📍Kensington, London W8, UK
1976 – 1994“Benedict Cumberbatch was born in 1976 and grew up in Kensington and Chelsea in west London, the only child of two actors, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham. His half-sister, Tracy, was much older. Growing up with working actors meant growing up with the uncertainty of the profession as well as its glamour: his parents knew good years and lean ones, and they hoped he might choose something more secure, perhaps the law. But the house was full of scripts, rehearsals and theatre stories, and he absorbed it all. His parents worked hard to give him an excellent education. He went first to Brambletye, a prep school in West Sussex, where at twelve he played Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and then to Harrow on an arts scholarship. At Harrow he painted large oil canvases, and in school drama he played Bottom in the same play, earning his first good review. He has described himself as an energetic and sometimes difficult boy, and of how the stage gave that energy a purpose. Before university he spent a gap year teaching English at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Darjeeling, India, an experience that began a lifelong interest in Buddhist philosophy and meditation. He then studied drama at the University of Manchester and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Success came steadily, from Hawking to Sherlock, where, in a quiet tribute, his real parents played Sherlock's parents. He has often spoken with gratitude of how hard his parents worked to give him the education and the chances they never had.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today