Baker Street called York Street.
Another reason for my choice is that I know Marylebone very well, as every time I go to London I stay in a hotel in Gloucester Place called Hotel 82.
In addition to being a nice hotel and not costing much, despite being a four-star hotel (and anyone who has been to the British capital at least once knows how important the category of a hotel is to avoid nasty surprises concerning cleanliness!), it has the peculiarity of being a five-minute walk from the stop of the EasyBus shuttle to Stansted airport and at the same time in an area, precisely Marylebone, from which, if you are not afraid to walk a bit, you can basically visit the whole of central London on foot.

In fact, moving south along Gloucester Place (which then continues into Portman Street) or the parallel Baker Street you arrive at the famous shopping street, Oxford Street, directly next to the department stores of Selfridges.
From there, moving west, you soon reach the edge of Marylebone, marked by Marble Arch, from which the enormous Hyde Park begins. If you go east instead, you reach Oxford Circus, then you can take Regent’s Street, and in no time at all you arrive at Piccadilly Circus. 

But let’s go back to the heart of Marylebone, where the home of another character from the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy is located, namely that of Adele Pennington, exactly in Dorset Street. This street is also a cross street of Gloucester Place and Baker Street, and for a stretch it runs parallel to York Street (with another street between the two). In short, the two characters really live a short distance from each other.

A coincidence? Those who read the books know the answer to this question.

I chose these two streets in particular because I happened to walk on them often and their names are impressed in my mind. And they seemed to me nice places for my characters to live.
It is actually a far from cheap residential area and, in fact, a fellow writer (and friend), Stefania Mattana, who lives near London, after reading “The Mentor” commented that Eric and Adele must be rich to live there!
Well, actually from the book it emerges that Adele is doing quite well and, reading that Eric, in addition to having that house, a nice car, a cottage in the country, also pays alimony for his son Brian (from his ex-wife Crystal), you can infer that he too must have some money aside.

But on the other hand, being fictional characters, why not let them live in a nice place?

Moreover, those same streets are the scene (in “The Mentor”) of the beginning of a car chase, which however ends outside the neighbourhood.

Finally, Marylebone hosts another important tourist attraction, which in my opinion anyone who goes to London should visit: the beautiful Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.
I’ve been there twice, more than twenty years apart from each other, and the second time I found it completely different from the first, but always very funny (in the photo I am with Sherlock Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr, well, of course it’s his waxwork copy).
Admission is unfortunately very expensive, but as for all places of tourist interest in London there is a way to visit it by spending much less, i.e. on the museum’s official website, where you can buy discounted tickets especially in certain times of the year. For example, last time I went there, I spent just £15 to enter during the last hour it was open on a specific day.

After all, an hour is absolutely enough to visit it, take some beautiful photos and not be tempted to buy too many souvenirs!