A Mystery Tour of London Trivia Quiz

Answer: Baker Street

Baker Street is the home of Sherlock Holmes (and at times - he sometimes lives elsewhere - of Doctor Watson), Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest creations. It is also the station of choice for starting his return journey from work at St Dunstan's for Frederick Rowlands, Christina Koning's "Blind Detective". Additionally it is where you will find Madame Tussauds, one of the locations featured in Jim Eldridge's "Museum Detectives" series.

Baker Street has the most platforms serving London Underground lines of any station (10), and although it was visible from 221B Holmes seldom used it - it gets mentioned in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" and "The Bruce-Partington Plans" actually involves the Underground.

Answer: Embankment

In Jim Eldridge's "Museum Detectives" series one of the title pair, Abigail, enjoys travelling by underground and it is from this series that I got the detail about travelling to Embankment to call at Scotland Yard. The other three stations are all also served by the District and Circle lines, and might all have been used by the pair.

Answer: Belsize Park

The book features a detailed plan of the station. Mavis Doriel Hay is also author of "Murder on the Cherwell", set in Oxford. The story in "Murder Underground" is particularly well plotted. Belsize Park is the second deepest station on the network, beaten only by its neighbour Hampstead, and is the only station to feature the letter Z in its name.

Answer: Tower Hill

The three books are "Murder at the Tower of London" featuring the Museum Detectives, "The Bloody Tower", one of Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple stories, and "Murder on Tower Bridge", part of the Rachel McClean/ Millie Ravensworth cosy crime series set in London. Of course, though it does not feature in this quiz, St Paul's is the scene of more than one murder mystery.

Answer: Covent Garden

Mike Hollow's "Blitz Detective" series feature inspector John Jago, wounded in WWI, investigating murders at a range of London locations. The series starts in the East End and sees the detectives moved to central London later on in the series.
One of the murders in the Chaloner series takes place in Covent Garden, and he lives in that part of the world.
Covent Garden is home to the London Transport Museum and is closer to Leicester Square (0.16 miles) than any other two adjacent stations on the same line on the network.

Answer: Regents Park

The creation of Christina Koning, Rowlands is blind as a result of a shrapnel injury in WWI. The series runs on into WWII - one of the later murders happens at Bletchley Park. Regents Park is also where the Dearlys, owners of Pongo and Missis in "101 Dalmatians" have their home.

Answer: South Kensington

South Kensington nowadays serves three museums - The Natural History, The Victoria & Albert and the Science Museum - of which the first two feature in the "Museum Detectives" series. There used also to be a Geological Museum but that was amalgamated with the Natural History Museum some years ago.

The station itself is notable for various reasons, including some impressive ornamental ironwork.

Answer: Westminster

Rachel McLean and Millie Ravensworth's "Murder in Westminster", one of their cosy mysteries set in London involves a murder in the houses of parliament. There are a number of books in the series, including "Murder in the West End" and "Murder on Tower Bridge".

Answer: Aldwych

Inspector Saxe-Coburg, the youngest brother of an earl, has some shared background with Mike Hollow's John Jago and Christina Koning's Frederick Rowlands - all three served and were wounded in WWI. In the cases of Coburg and Jago we only read about their doings in WWII, whereas most of the Rowlands series happens in the 1920s and 1930s.

Aldwych, unlike any of the other stations featured in this series so far, did reopen after WWII ended, but closed again permanently in 1994. Lord's and Whitechapel Road (not the same station as Whitechapel!) have both been permanently closed a long time. Marlborough Road has not yet featured in the series, but like Lord's was an intermediate station on the Metropolitan line between Baker Street and Finchley Road, closed when what was then the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line opened in 1939 (now the northern end of the Jubilee line).

Answer: Loughton

Someone who may be involved with the actual crime that the Museum Detectives are investigating is lying low in Loughton, and they travel there to speak to him (he is also definitely involved in the corruption afflicting Fenchurch Street police station). The eastern end of the Central line (Stratford-Epping inclusive, formerly extending as far as Ongar) originally opened as part of what was then the Eastern Counties Railway, which became the Great Eastern after a series of amalgamations. According to Danny Dorling in "The 32 Stops", for my money the best of the small books produced as part of London Underground's 150th anniversary celebrations, Woodford is the last Central line station actually in Greater London.

In the early days of travelcards Loughton was a defining boundary - the furthest east on the Central one could travel on a travelcard.

The other three options are all also on this branch - Buckhurst Hill one stop in from Loughton, Debden one stop out, and Epping the current terminus.