'Take Five'

Day 6

Baker Street - Balham - Bank - Barbican - Barking

 

So, we're on to the 'B's.

 

And if things go well, I'm hoping to get at least three, possibly four, stations under my belt today. I've had a few days off, I'm feeling refreshed, I've packed my camera and notebook in my bag, and I'm walking the familiar route to Ealing Broadway to catch a train into town.

 

For the first time on this journey, however, I'll be starting off by catching a train that doesn't actually feature on the standard Tube Map. The National Rail Network, or Main Line, or Ordinary Passenger Train Network (is it the passengers or the trains that are ordinary?) links London with the outside world. There are of course Main Line stations connected to many underground stations, (Waterloo, Victoria, Liverpool Street, and so on) and the one at Paddington is the end of the line for trains coming in from the west of England and Wales. As luck would have it, many of these trains pass through Ealing Broadway on their way to Paddington, which is then a quick 7 minute hop further on, often non-stop.

 

Which is good news for me this morning, as my first stop is just a few stations along from Paddington, and I can be there in less than half an hour - I'm on my way to Baker Street. 

 

***

"Duh-der-derrr, diddle, duddle-derrrr.....,

Duh-der-derrr, diddle, derrrrrr.........."

Most of us know at least two things about Baker Street - one is it that it is the home of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (from whom we'll be hearing lots more later), and the other is that bloody saxophone riff.

The mere thought, mention or sight of the words "Baker Street" has Gerry Rafferty's tune running on a loop in my head, and this is of course especially true today as I walk into Ealing. For some reason however, it's jockeying for position with Beethoven's "Ode To Joy", which I'm fairly sure is not so much a reflection of my emotional state, and more the fact that its tempo more or less matches my walking pace.

 

Once I'm actually on the train, of course, the saxophone wins the day, and is still providing the soundtrack as I emerge from the train at Baker Street a short time later.

 

Some claim that Baker Street was the first ever London Underground station - but this causes me some confusion. Do they mean it was the first station whose construction was completed? Or do they mean it was the first one to be opened? Surely there must have been at least one other station, otherwise where would the trains go?

 

In fact the "Metropolitan Railway", which was the first underground line in London (and indeed the world), was officially opened on the 10th January 1863. This connected the existing main line stations at Paddington, Euston and King's Cross, with new stations at places like Farringdon Street, Edgware Road, and of course Baker Street. The official opening date given for all of these new stations is the same, so if one of them wants to be the 'first', they're just going to have to fight it out amongst themselves.

 

What is absolutely positively 100% definite and undisputed about Baker Street, is its connection to Sherlock Holmes. It's a connection they scream from the rooftops. From the moment you step onto the platform and see the tiled murals depicting the famous "pipe and deer-stalker" profile in silhouette, to the huge statue of the man himself which looms over the main entrance to the station on Marylebone Road, you are made very much aware of who's important round here.

 

From past experience, I know that the main entrance will be packed with tourists taking photos of themselves next to the great detective, so to avoid them I take the side exit onto the north end of Baker Street itself.

 

It is truly impossible to avoid that famous silhouette. Sherlock Holmes is everywhere. Apart from the statue, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum (which I'll come to later), there's a café calling itself Bar Linda (not, as far as I recall, a reference to anything in the Holmes canon) which has an amateurishly daubed version of his profile on their sign; an advertisement on the wall next to another café which tempts us with "Sherlock Holmes Food" (whatever that is); a "Holmes Fish And Chip Shop" further down the road, and a Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel, whose restaurant ("Sherlock's") offers a "Sherlock Holmes Burger". There's even an art gallery called "Mori-ART-y's" (Ok, that last one was a lie, but I wouldn't have been at all surprised.)

 

It's not as if there were no other candidates for "most famous resident" on the street - and these people actually existed! Walking south I see two official English Heritage Blue Plaques, one marking the former residence of the composer Eric Coates, who lived at Flat 176, Chiltern court, and the other the home of William Pitt The Younger, the youngest person to date to become Prime Minister, who lived at number 120. There's also a blue plaque erected by the Heritage Foundation, marking the site of the Beatles' ill-fated Apple Boutique at number 94, with the inscription "John Lennon and George Harrison worked here".

 

Much as I enjoy the Holmes stories, I do wonder how a fictional detective from the 19th Century has managed to take over this area to such a marked extent. The tourists clamouring to be photographed in front of Buckingham Palace or Westminster or Nelson's Column I can understand, but the ones queuing to stand next to an actor dressed in faux Victorian police uniform outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum? No - I don't get that at all...

