Walking the Circle Line: Baker Street to Kings Cross
London Underground’s Circle Line is a 100 year old 14-mile circuit running just a few meters below ground. Millions of passengers a year hurtle along this course largely unaware of the sights and sites overhead. Walking above the Circle Line with a 4x5†pinhole camera, I am photographing those sites and sights. Pinhole cameras, in the form of camera obscura, predate photography by hundreds of years. A light-tight box with a tiny pinprick hole is all there is to it. No need for a lens. It is a slow, cumbersome and unforgiving way to photograph, prone to light leaks, mistakes, and surprising results. This is the second last leg of my walk, taking me from Baker Street to Kings Cross. You can see my previous entries here: Barbican to Moorgate to Tower Hill to Blackfriars to Temple to Embankment to St James’s Park to High Street Kensington to Paddington to Baker Street.
First, back into Regent’s Park for a dose of beauty. It’s a cold dark windy day and the 12 minute exposure lets the tree’s personality come out somewhat. When I lived in New York I would visit MoMA each lunch time and stand in front of a single painting for 20 minutes while crowds streamed past, and what I would sense in the painting would shift and change. Photographing with a pinhole camera brings about a similar change of view. Standing alone in one spot you spend 10 minutes looking at a scene that you would ordinarily only give passing glance to, and it is a completely different experience. I sometimes see painters with easels in London’s parks, and they look as wise as their work is slow.
From Baker Street, the Circle Line runs under Marylebone (‘mar-le-bone’) Road and Euston Road until it reaches Kings Cross. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who likes this stretch of congested 6-lane road. It gets ugly as soon as you leave Baker Street and spot Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum. This is the most kitsch of London’s tourist attractions, but I’ve made a pledge on this walk to avoid photographing tourist attractions so head on to another kind of Wax Museum.
Harley Street is the centre of London’s cosmetic and plastic surgery industry, and the only street in town that any celebrity needing medical attention would care to be spotted in. Those seeking an extreme makeover go door to door replacing their body part by part. It is a nice looking street - too nice, in fact - with a perfect facade. I do not bother photographing it. Above, the dumpster out back. I like to imagine this is where all the leftover bits end up, noses and hips and sheets of skin.
On to Great Portland Street station. Triangles and cobblestones in a side alley across the street grab my attention.
The West End of London doesn’t have much of a skyline, at least away from the Thames it doesn’t. The only tall buildings of note are Centrepoint Tower and BT Tower, both of which appear on polls of London’s ugliest buildings. BT Tower (formerly the Post Office Tower) is particularly utilitarian, festooned as it is with satellite dishes and TV transmitters. In the late 60s it was considered more glamourous, a fancy restaurant sat high above the city and the upper floors were open to the public. All that changed in 1971 when the IRA attacked with a small bomb. It has been closed to the public ever since.
Leaving BT Tower I continue along Euston Road past Euston Station to the British Library. One of the most important Libraries in the world, by law it must receive a copy of any book published in the UK.
Next to the library is the imposing St Pancras station. A Victorian era building that fell into disrepair long ago, it is currently being renovated into a Marriot Hotel. The station behind it will replace Waterloo as the London terminal for the Channel Tunnel rail link used by Eurostar.
Finally, behind Kings Cross station is one of those curious structures that for a long time after moving to the UK had me stumped. I’ve since leant that they are designed to hold huge inflatable bags for natural gas during winter. How true that is I am not sure.
