Re: Sherlock and Daughter "The Challenge" "The Common Thread 4/16/2025 4/23/2025 (spoilers)

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-04-27 12:47 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

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The size of the house bothers the hell out of me. It's a great house,
and I guess we're supposed to think Belgravia except the house facades
being used in Dublin are from a century earlier, 1760s. The whole thing
is illusion. The real street is much narrower. She's crossing a 60 foot
wide earthen street on tv, then in a separate shot, we see the facade of
the houses, so I assume there's an outdoor set with the muddy street.

Sherlock was comfortable (he certainly didn't overspend on lodging) but not
wealthy, and could not possibly afford the lease on such a house.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I *know* I've read passages in novels
about people from very humble backgrounds who received an inheritance
that seems impossibly small to us - like five pounds - who were able to
lease property in Belgravia as a result and still have money left over
for food, servants and the like.

Belgravia (according to that tv series) was a popular community among
newly rich families. There were cheaper parts of London, but not the
brand new areas.

We've had so much inflation in the intervening years that it's
practically impossible to imagine 5 pounds going that far but apparently
it did. (Or maybe the novels were not accurate on that detail.)

I wish I could remember the novel(s) where I read that....

Mycroft was, what, in two short stories, none of the novels. He was
rich. The only time I recall the father being wealthy (I recall no
references to the family in the stories) is the Elementary tv series
with Sherlock living in a house his father owned and the father paying
Joan Watson's salary.

Sherlock
never had servants. Since when do servants question their employer? And
the kidnapped Mrs. Hudson is also a servant?

You have to remember that servants were dirt cheap in those days. I
remember reading that censuses from around 1900 defined working class as
having only two or fewer servants, with the middle class beginning at 3
servants. Of course almost everyone was agricultural in those days so
the two servants would have been the hired man and his wife (if he were
married).

Agreed. If I could accept that he was wealthy enough to lease the house,
then I've already suspended disbelief that he can also afford that many
servants.

. . .