Baker Street is immortalised is so many ways: as the home of Sherlock Holmes, in Gerry Rafferty's iconic 1970's song (that Sax solo!), and as the home of Madam Tussaud's waxworks.
The station is also iconic in its own way, however: the Hammersmith & City and Circle line platforms comprise the world's oldest underground station, opened in 1863 as part of the original Paddington to Farringdon Metropolitan Line. Originally partly lit by natural daylight, the shafts have long since been closed, but the platforms still have a wonderfuly Victorian feel to them.
Shortly after this line was built, a branch to St John's Wood was added, which became the basis of the Metropolitan's network across North West London and out to Amersham. To help develop its traffic, the enterprising Metropolitan encouraged developers to build housing along the line, and the resulting 'Metro-land' of semi-detached houses with generous gardens set the trend for British suburbs for decades.
The Bakerloo line was built as a proper, deep-level 'tube' in 1906 between Baker Street and Lambeth North. In 1939, a branch of this line to Finchley (and later, Stanmore) was opened, which later formed the basis of the new Jubilee line when a new tunnel to Charing Cross opened in 1979, extended to Stratford in 1999, providing Baker Street with the services we see to-day.
The sub-surface station as we see it now is, apart from the original 1863 platforms, the result of a substantial rebuilding in 1913 to designs by the architect C W Clark. This provided for two terminating platforms for long-distance Metropolitan trains, as well as two through platforms from which trains join the Hammersmith & City tracks to get to the City at Aldgate.
The Metropolitan saw, early on, the potential of the space above its stations, and Clark built the handsome neo-classical block of flats, now known at Chiltern Court, also in 1913. In the main concourse, one can still see the huge beams needed to support the weight of the flats above.
The modern station has been refurbished several times, and is in reasonably good condition. Unusually, as well as the familiar shops, it has public toilets. One of the larger stations on the Underground network, its piecemeal growth above a junction has resulted in a complex, and often confusing layout, with lots of staircases and passages. Those leading to the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines have quaint profiles of Sherlock Holmes himself, complete with pipe, as the decorative theme. read more