Watching the detectives, a walk up Baker Street (Part 2)
Having left Portman Square in part 1 we make our way up to number 55 Baker Street. Granted, it is not the most pleasant building to look at, an amalgamation of 1950s Portland Stone clad concrete with 2000s glass and steel structures is the former headquarters of Marks and Spencer but I promise the site’s history is far more interesting than the rather bland office block that we see today.
The site was previously occupied by a large group of buildings collectively known as the Baker Street Bazaar.
The Bazaar was originally going to be a market square and construction work started in the 1770s.
However this vision was never realised and the area became the cavalry barracks for the Second Troop of Horse Guards who saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and would later become part of the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards.
The cavalry moved out in 1821 to a site near Regents Park. It was perhaps logical that the site which had over 400 horse stalls as well as an exercise yard opened as the Horse Bazaar in 1822. As the name suggests this was a place where horses were sold on commission.
As the business flourished as well as horse sales the bazaar expanded into selling carriages, harnesses and saddlery.
It was said that the bazaar had enough galleries to display over 500 carriages which made it the 19th century equivalent of a car dealership, almost 100 years later the horse had indeed been replaced by more modern horse power as this advert shows.
In 1826 the ‘New Bazaar’ opened which changed the character of the establishment turning it into a general retail market, aimed at the most fashionable and affluent shoppers. A vast array of goods were available for purchase ranging from watches and jewellery to perfumery and toys to furniture and artworks.
The market didn’t stay profitable for long and following a succession of owners and bankruptcies other uses were being found for collection of buildings. In one building, called the Great Room, Madame Marie Tussaud set up her waxworks.
Having been apprenticed at just 6 years old, Madame Tussaud had a turbulent early life, becoming a tutor to Louis XVI’s sister, being forced by French revolutionaries to make death masks of the royal family, travelling Great Britain for 36 years before finally settling in Baker Street in 1835.
One of the most popular and gruesome sections of the exhibition was the Chamber of Horrors which showed various historical scenes such as the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Madame Tussauds moved to it’s present site close to Baker Street Underground Station on Marylebone Road 50 years later and remains one of London’s most popular visitor attractions.
The Bazaar was also the home of the worlds first artificial ice rink. Known as The Glaciarium it opened in 1842. For one shilling an hour gentleman (not ladies) could skate with a backdrop of alpine challets and snow capped mountains. The ‘ice’ was made from churned-up hog’s lard and sulphur. It was reported that on hot days it smelled of cheese.
During the mid 1800s Thomas Druce became proprietor of the Baker Street Bazaar and he was to become a central figure in one of the most bizarre cases in London legal history which I will tell in it’s own story another time. Druce’s department store remained on the site of the bazaar until the second world war when it was destroyed during the blitz.
Following the war the buildings were pulled down.
In 1957 it was redeveloped as Michael House, the UK headquarters of the UK clothes and food retailer, Marks & Spencer until 2005.
I am still not sure if the redevelopment has improved the building, what do you think?
It is time to leave number 55 Baker Street and continue on to our next stop which I will tell you about next time…
Спасибо за прочтение. Продолжение следует…
Thanks for reading. To be continued…
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