Just some thoughts on Distances in Enola Holmes: Basilwether Hall and Station
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In the way of most Sherlock Holmes-based media, Enola Holmes (2020) features London as its geographic focal point. But London is not the only location. Several fictional locations are featured– Ferndell, Enola’s childhood home, Basilwether Hall and Station, the scene of the climax and the start of the train ride to London, and Miss Harrison’s Finishing School for Girls. None of these have obvious canon locations, but there is evidence that can be used to make estimates. In the last post, I tried to establish some speed estimates for the modes of transport used in Enola Holmes (2020). Now, I hope to use them.
The first stop on our tour is Basilwether Hall and Basilwether Station, which I have taken the liberty of assuming are within relatively close proximity. I have selected this location because out of the options available this is both complex and has the least amount of guesswork attached. Furthermore, it has the potential to be used as a reference point for both Ferndell and Miss Harrison's Finishing School for Girls, so it really should be dealt with first.
A. PREPARATION
1. Known Information
Firstly, I reviewed what I knew. Basilwether Station is on a rail line, of course, so maps of the railways in the 1880s might come in handy. We also know that it is not the same station as Ferndell’s, but within walking distance of Ferndell. We know it is possible to take an express train to London from Basilwether, and that the line crosses at least one viaduct and countryside. We also have Tewkesbury's wanted poster. I upped the contrast and clarity so you can see it for yourself.
[Image 01]
What IS this? Hants? Hunts? Herts? Heref with the “f” decapitated? Could someone with a high definition screenshot pick up my brainwaves and come forward?
Whatever it is, Basilwether is found within what is clearly is a county that starts with an H. Here is a link if you want to take a stab at it.
In absence of any shortcut, and not quite willing to trust my screenshotting skills, I’m going to dive into the following formulae:
Speed = Distance/Time
Time = Distance / Speed
Distance = Speed * Time
to try and establish some likely distances between London and Basilwether. This will not be sufficient to locate Basilwether, but setting some maximum distances will give us an area in which to search.
2. Estimate Perimeter of Victorian London
Now here's the thing: London is not a point, especially when it comes to distances that might be measured in miles instead of tens of miles. At it's narrowest, today, the urban center is about seven miles across, and we don't know where or how far in our protagonists traveled before splitting up.
So, I needed to define what “from London” means for me, and find a center for my range rings. I can then set up a radius around it, to give an average distance from the center. Modern estimates weren't particularly helpful, as I need mine to be based on Victorian geography. Encyclopedia Britannica gave an estimated east-west length of 15 miles in 1850. But that would not account for growth in the 30 years following, or the north-south axis. So, I used the 1884 perimeter London and it's satellite towns, or thereabouts, employing an excellent old map of London in 1880. You can access it here and download it here.
Then I marked the exterior towns to Google Maps, tentatively marked the center of the polygon. In one direction the city appears to have a length of nine miles, and in the other six. 9 x 6 = 15, 15/2 = 7.5. 7.5/2 = 3.5, but I erred on the side of caution and selected a radius that would include most of the built area-- 4 miles. I then used GPS Visualizer to draw the range ring.
[Image 02]
When I finally got to drawing the range rings for potential distances, I needed to add this measure (4 miles) to the intended result to get my distance from (the center of) London.
B. MEASURING THE JOURNEY
For this part, I used travel speeds and time spent traveling to establish maximum distances. We see at least three different modes of transportation on the way to London, with different implied speeds, so to get a decent reckoning I divided the journey up into segments based on mode of transportation and evident start/stop times:
The train journey
The walk
Movement by wagon.
I also added an implied fourth, "Movement before sunrise", since they don't appear to have been sleeping on a roadside, so they would have had to cover additional land to reach a road.
And, after several days of fiddling with constants and variables, and ending up with imprecise results due to constantly rounding, I compiled together a spreadsheet to keep the different elements of the formula in order. Below, I posted a sample. As you can see, there are a lot of options I have still to narrow down!
[Image 03]
I will explain each part now.
1. The Train (Blue)
TRAIN SPEED X TIME SPENT TRAVELING = TRACK DISTANCE
What are our constants? Speed, and time.
i. SPEED
In the first post, I established a reasonable speed for Victorian era trains. But there is one more factor here, one which I didn’t account for: survivability. Since the protagonists jumped from the train, it makes sense to expect that the speed would be survivable. Under that stricture, a quick search indicated that 30-35 mph is about the top speed the train could have been going when they jumped off the train. [1][2][3][4][5] It is worth noting, however, that it is possible the train was slowing down for the viaduct anyway. I chose to accommodate both a 30 and 40 mph option in the spreadsheet.
ii. TIME
Next step is to find out how long the train was traveling, we ideally should have a start time and a stop time. The start time is simple: We do see that 9:15 was when the train was scheduled to leave in this article:
[Image 04]
And the estimate is supported by the clock in the station.
