Betjeman began his Home Counties Odyssey at Baker Street station... or, to be more accurate, in the elegant restaurant above the station. He sat beneath the gilded ceiling at a lined-topped table surrounded by folded napkins and gleaming china, as had so many diners before him. Sir John was clearly very much at home in such surroundings.
"Here the wives from Pinner and Ruislip, after a day's shopping at Liberty's or Whiteleys, would sit waiting for their husbands to come up from Cheapside and Mincing Lane, and while they waited they could listen to the strains of the band playing for the tea dances, before they took the train for home." John Betjeman in the Chiltern Court Restaurant ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)
This is Chiltern Court [photo], the former headquarters of the Metropolitan Railway, looming large above the Marylebone Road. It's a vast building, as you'll know if you've ever looked across while standing in the queue outside Madame Tussauds nextdoor. There is no finer symbol of the financial success of Metro-land. This state-of-the-arts eleven-storey apartment block was the most luxurious in London when it opened in 1929. According to publicity at the time, the building contained "40 passenger and service lifts, postal chutes on each floor, hot-water radiator heating and automatic telephones." Residents were "able to proceed direct, not only to the Stores or the Restaurant, but also to the station platforms" [photos]. No wonder HG Wells found the place irresistable - he spent several years living in flat number 47. A mere half a million quid will get you a two-bedroom flat in Chiltern Court today - "conveniently located for Baker Street station". [entrance]
The Chiltern Court restaurant doesn't serve Brown Windsor soup to prim ladies and their stockbroker husbands any more. It's been bought up by the Wetherspoons chain and now lives out its days as the rather less exclusive MetropolitanBar[photo]. A meal costs much the same as when Sir John sat here, but he didn't have to face 2-for-1 price deals, ketchup sachets and disposable serviettes. Any old pleb can get past the doorman these days, and believe me they do. The tables and chairs are rather less grand than before, and are filled with students, cheery tourist types and bloated lagerboys. The walls have been repainted navy blue instead of ruby red, and one is nearly completely obscured behind the well-stocked bar. But look up above the chunky square pillars and lo, the sky-blue ceiling is still liberally covered with the stucco crests of the Metropolitan Railway. If you're able to block out the occasional ringtone and the whirr of a nearby slot machine, you could almost be sat here back in the restaurant's heyday. Just don't look down.
"Here the beery blokes from Watford and Uxbridge, after a day's boozing in Camden or Soho, would sit waiting for their girlfriends to come up from Lakeside and Bluewater, and while they waited they could watch the football on Sky playing on the plasma flat screen, before they threw up on the train home." diamond geezer in the Chiltern Court RestaurantMetropolitan Bar, 2006)
Metro-land revisited
This is Chiltern Court [photo], the former headquarters of the Metropolitan Railway, looming large above the Marylebone Road. It's a vast building, as you'll know if you've ever looked across while standing in the queue outside Madame Tussauds nextdoor. There is no finer symbol of the financial success of Metro-land. This state-of-the-arts eleven-storey apartment block was the most luxurious in London when it opened in 1929. According to publicity at the time, the building contained "40 passenger and service lifts, postal chutes on each floor, hot-water radiator heating and automatic telephones." Residents were "able to proceed direct, not only to the Stores or the Restaurant, but also to the station platforms" [photos]. No wonder HG Wells found the place irresistable - he spent several years living in flat number 47. A mere half a million quid will get you a two-bedroom flat in Chiltern Court today - "conveniently located for Baker Street station". [entrance]
Metro-land revisited
