Reichenbach Falls

This article is about the falls. For the 2007 film, see Reichenbach Falls (film). For the 2012 TV episode, see The Reichenbach Fall.

Reichenbach Falls

Reichenbach Falls at night

The Reichenbach Falls (Reichenbachfall) are a series of waterfalls on the River Aar near Meiringen in the Canton of Bern 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.

In popular culture, the falls are known as the location of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hero Sherlock Holmes' final fight with his nemesis Moriarty.

In popular culture

Holmes and Moriarty fighting over the Reichenbach Falls. Art by Sidney Paget.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories

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, fights to the death with his archnemesis, Professor Moriarty, at the end of The Final Problem. 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.” 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." 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.

In other media

One of Turner's paintings of the Reichenbach Falls

The Reichenbach Falls are the subject of two early 19th-century paintings by the Romantic landscape painter J. M. W. Turner.

In the 2002 Detective Conan (Case Closed) animated movie, The Phantom of Baker Street, Ran (Rachel) mentions the Reichenbach Falls when she sacrifices herself to kill Jack the Ripper.

The indie band Ravens & Chimes has named its debut album (released in 2007) after the falls.

Reichenbach Falls was also the title of a 2008 BBC Four TV drama by James Mavor, based on an idea by Ian Rankin and set in Edinburgh. Numerous historical characters associated with the city, including Conan Doyle and his mentor Dr Joseph Bell, are mentioned in the story.

The 2011 movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, an adaptation, in part, of The Final Problem, also hosts the Falls, although in this adaptation, a large castle has been built over them instead of the pathway. Holmes intentionally throws himself and Moriarty over the parapet of a balcony overlooking the cataract, to ensure the criminal's demise.

The third and final episode from the second series of the BBC drama Sherlock, "The Reichenbach Fall," (inspired by The Final Problem), is a play on the waterfall's name. At the beginning of the episode, it is revealed that Holmes has shot to fame after reclaiming one of the Turner paintings, assumedly from theft. The name of the alias Moriarty uses later on in the episode, "Rich(ard) Brook", is the English translation of Reichenbach.

External links

• Reichenbachfall-Bahn
• Photos from a fan - of Sherlockian interest — shows the memorial plate.
• Photos from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London
• "Reichenbach Falls", BBC Four Film & Drama
• Works related to The Final Problem at Wikisource