[Image 05]
A little late out the gate, but as mentioned in the last post, the conductor could account for that delay by upping the speed a bit.
The hard part is when the train segment stops. We don’t have a consecutive sequence between Enola entering the train and leaving it. Sadly I don’t have any further clocks on the train to compare the time to, and the one sighting of a "clock" I did find after the cut back to Ferndell turned out to be some sort of box.
So, these were my options: onscreen time, or a guess-- and guesswork isn't an option I wish to consider. If we’re going by onscreen time, the train was used for roughly 6.5 minutes.
22m28s-22m00s=28s
28m12s-25m08s=3m4s->184s
37s given by from the titlecard
25m04s-22m48s=2m16s->136s
28s+184s+37s+136s= 385s -> 6m25s -> 9:21:25
This, then, is my lower limit.
When I compiled the spreadsheet, I also thought to give another option: fifteen minutes. This is on the outside, though; Linthorn would surely have reached the compartment by then.
So here is the formula:
Train Speed (30 or 40 mph) x CONVERT(Travel time (385s or 15 minutes)) = Distance.
Also, as mentioned in the previous post, this would only calculate for track miles-- meaning that depending on how winding the road is, the shorter the ground in a single direction they may actually cover. I adopted one source's attempt to compensate, and so have incorporated an alternative set available for estimated straight-line distance. Here is the formula:
(Train Speed (30 or 40 mph)-(Train Speed (30 or 40 mph) x 0.15)) x CONVERT(Travel Time (385s or 15 minutes)) = Distance
2. The Walk (Yellow)
The next phase is the walk that follows the escape from the train. The previous post had established a reasonable and lower limit for the walking speed, but other parameters needed to be established.
(Start_walk - end_walk) * Walking_speed = Distance
First, how long did they spend walking? While this could be up to interpretation, I cannot imagine they would stay around long. As such, I perhaps optimistically equated the start of the walk to the end of the train sequence.
As for when they stop, we only see one night onscreen, but they didn't continue walking through it. Instead, the protagonists stopped around sunset, so I needed to establish the time of sunset to get the end value.
And for that, I needed to establish the date.
The text in Image 05 suggests that the train incident was on Monday the 16th in 1884. In 1884, the only month with a Monday the 16th and Tuesday the 17th is June. But another theory holds that the movie is set in 1900, which features Monday the 16th in either April or July. I set up the equations with the alternative dates of 16 July 1884 (Not a Monday) and 16 July 1900 (Monday), to give some alternatives. I have omitted April 1900, as the climate makes it unlikely, but added the results for the 17th of each of the other options.
As for the timings of solar events? Fortunately, the internet provides. Unfortunately, Tumblr has a limit for images per post, so I placed my findings in an Appendix, and can be reached through this link:
Appendix A: Calculator Results
If we average the two results for sunsets true to the date (and not just given to give a ballpark for lighting, as #2 is),
1884 June: 8:20 + 8:18:30 /2 = 8:19.25 PM -> 8:20
1884 July: 8:10+8:09m47s / 2 = 8:9.53.5 -> 8:10
1900 July: 8:11+8:10:41 / 2 = 8:10:50.5 ->8:11
A rough average of 8:15 PM seemed reasonable, but spreadsheets allow for greater precision. As such, I kept the three options.
They had begun their trek about 9:23 or so, let’s give them a couple minutes to work out their location and make it 9:25 for our own convenience… and probably experienced some delay seeing as they would have needed to ford that river somewhere, so… about 10 hours 55 minutes (655 minutes) if in June, and 10 hours 45 minutes (645 minutes) if in July.
Almost eleven hours of walking– Let’s have a moment of silence for their poor feet.
3. Movement Before Sunrise (Purple)
I added this unseen segment, but I think it is necessary for an accurate result. The protagonists had to get to the wagon at some time before dawn, and their speed on foot was potentially faster than that of the wagon. As such, I needed to account for a potential increase in mileage before they hop on. The potential speed variations meant I added a couple different options in the spreadsheet: 2 mph and 2.5 mph. I did the same for the final leg.
"In the morning, we'll have to move fast."
The dialog, combined with the scene at 34:22, suggests that they left as soon as it was light enough to see. The protagonists' animated conversation suggests they didn't just climb aboard half-asleep, either. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest civil twilight at the earliest, though, for visibility.
For June, that would be 48 minutes duration according to our second calculator, and 47 minutes 42 seconds for the third. The first does not compute civil twilight, but I think 48 minutes before sunrise works. Since I have the spreadsheet, though, I went with the most precise result. Similar reasoning applies to the data entered for the other options.
