May - September 1951:
An Exhibition on Sherlock Holmes

On 22nd May 1951 an exhibition opened at Abbey House, Baker Street, London NW1. Its theme was Sherlock Holmes, and it gave an existing collection of 'Sherlockiana' (still held today by Westminster Libraries) an identity of its own . For the 50th Anniversary of its opening we have created this website to give you a taste of the original exhibition.

Click on a ticket (Adults 1s, Children 6d) to enter the Exhibition.

• Look through the original 1951 Exhibition Catalogue.
• Find out how the Exhibition and collection came about.
• See the 1951 Sherlock Holmes Exhibition text index.
• Go to the Sherlock Holmes Collection home page.

And this is only the beginning. We plan to continue to develop this site over the coming months, so do keep visiting.

What you have been saying about the site...

We have been receiving lots of positive feedback from you - from all over the world:

• "Well done! It's magnificent."
• "Congratulations and grateful thanks are due the Westminster Libraries and Archives for the fine website taking note of the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Exhibition on Sherlock Holmes. For me, it brought back a flood of memories..."
• "Sherlock pages on the website look really good - they are fascinating to use."
• "Thank you very much for the web page on the Baker Street Room. We have just started going through it and it is excellent. Keep up the good work." [from the USA]
• "Thank you for the delightful link to the Holmes 1951 Exhibition Catalogue. My favorite moments are:
  - The sound of "Yes, We Have No Bananas" played on a barrel organ in Baker Street (not only non Period, but non English. It was written in New York in the twenties, after someone heard an Italian fruit peddler enthusiastically tell his customers 'yes, we have no bananas.')
  - The cartoon about Professor Moriarty blowing up the Exhibition should Holmes have a place in it...
  - and the muffins with two sets of teeth.
  This is the sort of charming lunacy that I really enjoy. The website is a lot of fun as well. I only wish I had been born at the time so that I might have visited the Exhibition." [from Savannah, Georgia, USA]
• "Thank you so much...!" [from Japan]
• "The site is wonderful!" [from Australia]
• "Whenever I find couple of minutes free I check your library's website and learn more about the Exhibition and Sherlock Holmes as well. It was really a great idea to post there the 1951 exhibition catalogue. I found it an interesting source of information." [from Czechoslovakia]
• 'The clever part is the way its site focuses on the colourful 1951 exhibition for which the archive was first assembled, rather than just the collection itself. So the latter becomes a piece of living history, rather than simply a bookish pile of pamphlets and documents, to the extent that you have to pinch yourself to remember that the web was not around in 1951. Doh.' [review from the Sunday Times, 29 July 2001]

Contact us and tell us what you think.

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Last updated 07/07/03