The
Reichenbach Falls (Reichenbachfall) are a series of
waterfalls on the
River Aar near
Meiringen in
Bern canton in central
Switzerland. They have a total drop of 250 m (820 ft). At 90 m (295.2 ft), the Upper Reichenbach Falls is one of the highest cataracts in the
Alps. The falls are made accessible by the
Reichenbachfall-Bahn funicular railway.
Today, a
hydro-electric power company harnesses the flow of the Reichenbach Falls during certain times of year, greatly reducing its flow.
The town and the falls are known worldwide as the setting for an entirely fictional event: it is the location where
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hero,
Sherlock Holmes, apparently dies at the end of
The Final Problem locked in mortal combat with his
arch nemesis,
Professor Moriarty. Out of many
waterfalls in the
Bernese Oberland, the Reichenbach Falls seems to have made the greatest impression on
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, having been shown them one Swiss holiday by his host and founder of
Lunn Poly and the Public Schools Alpine Sports Club (later the
Alpine Ski Club),
Sir Henry Lunn. His grandson, the skier and
SIS spymaster,
Peter Lunn recalled “My grandfather said 'Push him over the Reichenbach Falls’ and Conan Doyle hadn’t heard of them, so he showed them to him.”
[1] So impressed was Doyle that he decided to let his hero die there. A memorial plate at the
funicular station commemorates Holmes and there is a Sherlock Holmes museum in the nearby town of
Meiringen.
The actual ledge from which Moriarty and Holmes apparently fell is on the other side of the falls to the funicular; it is accessible by climbing the path to the top of the falls, crossing the bridge and following the trail down the hill. The ledge is marked by
a plaque written in
English,
German and
French; the English inscription reads, "At this fearful place, Sherlock Holmes vanquished
Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891." This is a reference to an event in Conan Doyle's "
The Adventure of the Empty House", in which Holmes is revealed to have survived the fight with Moriarty due to his knowledge of "
baritsu, or Japanese wrestling" and to have taken the opportunity to fake his own death, to protect himself from
Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's henchman. The pathway on which the duel between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty occurs ends some hundred yards away from the falls. When Doyle viewed the falls, the path ended very close to the falls, close enough to touch it, yet over the hundred years after his visit, the pathway has become unsafe and slowly eroded away, and due to the nature of waterfalls, the falls have receded further back into the gorge.
Source from Wikipedia
