Mr. Jones’s School, called the “Wellington Academy,” at which Dickens
received some two years’ technical education; being a little over
fourteen years old when he left. The house is now in possession of the
INLAND REVENUE OFFICE, at the corner of Granby Street, 247 Hampstead
Road; part of the premises abutting on the London and North-Western
Railway, the formation of which demolished the old schoolroom and
playground.]
[Picture: The “Spaniards,” Hampstead Heath]
OLIVER TWIST.
Mr. Brownlow’s Residence, in “a quiet shady street near Pentonville,”
cannot he fairly localised. In the days of “Oliver Twist,” Mr. George
Cruikshank, the illustrator of the book, lived at _Myddelton Terrace_,
Pentonville; and possibly Dickens bethought himself of this vicinity in
consequence.
Fagin’s House in _Whitechapel_ and the residence of _Bill Sykes_ cannot,
with any fairness, be accurately indicated. The latter is spoken of as
being in “one of a maze of mean and dirty streets, which abound in the
close and densely populated quarter of Bethnal Green.”
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.
The London Tavern, at which was held the Meeting in promotion of “The
United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company,” once (many years since) occupied the site of the ROYAL
BANK OF SCOTLAND, 123 _Bishopsgate Street Within_, on the left hand
entering the street from Cornhill.
Mrs. Nickleby and her daughter Kate lived, per favour of their amiable
relative, in _Thames Street_. This business thoroughfare has undergone
considerable reconstruction since the days of their tenancy, and the
particular dwelling intended cannot be identified. The place is
described as a “large, old dingy house, the doors and windows of which
were so bespattered with mud that it would have appeared to have been
uninhabited for years.”
Mr. Mortimer Knag kept a small circulating library “in a by-street off
Tottenham Court Road,” where also lived his sister, _Miss Knag_, the
presiding genius of Madame Mantalini’s establishment; and we may remember
the evening when Mrs. Nickleby and Kate were graciously invited to supper
at this abode of literary genius.
The General Agency Office, at which Nicholas Nickleby obtained the
address of _Mr. Gregsbury_, _M.P._, Manchester Buildings, Westminster
(also one of the lost localities of London), and where he first met
_Madeline Bray_, has no specified direction in the book. There have been
few such agencies existent in a central position in London.
Messrs. Cheeryble Brothers had their place of business in a small City
square. “Passing along Threadneedle Street, and through some lanes and
passages on the right,” we read that Nicholas was conducted by _Mr.
Charles Cheeryble_ to the place in occupation of the firm—
“The City square has no enclosure, save the lamp-post in the middle,
and no grass but the weeds which spring up around its base. It is a
quiet, little-frequented, retired spot, favourable to melancholy and
contemplation, and appointments of long waiting. . . . In
winter-time the snow will linger there long after it has melted from
the busy streets and highways. The summer’s sun holds it in some
respect, and while he darts his cheerful rays sparingly into the
square, keeps his fiery heat and glare for noisier and less imposing
precincts. It is so quiet, that you can almost hear the ticking of
your own watch, when you stop to cool in its refreshing atmosphere.
There is a distant hum—of coaches, not of insects—but no other sound
disturbs the stillness of the square.”
The Residence of Mrs. Wititterly is referred to as having been pleasantly
situated in Cadogan Place, Sloane Street—
“Cadogan Place is the one slight bond which joins two extremities; it
is the connecting link between the aristocratic pavements of Belgrave
Square and the barbarism of Chelsea. It is in Sloane Street, but not
of it. The people of Cadogan Place look down upon Sloane Street, and
think Brompton low. They affect fashion, too, and wonder where the
New Road is. Not that they claim to be on precisely the same footing
as the high folks of Belgrave Square and Grosvenor Place, but that
they stand, in reference to them, rather in the light of those
illegitimate children of the great, who are content to boast of their
connexions, although their connexions disavow them.”
BARNABY RUDGE.
“The Golden Key”—the house of honest _Gabriel Varden_, the locksmith—was
in Clerkenwell, situated in a quiet street not far from the Charter
House—
“A modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall, not
bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house,
with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of
four small panes of glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an
elderly gentleman with one eye. It was not built of brick, or lofty
stone, but of wood and plaster; it was not planned with a dull and
wearisome regard to regularity, for no one window matched the other,
or seemed to have the slightest reference to anything beside itself.”
