Sherlock Holmes and the mystery of why he's so shy about his illustrious looks

When actors work on set, their every need is catered for. And when Benedict Cumberbatch, the Sherlock actor who was once described as looking like a Meerkat in a Magimix, is delivered his coffee in a Styrofoam cup, he has his own sardonic way of making the experience more fun.

‘I try to get [the assistants] to write Sir Benedict on the cup,’ he says. ‘Occasionally, they oblige.’

As it turns out, he may not be a Sir but he is even posher than most of his fans previously thought.

Leading man: Benedict Cumberbatch and rumoured past romance Lydia Hearst pictured together last year in Los Angeles

It is well known that Cumberbatch, who this week started making the highly-anticipated third BBC series of Sherlock, grew up in Kensington and went to Harrow School (fees £32,160 a year).

However, despite giving dozens of interviews, he has never previously disclosed quite how illustrious his background is.

Why? Well, Cumberbatch is rather touchy about the subject of class. He told the Radio Times in August that he was fed up with ‘all the posh-bashing that goes on … It’s all so predictable. So domestic, so dumb. It makes me think I want to go to America.’

He continued, with some energy: ‘I wasn’t born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig.’

Fair enough. But while his family isn’t exactly rolling in it, the Cumberbatches have long been extremely eminent in society circles — so much so that The Times newspaper extensively covered the 1934 wedding of his grandfather, Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, a submarine commander who was decorated in both World Wars.

Unusually, The Times illustrated the piece with a picture as well as a full description of the bride’s dress, flowers and headdress and a comprehensive list of the guests.

On-screen success: Benedict Cumberbatch became a household name after the successful BBC series Sherlock where he plays the title role with Martin Freeman as Watson

Lost love: Benedict ended his long-term relationship with university sweetheart Olivia Poulet in 2011

Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, by the way, was also described as a noted crack shot with a rifle, an exceptional rower and a ‘strong’ tennis player. His manly charm was noted by fellow officers.

Perhaps Benedict, who favours extreme sports such as paragliding and skydiving, gets some of his physical derring-do from that side of the family.

I can also reveal that his great-grandfather, Henry Alfred Cumberbatch, was the British Consul General in Smyrna, Turkey, and ruffled feathers with his protests against the slave trade in the area at the time.

Records show that in a single month in 1872, he made seven reports to the Foreign Office on the subject — and was instructed to turn a blind eye to the issue, and leave it to local authorities instead. He was also banned from sheltering slaves at the embassy.

Later, in recognition of his diplomatic service, he was created CMG — an honour sometimes known as ‘Call Me God’, a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael & St George.

Both men sound like the sort of relatives who would make one burst with pride. So why has Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch kept so quiet about them?

It seems Cumberbatch is rather sweetly angst-ridden about his high beginnings and the way he is publicly perceived. Nevertheless, he struggles to quash his patrician sense of proper standards.

Take the way he bemoaned modern culture in a recent interview: ‘It’s very hard getting into the car in the morning and listening to some radio station and thinking, “This is the level that people are engaging at on quite a few conversations.” ’

He went on: ‘I’m a firm believer in audiences being so much more intelligent than the s*** they get fed.’

Posh pedigree: Benedict Cumberbatch is a Harrow School alumni and grew up in London's swanky Kensington

His outspoken side flashed out again a few days later when he described the second series of Downton Abbey as ‘f***ing atrocious’ — rather unexpected, as he is very close friends with Downton actor Dan Stevens.

Friends of Cumberbatch (who are, without exception, fiercely fond of him) say that he is very frustrated that people misconstrue his remarks, and insist that he is often misquoted, or has his jokes misunderstood.

‘He likes to make jokes before you do, and he’s very intelligent, so sometimes the joke runs away with him,’ one explains, adding that he called himself ‘Shergar’ (in reference to his rather horsey appearance) long before any of the other boys at school did.

Perhaps his humour is a bit of a defence mechanism in a glitzy world where he is rather a fish out of water. After all, he is fantastically intelligent, which must make it difficult to trade the banalities necessary for showbiz interviews.

