It was after work one night that I had my laptop on and a couple of dozen tabs open that I came across a reference in an 1831 book that made me stop and wonder what I was seeing. A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs is a pretty cool tool for those studying London and its history, but 1831 is just a few years before Holmes and Watson's time, so I wouldn't use it for anything I needed. Not that it doesn't have its place, as you'll see.
Baker Street, North? What did that mean? Was it just the way Baker Street was referred to back then, or was there a Baker Street, South? Or East or West? I set out to find the answer. I continued my search in Google Books for references to the fabled street and kept track of any that didn't seem to refer to the one we all know. Then, I got a solid hit.
This definitely wasn't the Baker Street I knew. Not only that, it was running east to west, not north to south. Also, it was in Lambeth! I opened a tab for the amazing 1895 ordnance map that I use for a lot of my research, and started going through Lambeth section by section. Then, I found it.
Incredible. Maybe this wasn't news to others, but it was to me. It occurred to me that I had never considered the possibility of another Baker Street in other London boroughs. (Quite a stupid assumption, really.) I did more looking and found that the street no longer exists. In fact, there isn't even a street there anymore - the whole area has been redeveloped. So much for visiting the other Baker Street when I go to London in 2021. "But, wait, Historical Sherlock," I said to myself. "Maybe there are other ones." So, off I went.
I had to get clever. Looking up street names in old books means trying all of the variations that they can be listed under. You can always just look up "Baker Street" but you'll be missing some. You also have to try Baker St., Baker-street, and Baker-st. Then I had to figure out how to find other ones. I tried "other Baker Street," "another Baker Street," and other things, and then all of them with the variations I mentioned before. I still don't know if I found them all, so I'll keep looking. But for now, I have some to show you. Let's go to Bethnal Green.
I don't have a lot of information about these streets, but I don't think it's necessary to have it. We know which one Holmes and Watson stayed on, and there's no debate about whether it's the right one. There is always the mystery of the true location of 221b, and knowing there are other Baker Streets might play into that a bit, but there's overwhelming evidence from The Canon about which one is correct. How about a stop in Mile End?
I found each of these mentioned in old books on Google Books, and on travel blogs. One was on a Victorian research site that was all about crimes the Met police investigated. They all came to light in just a few days, and I hated stopping to have to sleep and stuff. I wanted to keep going. One of them I found around 3 a.m. while fighting the urge to go to bed. Let's stop by Enfield.
It's kind of hard to make out, but the street running right up the middle says Baker Street. This one took the longest to actually locate. Not because I couldn't find where Enfield was, but because it took some time before I located a map that actually named the street. Seems every one I came across had no street name on it. But, perseverance paid off, and as you can see I got what I was hunting.
This next one is a bit more unique in that it has a Baker Street and an Upper Baker Street. (I found the Upper part first.) It's located in Clerkenwell, and is the only one I found that had any kind of layout that resembled the Baker Street we love. (Well, not in direction or length, but having more than one part.)
And now we come to the last one I found before I decided to write this post. This one isn't exactly a true Baker Street, but I learned something in the process. Let's head over to Spitalfields.
Turns out 'fournier' is the old occupational name for a baker. I had no idea of this before I started down this road, and I even know someone with that last name! So, this one gets a big asterisk next to it.
Anyway, that's what I found with about a week's worth of searching. I'll continue to do so because I've found a listing of Baker Streets in a London post office directory which may or may not have more on it. They're listed by region, and I'm trying to determine which ones are overlapping and referring to the same street.
I did find a website that lists London street names by what they used to be called compared to what they are now. I didn't go into this very far as I was seeking Baker Streets that existed in Holmes and Watson's time. The one I looked into the most was in this next illustration.
According to what I've found, Elephant Road was known as Baker Street at one time. Apparently long ago. I haven't actually confirmed this, but I did find it listed that way somewhere. Maybe one day I'll pick up this idea again and look more into it, but suffice to say that there are likely former-Baker Streets all over the place.
I realize this post doesn't really look very deep into each of these streets and how they might play into our hobby, but one of my goals with all of this is to show that anybody can do this research with the tools that you have in your own home. I want others to know that they don't have to be a scholar to do what I, and many others, do. (I sure as heck ain't one!) I would love to see offshoot sites and blogs that talk about the types of things I do here because it's all about learning more about the London during the Sherlockian Era. The amount of information available is staggering, and gathering it into small piles can make for some great papers, articles, and presentations. In fact, this will probably become a PowerPoint piece in the future. (Yes, I still love and use PowerPoint.)
Well, thanks again for taking a stroll with me through the streets of The Storied City. I'll see you next time, and as always...thanks for reading.
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