Sherlockian Sojourns #23: ‘Surely that is Baker Street’

My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.

“Do you know where we are?” he whispered.

“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim window. [EMPT]

 

221b Baker Street is one of the most famous addresses in literature, and many letters are still received to this day asking Mr. Holmes for assistance. However, due to being full of commercial properties, Baker Street now looks so unlike how it did in Holmes’ day that television and film have had to look elsewhere for a suitable street for the exterior of Holmes and Watson’s ‘suite of rooms’. Many have dealt with this by building Baker Street in a studio, such as the Granada series’ in Manchester (whose recreation I walked during my student days), the ‘Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’ set at Pinewood, and the ‘A Study in Terror’ set at Shepperton. However, several productions chose to use other London streets as filming locations. Therefore, having had a meeting in Central London for a whole morning, and needing to reduce my TOIL hours, I decided to visit as many of them as I could in an afternoon, in a gradual restarting of sojourns.

Making my way to Westminster Underground Station (which appears in ‘Sherlock: The Empty Hearse’), I walked past the church where Conan Doyle married his second wife, Jean Leckie  and the Houses of Parliament, until finally I reached Great College Street, which I walked along for a short distance, eventually reaching Barton Street, which doubled for Baker Street in two different films.

The first of these was ‘Murder By Decree’ (1979), the Holmes vs Jack the Ripper film, starring Christopher Plummer and James Mason. It was to here that Holmes and Watson returned to from the Royal Opera House at the start of the film.

 

The second was the comedic ‘Without a Clue’ (1988)  [one of my favourite Sherlockian films], which revealed Watson as the true genius of the pair. It was in Barton Street that reporters crowded Holmes, and where Reginald Kincaid was thrown out onto the street.

 

 

Photographs taken, and it was back to Westminster Underground Station, passing Deans Yard which features in the conclusion of 'Murder By Decree', and via the Jubilee and Piccadilly lines onto Holborn. Making my way to the nearby Red Lion Square, I passed the Conway Hall which appeared in ‘Mr Holmes’ (2015) as the cinema where he sees the film of a past case. 

 

But it was to the Baker Street featured in that film, Bedford Row, via Princeton Street, that I was making my way. When interviewed by ‘Radio Times’, locations manager for the film, Richard George, stated “We could turn it into 1923 London with ease. Directly opposite 221B in the movie, at number 36, a trick is played on tourists who come and see where Mr Holmes lives, in fact he’s actually watching from across the street.”

 

 

Making my way to Chancery Lane Station, I caught the Central and Northern Lines to Warren Street, where a short walk was North Gower Street, which featured as Baker Street in all series of ‘Sherlock’. Speedy’s Sandwich Shop had just closed up for the day, but I got a few photos of the outside.

 

 

Walking to the nearby Euston Square Underground Station, I caught a tube the two stops to Baker Street itself  (‘the original, one might say’). Exiting from the Marylebone Road exit, I found myself by the John Doubleday statue of Holmes.

 

 

Walking around the corner, I made my way up to the ‘Sherlock Holmes Museum’, which claims to be 221b, but is actually 237-241. Having gone round the house several times, I just briefly popped in the souvenir shop to see if they had anything new and exciting, but they did not.

 

 

Walking back down Baker Street, I passed the Lloyds Bank at 185 Baker Street. This bank has a tangential link to Holmes as on the night of 11^th September 1971, a gang tunnelled 12 metres from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault of this bank. The value of the property stolen from safety deposit boxes is unknown, but is likely to have been between £1.25 and £3 million (equivalent to between £18 and £43 million today); only £231,000 (equivalent to £3.3 million today) was recovered by the police. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by John Clay’s plan in ‘The Red-Headed League’. They even wrote on the vault walls – “Let’s see how Sherlock Holmes solved this”.

A fictionalised version of the burglary is the subject of the 2008 film ‘The Bank Job’, which uses the storyline that the crime was either set up, later covered up – or more probably both – by MI5 to secure compromising photographs of Princess Margaret that were being kept in a deposit box at the bank by Trinidadian radical Michael X.

 

Continuing along Baker Street, I reached the properties identified by noted Sherlockian scholar, Bernard Davies as 221b and Camden House (the empty house) – 31 and 34 respectively.

 

Returning to Baker Street Station, I made my way home via the Jubilee and Northern Lines.