Oxford

For both Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire we have two considerations. Firstly, did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle situate his stories there? Secondly, a favourite game of Sherlockians, which university did Sherlock Holmes attend? In none of the three stories set in a university town (“The Adventure of the Creeping Man”, “The Adventure of The Missing Three-Quarter” and “The Adventure of The Three Students”) does it state that Sherlock Holmes was visiting his old university. Nor does it state in the two stories (“The Gloria Scott”, “The Musgrave Ritual”) where Sherlock Holmes refers to his university life, which university he attended. Sir Arthur was well aware of the game he was playing- describing the Creeping Man as occurring in Camford!”  Strong cases have been made for both Oxford and Cambridge over the years. Only one of the stories “The Missing Three-Quarter” can be attributed with certainty -Sir Arthur tells us it was set in Cambridge. Roger Lancelyn Green ingeniously suggested that Holmes spent his first two years at Cambridge and then transferred to Oxford so that he actually belonged to both universities!