From the evidence available, it is impossible to determine exactly when they hitch a ride, but I think it is reasonable to assume sunrise as the latest, given the scene at 34:22 depicts sunrise:
[Image 06]
The final formulae for this leg:
Speed x time
(Speed-(Speedx15%)) x time
Where speed can be either 2.5 or 2 mph.
4. Movement By Wagon (Green)
The final leg. If you have gotten this far, I tip my hat to you. It's been a long ride.
As Image 06 above shows, the sun is rising before they enter London, but past this point the slope is downhill and should be fairly quick. I don’t know if what we see on the horizon is London proper or meant to be a suburb, and I don't know where this ride stops, or when. Needless to say, this segment has the most guesswork.
But I did find a few hints. When the protagonists arrive and split up in London or it’s urban premises, I was able to catch the tail end of the bell tolling the hour at 35m04s. Sadly, the score and Enola speaking makes the exact count unclear– perhaps three or four tolls.
And with Sherlock and Mycroft at the club (36m30s), a bell in the distance is apparently tolling out the same time – three or four chimes after the melody. I can’t exactly make out the transition from the melody to the chime to be confident there are absolutely four chimes, but I definitely made out three. Sherlock is reading the Pall Mall Gazette (An Evening Newspaper), and it is reporting the escape of two boys from a train at 9:15 on “Monday 16th”– “yesterday”– in it’s “Summary of Yesterday’s News”, before moving on to “This Evening’s News”.
[Image 07]
Because of the bells, I was able to assume they arrived on the hour-- but which hour? That, I am not certain. For convenience, I have added any daylight hour after the starting time to the spreadsheet as a viable time of arrival, except those which would result in less than three bells being rung.
For the formula, I marked the end of the third leg as the beginning of the fourth, and, given the people walking along with the cart, allowed for either 2mph or 2.5 mph speeds.
C. NARROWING THINGS DOWN
As a result of these variables, at this point my results range at nearly 550 different options, and, given I am also calculating straight-line distance, I have over a thousand range rings currently available as options.
For the moment, though, here are the viable ranges:
[Image 08] KMZ can be downloaded here, and source spreadsheet here.
For June 1884, if only the train's screentime and title card are counted, we find a maximum potential radius of 65.475 miles at largest, and 31.352 miles for the smallest possible maximum. If one assumes the train was moving for 15 minutes, however, the largest possible range would be 60.874 miles, and the shortest maximum range 35.357 miles. As such, June has the largest variety of results.
If I account for lost time, however, we find a maximum potential radius of 56.254 miles at largest, and 31.352 miles for the smallest possible maximum. With the train was moving for 15 minutes, the largest possible range would be 70.911 miles, and the shortest maximum range 30.654 miles.
For July 1884, if only the train's screentime and title card are counted, we find a maximum potential radius of 64.149 miles at largest, and 32.229 miles for the smallest possible maximum. If one assumes the train was moving for 15 minutes, however, the largest possible range would be 69.586 miles, and the shortest maximum range 36.234 miles.
If I account for lost time, however, we find a maximum potential radius of 55.127 miles at largest, and 31.352 miles for the smallest possible maximum. With the train moving for 15 minutes, the largest possible range would be 70.911 miles, and the shortest maximum range 31.399 miles.
For July 1900, if only the train's screentime and title card are counted, we find a maximum potential radius of 64.226 miles at largest, and 32.295 miles for the smallest possible maximum. If one assumes the train was moving for 15 minutes, however, the largest possible range would be 59.748 miles, and the shortest maximum range 36.301 miles.
If I account for lost time, however, we find a maximum potential radius of 55.192 miles at largest, and 31.352 miles for the smallest possible maximum. With the train moving for 15 minutes, however, the largest possible range would be 59.812 miles, and the shortest maximum range 31.455 miles.
Personally, I am of the mind that given all the other props indicate 1n 1884 date, the results from 1900 should be eliminated. This should cut down 175 or so results, leaving us with a more manageable 368. From there, I could eliminate July, leaving us with the June dates. This would leave us with 191 results. The scene of Sherlock reading the Pall Mall Gazette suggests that Enola arrived in the early afternoon, so that cuts out results after 5:00 PM.
I need to come back to narrow things down further, but it will need to be in another post, as I am approaching the image limit. In the meantime, I conclude under the parameters outlined above, one can probably expect Basilwether to be no more West than Swindon, or north than Peterborough. (That, or Tewky was slow to escape the carpet bag and Enola was slow to find the compartment, because the train was by far the biggest multiplier for distance.)
1/27/2022 Edit: Apparently, I forgot to add in the 2.5 mph estimates for the first segment. I have since updated the spreadsheet to include these values.
