Story

The story of Reichenbach Falls

Reichenbach Falls

At this fearful place, Sherlock Holmes vanquished Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891. So reads a plaque on a ledge across the falls. It marks a fictional fight: in The Final Problem, first published in 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle sent his detective to struggle to the death with his greatest foe here. Doyle was shown these falls on a Swiss holiday by his host, Sir Henry Lunn.

According to Lunn's grandson, Sir Henry told him to push Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls; Doyle had never heard of them, so Lunn showed him, and Doyle was so impressed that he decided to let his hero die here. The Reichenbach Falls drop a total of 250 metres, and the upper Great Reichenbach Fall, at 110 metres, is one of the highest waterfalls in the Alps. A funicular brings you up, and a memorial plate at its station remembers Holmes.

The English painter J. M. W. Turner painted these falls too.

This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗

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