This was its description one hundred years ago, and its exact whereabouts
cannot now be ascertained. There are some old plaster-fronted houses,
evidently belonging to the last century, still to be found in _Albemarle
Street_, near _St. John’s Square_, but none of these fairly correspond
with the description of “The Golden Key.”
The Cellar of Mr. Stagg was situated in _Barbican_. We read that its
position was “in one of the narrowest of the narrow streets which diverge
from that centre, in a blind court or yard, profoundly dark, unpaved, and
reeking with stagnant odours.”
“The Black Lion” Tavern can only be identified as being situated in
Whitechapel. It was a favourite resort of _Mr. John Willett_, landlord
of the “MAYPOLE INN” at _Chigwell_, when he came to town; and we may
remember it as the scene of _Dolly Varden’s_ satisfactory interview with
her lover Joe, after his return from “the Salwanners.”
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.
Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son had their place of business near _Aldersgate
Street_. Their dreary residence was the bridal home of Mercy
Pecksniff—married by Jonas Chuzzlewit—and we may recollect her reception
at this establishment by the worthy _Sairey Gamp_. To this house Jonas
returned after the murder of Montague Tigg, and was here arrested by his
relative _Chevy Slyme_, in the presence of his uncle and Mark Tapley.
Its situation is described as being in
“A very narrow street, somewhere behind the Post Office, where every
house was in the brightest summer morning very gloomy; and where
light porters watered the pavement, each before his own employer’s
premises, in fantastic patterns in the dog-days; and where spruce
gentlemen, with their hands in the pockets of symmetrical trousers,
were always to be seen in warm weather contemplating their undeniable
boots in dusty warehouse doorways, which appeared to be the hardest
work they did, except now and then carrying pens behind their ears.”
Montague Tigg, Esq., the Chairman of the _Anglo-Bengalee Insurance
Company_, lived in luxurious chambers in _Pall Mall_; and we may remember
the morning when Jonas Chuzzlewit called at the residence of his chief,
and was disagreeably surprised to find his friend in full possession of
his secret history—with _Mr. Nadgett_ in attendance.
Tom Pinch and his sister _Ruth_ lodged at “Merry Islington,” “in a
singular little old-fashioned house, up a blind street,” where they were
accommodated with two small bedrooms and a triangular parlour, the
householder being the inscrutable _Mr. Nadgett_. In “Martin Chuzzlewit”
are contained many pleasant episodes associated with these modest
apartments; where, as we all know, little Ruth made her first culinary
experiment, and was pleasantly surprised the next morning to find the
merry present of a cookery-book awaiting her in the parlour (sent by John
Westlock), with the beefsteak pudding leaf turned down and blotted out.
DOMBEY AND SON.
Polly Toodles (otherwise Richards) lived with her husband and her
“apple-faced” family, at _Stagg’s Gardens_, _Camden Town_, at the time
when the London and North-Western Railway was in course of construction—
“As yet the neighbourhood was shy to own the railroad. One or two
bold speculators had projected streets, and one had built a little,
but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider further of it. A
bran new tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting
nothing at all, had taken for its sign the ‘Railway Arms;’ but that
might be rash enterprise—and then it hoped to sell drink to the
workmen. So the Excavators’ house of Call had sprung up from a
beer-shop, and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the
Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through
interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description.”
In a later chapter of “Dombey” we read of Stagg’s Gardens having vanished
from the earth—
“Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces now
reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a
vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where
the refuse matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone,
and in its frowzy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich
goods and costly merchandise. The old bye-streets now swarmed with
passengers and vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had
stopped disheartened in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within
themselves, originating wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging
to themselves, and never tried nor thought of until they sprung into
existence.”