 

The museum is situated at the famous address, 221B Baker Street... except of course it isn't really, as this address never actually existed.

 

In the first place, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the stories, the house numbers only went up as far as 100. Then, as new buildings were erected and house numbers were reallocated, the block which housed numbers 215-229 was, for decades, the property of the Abbey National Building Society. Despite there being no part of their building corresponding to 221B, they seem to have welcomed the implied association, and even gone so far as to employ a secretary specifically charged with answering the correspondence addressed to Sherlock Holmes at that address.

 

The Sherlock Holmes Museum, meanwhile, occupies the building between numbers 237 and 241 (i.e. number 239) but they have been officially allowed to call themselves number 221B since 1990. This naturally caused some controversy (and we love a bit of controversy) as to which building would officially receive, and respond to, all of the fan mail. The resulting dispute went on for many years, until Abbey National finally left their building in 2005, and, by default, the museum gained the right to receive Mr Holmes' correspondence.

 

It's all a bit silly really.

 

The Sherlock Holmes Museum -
A fool and his money...

221B or 239 Baker Street -
Depending on whether or not
you can count.

I hesitate in front of the museum trying to decide whether or not to go in. It feels very touristy, and not at all in keeping with the kind of travelogue I think I'm engaged in.

 

Eventually I bite the bullet and go in - but only as far as the ground floor, which is entirely given over to the purveyance of souvenirs. The amount and variety of utter tat available is staggering. Should you wish, you can avail yourself of  a deer-stalker, walking cane, pipe, tobacco, matches, notebook, magnifying glass, business card holder, police whistle, playing cards, fridge magnet or (and here the mind boggles) a pen in the shape of a hypodermic syringe. All (of course) adorned with the standard silhouette. If you decide to purchase any of these delights, you'll be relieved of your money by one of the three or four bored looking young women in "Victorian Housemaid" garb, and for a further £8 you can gain access to the "museum" upstairs where Holmes' and Watson's living quarters have no doubt been painstakingly recreated.

Disneyland it ain't...

***

On the way back to the station (I didn't bother going upstairs in the museum) I pass the London Underground Lost Property Office, which is situated a few doors up from it. In the window is a selection of items left on trains over the years - some of which are pleasingly bizarre. There are even a couple of early mobile phones, which despite being the size of a small briefcase, seem ever to have been the items most commonly left behind...

Lost Property - the things people take on the tube...

I suppose I should also take a look at the Holmes statue while I'm here, and avoiding the tourists as far as possible, I manage to combine a photo of the statue with my obligatory snapshot of the station name sign.

Baker Street - damn, got that
tune in my head again now...

Sherlock Holmes - he's not
actually real you know.

***

Next stop - Balham.

Balham - Gateway To The South?

In 1940 a German bomb scored an almost direct hit on Balham Station, collapsing tunnels on top of the people sheltering from the air-raid, and bursting water mains and sewers which flowed into the tunnels and platforms. Figures differ, but at least 64 people lost their lives here. A barely noticeable grey plaque on the wall of the ticket hall commemorates the event - a stark contrast to the gaudy "look at me!" references to Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street.

At first I'm a little disappointed by the sight of the "99p Stores", McDonalds, Wetherspoon Pub, and Amusement Arcade that greets me as I emerge from the station - it's all very familiar and "inner city" and I'm tempted to turn on my heel back into the station and head straight on to Bank - my next destination. However, mindful of the strictures I gave myself last week, I resolve to give the place a chance, and head off down the main street - Balham High Road.

It's worth it - tucked in among the usual suspects are enough independent coffee shops, restaurants, traditional butchers and the like, to make this feel more like a little village (albeit a rather grey and shabby one) and less like just another forgotten corner of the metropolis.

Nevertheless, other than for a spot of lunch, I only linger for twenty minutes or so. Nice though it is to know it's here, there's only so much coffee (independent or otherwise) I can drink in a day, and just at the moment I have no urgent need of a traditional butcher, thanks all the same.

Off to Bank it is then.

***

Waiting on the platform at Balham, my mind goes back to the tragedy that occurred here in the war, and I try to imagine the water rising over the platform. It's difficult to picture, not least because I can't help wondering why the water didn't simply drain away through the tunnels.