Those who have got to know him in Cardiff, where he spends months at a time working on Sherlock, say he can strike a rather solitary figure.

‘You see him walking around the town on his days off, and he’s almost always alone,’ said one.

Another added: ‘All the cast and crew stay in the same big hotel in the city centre, but he doesn’t. I hear he stays in a small lodge outside Cardiff — I guess because he likes to have his own space.’

You can see why Cumberbatch, 36, comes across as slightly terrifying, what with his pale blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and sharp mind.

But a friend who bumped into him at Sir David Frost’s summer party last year said his public image was at odds with how he comes across in private. ‘He’s so lovely and soft,’ she said. ‘He was not at all how I imagined. He is very close to his half-sister, who is much older than him and was ill at the time. He was very supportive of her, and I really admired it.’

His tender side was also shown when he recently confessed to a yearning to be a father. ‘I sort of have a clock ticking,’ he told an interviewer. ‘I’d like to be a dad before I’m 40.’

Being famous, he says, makes it harder. ‘I’m in weird territory.’

His half-sister, Tracy Tabernacle, 58, who lives in Wiltshire, said: ‘One of his regrets is that he hasn’t found someone to settle down with.

‘I think they would have to be someone not in the acting profession. Someone who was happy to hold the fort while he went off and pursued his career.’

He split from actress Olivia Poulet, who had been his girlfriend since university, in 2011. Since then, there has been a year-long romance with fashion designer Anna Jones and dates with actress Liv Tyler and model Lydia Hearst, but he’s been too busy for a real romance.

It is clear there is no shortage of female fans who would be delighted to volunteer. Some call themselves ‘Cumberbitches’ — that Twitter page alone has 26,000 followers.

Fame and fortune: With Sherlock now being sold to the U.S. and the filming of the third series commencing, the only way is up for Benedict Cumberbatch

It’s a fame that looks likely to grow and grow. With Sherlock sold in the U.S., and following his roles in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse last year and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit this year, he’s becoming a global star.

May sees the release of the next Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness, in which he plays the villain, a terrorist called John Harrison. His role is a film-stealing one, and movies don’t get much bigger in terms of budget or expectation.

He’s just finished the film Twelve Years A Slave, about a man kidnapped and sold into slavery, with Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender among the cast.

On a smaller scale, he has just finished filming The Fifth Estate, based on the story of Wikileaks boss Julian Assange. He has become good friends with Assange as a result.

An open event in Los Angeles, which involved a screening and Q&A session with Cumberbatch, drew 10,000 applicants for 400 tickets. His fans are particularly enthusiastic in Japan, where he has been mobbed at the airport.

His success comes as a great, if poignant, vindication of the support of his parents, both of whom are actors but have enjoyed far less stellar careers.

His father, Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch, acts under the name Timothy Carlton. He has been in the TV comedies Executive Stress and Next Of Kin.

His mother, Wanda Ventham, is best known for playing Colonel Virginia Lake in the Seventies sci-fi series UFO and Cassandra’s mother, Pamela, in Only Fools And Horses.

Cumberbatch said in an interview that his mother took on commercial theatre roles when he was younger to keep the family finances afloat.

Benedict, their only child, was always at home on the stage. One family joke is that when he was playing Joseph in a Nativity play he shoved the girl playing Mary out of the way because he felt she was too slow in saying her lines. He was three at the time.

At Harrow, he had been thinking of a future in the law, which his parents approved of more than acting; but then — against parental advice — went on to study drama at Manchester University.

He said: ‘They just saw the pitfalls of it every day. You don’t know where your next job is coming from, and it’s unstable, and you want stability for your children.

‘Everything that was bad about it for them, they wanted me to be free of. But I just kept on doing it.’

Eventually his father came to see him playing Salieri in a university production of Amadeus, Peter Schaffer’s play about Mozart.

Benedict recalls: ‘In a car park afterwards, we were saying goodbye and my father said: “You are better than I was, or ever will be. You will have a really good time doing this for a living.”

‘And I cried. And from that moment I thought: “OK, if I’ve got his blessing, then I’m going to do it.” ’