sherlockbbc | More Sherlock Location Hunting in London

Over the weekend I was in London again getting quite damp, having a fight with the rain to keep my locationing laptop dry, and rather enjoying having the proper weather conditions to experience one specific location. I will report on THAT when those on the other side of the Atlantic have caught up with us in the UK. Until then I will still be playing in Series One Sherlock as there is still so much to do there.

I also caught a couple of extra locations this time, so I have remade the map of Bloomsbury.

(1) Is Speedy's and Gower Street North

(2) Is Russell Square Gardens which I shall be talking about in a moment

(3) Is the old tram tunnel in Kingsway used at the end of The Blind Banker which I came across on my trip this time and hurried over to photograph.

(4) Is another location I specially went hunting for and I can't talk about until (aptly) the Americans join us.

From the look of things growing in the park this is about early April 2010. Did we get an early spring that year? I can't remember. The length of the shadows, and the direction of the sun (and the traffic later on) however all put it about evening rush hour, maybe later. Not too many office workers in the park. Not sure WHAT Mike Stamford is doing sitting in a park about tea time ... but hey.

We need a diagram to explain what I am going to talk about here ...

The little coffee cup is the cafe in the park. Mike is sitting on a bench at (1) on this diagram ... and the direction John has come from means he is either living nearby, or has got there on the Underground on his Veterans' Pass.

Here I am (on the left) with one of the Swedish fans I met when I was there at Easter, and that tree. Note the daffodils are out in our picture, but when John was there they were over.

Now I thought I was going mad when I was there on Saturday, because I couldn't find benches in the right places. Either the Russell Square people had been moving benches around, or something else was going on. You can't just up and move a bench in that square; I took a snap of one to show you why ... they are bolted down!

The other thing is that the benches bolted down into the square are painted black, and the ones in Sherlock are plain wood ... could it be that the BBC had brought their own benches to shoot on? I think I can decisively prove that as a yes.

Here we have Mike Stamford introducing himself (and look, that cafe is shut for the evening)

And here, below, is a shot I took at the weekend from further back; the cafe is open and we can see the paths crossing and the bench with the bin, but no bench where John and Mike are standing.

Next we move to where they go to have their cup of refreshment and their little chat. There is, BTW, a nice Starbucks about 50 yards SE from here on Southhampton Row ... and oops, I think I have spotted another case of bench planting ...

No bench here either ... (and I got very wet knees kneeling down to get that angle right!).

Here is another angle on that:

And there is something else interesting when we look at this sequence ... it looks like Mike and John have picked up and taken the bench to the new place where they want to sit ... because we can see the spot behind them where Mike was sitting originally, and YIKES there is no bench there now ...