Where Sherlock Holmes Bought His Maps

"After you left I sent down to Stamford's for the Ordinance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit has hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that I could find my way about."
-- Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 3, "The Problem"

Obviously Holmes -- or Watson -- meant to say Stanford's, a map shop and more, which has not only survived but seems to thrive in the twenty-first century. (The confusion is understandable, for it was young Stamford who introduced Holmes and Watson, and Archie Stamford who was a forger of note.)

In the months before we went to London in October, I spent a lot of time looking at maps of the city -- not so much for our trip as for my London-based mystery novel, The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore.
My efforts seemed to have paid off, for the esteemed Roger Johnson of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London found no major geographical howlers in the manuscript.

But I didn't use maps from Stanford's, nor did I think of it. On our way to somewhere else while we were in London, though, my friend Steve Winter pointed out Stanford's across the street. Pressed for time, we took photos but didn't stop. I wish now that we had. Well, that's another reason for going back!