📍Picardy Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JT, UK
1859 – 1868“I was born at 11 Picardy Place, at the top of Leith Walk in Edinburgh, the second child of a gentle, gifted artist and a fierce little Irishwoman. My father's illness and drinking meant we moved from flat to flat across the city, ever more cheaply, and for a time I was boarded out with a family friend at Liberton while the household was in difficulties. It was my mother, Mary, who held everything together. She knew her history and her French and English authors, and she told stories with such drama that I hung on every word — tales of knights, heraldry and honour that gave me my love of adventure. I went back to Edinburgh to study medicine, and there Dr Joseph Bell dazzled us students by deducing a stranger's trade and travels from a glance at his hands and boots. When I began to write, I built Sherlock Holmes on him. Edinburgh gave me my mother's romance and my teacher's method. Today a statue of Holmes stands in Picardy Place, close to where I was born.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
🛰️ Satellite view · © Google