PLEASE READ THE DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY: YOU HAVE TO VISIT 2 LOCATIONS
*Your Tasks: In order to log this Virtual, you must carry out the following tasks. *
Please DO NOT LOG YOUR FIND UNTIL YOU HAVE SENT YOUR ANSWERS TO ME AND HAD THEM APPROVED. You must do this within one week of your visit, otherwise your log will be deleted without warning and no discussion will take place.
Team work: If you are caching as a group, I need the answers to be sent INDIVIDUALLY: each person must send their own proof that they visited the location
Task 1: Go around the back of the statue. What is the date in Latin numerals?
Task 2: Take a photograph with Sherlock Holmes in the background. Post it on your log. The photo must include something of yourself or your belongings to prove you were there: maybe a foot? or, feel free to pose like Sherlock in the statue.
Task 3: OPTIONAL: if you are lucky enough to be over 6' tall, look carefully at the plinth on which Sherlock Holmes is standing. There is something imprinted at the great detective's feet. What is it? !!!!DO NOT CLIMB ON THE STATUE!!!! Feel free to search the internet for the answer if you want.
Now walk about 50m south west to stage 2 to admire a very different set of sculptures.
Task 4: At the 2nd location, N 55° 57.376 W 003° 11.237 What is the name of the sculptor? You will find the answer at the heel.
THE ANSWER IS NOT 'GUSS' : he was the foundry worker, not the artist.
THE ANSWER IS NOT 'HELEN' : if you think it is, you have gone to the wrong place.
I am very happy to assist geocachers who are having trouble finding the answers and usually reply to messages very quickly.
This is an easy virtual, the answers to Q1 and Q4 are easy to find at the two locations.
The famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is, quite rightly, usually associated with London; 221B Baker Street to be exact. Yet here is a statue of him, complete with deerstalker hat and pipe, on an island in the middle of a busy junction in Picardy Place, Edinburgh. This is because his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was born right over there, at no.11 Picardy Place, on 22nd May 1859 and baptised in St Mary's Cathedral nearby. The house was demolished in 1969. His parents were Irish and sadly his artist father was an alcoholic; Arthur's early years were not comfortable, as he and his 8 siblings had to move around a lot. One of the places they stayed was 3 Sciennes Place, which is a stage in the multicache Saunter Through Sciennes
Fortunately, Arthur was helped by a rich uncle who sent him to school in England; then he returned to Edinburgh and graduated as a doctor in 1881. He worked for a while as a ship's doctor and also served as an army doctor in the 2nd Boer War. He then set up in medical practice in England. He was never very successful as a doctor; but he was indeed a teriffic story teller, with of course Sherlock Holmes being his most famous creation. Despite his lack of success as a doctor, there is a plaque dedicated to him at the old medical school in Teviot Place.
Conan Doyle was inspired to create Sherlock Holmes by a real person, Dr Joseph Bell, who had been one of Arthur's teachers at medical school. Dr Bell was noted to be skilled in the art of observation and reasoned deduction to solve problems; and these attributes became those also of Sherlock Holmes, master detective. Bell himself was a grandson of Dr Benjamin Bell, who gave his name to a suburb of Edinburgh called Belleville, which has a stage in the multicache Knocking around Newington. Doyle's interest in criminology and detective work led him to establish The Crimes Club in 1903.
He died of a heart attack at his home in Sussex at the age of 71.
This bigger-than-lifesize bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes, sculpted by Gerald Ogilvie Laing, was temporarily removed for a few years while the Edinburgh tram lines were being built; during that time it was taken north to the Black Isle for renovation. On completion of the tram lines it was returned and unveiled by a descendant of Conan Doyle, Tania Henzell, on 13th September 2023.
Oh.....did you know: Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor who played the part of Sherlock Holmes in the TV drama, is related to Arthur Conan Doyle! They are distant cousins several times removed, both being descended from John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster.
Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.