Looking it up at home later, it becomes a little clearer. As well as the water, of course, the earth above the tunnels will have collapsed into them and onto the people below. It must have been like another Somme down there - a mass of mud and sewage clogging up the platforms and tunnels...

***

Usefully, Bank is on the same line - the Northern Line - as Balham, and I'll be there in less than half an hour. On the train, the woman opposite me is in a "onesie" (a kind of Babygro for adults) while the infant in the pushchair in front of her is in sweatpants and designer puffa jacket.

I can't help feeling it should be the other way round...

***

It's beginning to rain a little as I come out of Bank Station and take in the immense buildings surrounding me.

There's a lot of history in these buildings, and the Bank Of England, after which Bank Station is of course named, is just one part of that.

Bank - once voted the least liked tube station in London

 

The Bank Of England

I know little of the history of the Bank, and am tempted by the signs for a museum I see, pointing me towards one of the side-entrances.

 

Sadly, unlike the museum dedicated to Sherlock Holmes, this one is shut.

 

I wander around among the other buildings - the Corn Exchange, the Magistrates Court, Mansion House - but feel distinctly out of place in the throng of grey suits criss-crossing the junction around me.

 

A statue commemorating the inventor of a tunnelling shield used in the excavation of the deep-level tube system - James Henry Greathead - is really the only thing I feel any sort of connection with here, and that's only because of this journey.

 

James Henry Greathead -
he really dug London

Since my earnings don't contain nearly enough zeros (at least, not at the right end) to remain here much longer, I decide to head off - on foot for a change - towards the next station on my list, which is Barbican.

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Street names in London really are a law unto themselves.

 

Poultry - both the name of the
street and the subject
of the statue.

Along my way to Barbican I encounter Poultry, Cheapside, Old Jewry, Ironmonger Lane, St Martin's Le-Grand and London Wall - not a plain old crescent or avenue among them.

 

There's a statue adorning a building on the street called Poultry, which shows a cherubic figure holding a goose. I presume this is the poultry in question, but why it merits a street all to itself I never discover.

Barbican - brutal is beautiful, apparently

Fifteen minutes or so later I'm outside the less than enticing entrance to Barbican tube station. It's pretty much hidden among the concrete buildings that surround and tower over it. This whole area was redeveloped after the war in what has become known as the "Brutalist" school of architecture - anything that could be made of (and made to look like) huge concrete blocks, was.

 

 

There are little oases of softness hidden away among the stark grey buildings, and one of these is the Lakeside Terrace outside the Barbican Arts Centre. I've occasionally been to see plays at the Barbican, and always tend to head outside in the interval, as it can all get a bit oppressive around here. I head there now to recharge my batteries for the next, and final, stop of the day.

Barbican Arts Centre and Lakeside Terrace - one for the concretophiles

Lakeside Terrace - "Aaaand, relax....."

***

Having only planned to visit three or four stations today, I'm pleasantly surprised to realise that at 2.30pm I've already managed to tick off four stations, and am ideally placed to manage one more this afternoon. That's what I call getting your Five A Day!

 

I'm also ticking off a new Underground Line - the Hammersmith & City - which leaves only the Circle Line, the Waterloo & City Line and the Emirates Air Line (well, I mean, it's on the map - I've got to do it, haven't I?) and I'll have travelled on every single line on the Underground system.

 

The Hammersmith & City Line is taking me to Barking - further out east. In fact this is the furthest east I've been so far on my journey.

 

The H&C Line also luxuriates in the same brand spanking new trains (or "Rolling Stock" as the aficionados would have it) as the Overground and it's a very pleasant ride to Barking.

 

And there my enjoyment stops.

 

I don't know what it is about the place, but I feel very uncomfortable. I might be imagining it, but I get the sense that everyone is looking me up and down as if I'd walked into a saloon in Dodge City. Even the busker outside the station (the worst I've ever heard in my life by the way) chooses the moment I exit the station to stop playing.

 

"You ain't from round here, boy..." says nothing but my imagination, but it says it loudly and distinctly enough that I barely manage the ten minute walk up and down the high street, past two pubs (The Barking Dog and The Spotted Dog - although Rabid, Salivating, Subject-To-The-Dangerous-Dogs-Act Type Dogs might have been nearer the mark) and T. Cribb Funeral Directors (from the cradle to the grave???) before taking as speedy and surreptitious a photo of the station as I can manage, and hightailing it out of there.

Barking - I made my excuses and left