Miss Lucretia Tox had apartments at _Princess Place_, an address not
included in the London Directory; and _Major Bagstock_ also had chambers
in the immediate vicinity, a genteel but somewhat inconvenient
neighbourhood. Miss Tox’s residence is described as
“A dark little house, that had been squeezed at some remote period of
English history into a fashionable neighbourhood at the west end of
the town, where it stood in the shade, like a poor relation of the
great street round the corner, coldly looked down upon by mighty
mansions. It was not exactly in a court, and it was not exactly in a
yard, but it was in the dullest of No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious
and haggard by double knocks. . . . There is a smack of stabling in
the air of Princess Place, and Miss Tox’s bedroom (which was at the
back) commanded a vista of mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of
work engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with
effervescent noises, and where the most domestic and confidential
garments of coachmen and their wives and families usually hung like
Macbeth’s banners on the outer walls.”
Mrs. MacStinger presided at _No. 9 Brig Place_, finding accommodation for
_Captain Cuttle_ as her first floor lodger, previous to the time of his
hurried and secret removal to the quarters of _The Wooden Midshipman_.
We read that the house was situated
“On the brink of a little canal near the India Docks, where the air
was perfumed with chips, and all other trades were swallowed up in
mast, oar, and block making, and boat building. Then the ground grew
marshy and unsettled. Then there was nothing to be smelt but rum and
sugar. Then Captain Cuttle’s lodgings, at once a first floor and a
top storey, in Brig Place, were close before you.”
DAVID COPPERFIELD.
Mr. Creakle’s educational establishment, “_Salem House_,” was, we are
told, “down by Blackheath.” A large, dull house, standing away from the
main road among some dark trees, and surrounded by a high wall. The
character of Mr. Creakle seems to have been drawn from life; being, in
fact, a portrait of the proprietor of the “_Wellington Academy_,”
Hampstead Road, previously referred to. _Dr. Danson_, an old
schoolfellow of Dickens, writing to Mr. Forster, states that this “Mr.
Jones was a Welshman, a most ignorant fellow, and a mere tyrant, whose
chief employment was to scourge the boys.” Also, Mr. Forster, speaking
of the school, says, “it had supplied some of the lighter traits of Salem
House for ‘Copperfield.’”
Mr. Micawber lived in Windsor Terrace, City Road, at the time he first
received young David Copperfield as a lodger, and previous to the crisis
in his pecuniary affairs which removed him to KING’S BENCH PRISON in the
Borough.
We also read, later in the book, of the Micawbers as located in a little
street near _The Veterinary College_, _Camden Town_, what time _Mr.
Traddles_ was their lodger; and we may remember how the astute Mr.
Micawber took advantage of the circumstance, by obtaining the friendly
signature of his inmate as security, in the matter of two bills “not
provided for.”
Mrs. Steerforth resided in “an old brick house at _Highgate_, on the
summit of the hill; a genteel, old-fashioned house, very quiet, and very
orderly,” from which position a comprehensive view was obtainable of “all
London lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and there
some lights twinkling through it.” In connection with this house we may
recall the characters of _Rosa Dartle_ and the respectable serving-man
_Littimer_.
Doctor and Mrs. Strong also lived in a cottage at Highgate after their
removal from Canterbury; and _Mr. and Mrs. David Copperfield_ resided in
the same neighbourhood, with _Betsy Trotwood_ established in a convenient
cottage near at hand.
Mr. Traddles, in his bachelor days, had lodgings behind the parapet of a
house in _Castle Street_, _Holborn_. This thoroughfare has now changed
its name, and is known as FURNIVAL STREET. It may be found on the south
side of Holborn, and west of Fetter Lane, leading to Cursitor Street.
BLEAK HOUSE.
Mr. Guppy mentioned his address as 87 _Penton Place_, _Pentonville_; but
the London Directory does not now include the number specified. The
residence of _Mrs. Guppy_, his mother, is stated as having been 302 _Old
Street Road_; previous to the time when a house was taken (by mother and
son) in _Walcot Square_, _Lambeth_, on the south side of the Thames, and
Mr. Guppy started on his independent professional career.
Mr. Jarndyce once sojourned in London, “at a cheerful lodging near
_Oxford Street_, over an upholsterer’s shop,” at which also Ada Clare and
Esther Summerson were accommodated.
Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed vegetated, with their grandchildren, “in a rather
ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one of its rising
grounds bears the name of _Mount Pleasant_.” This beatific neighbourhood
will be found north of _Clerkenwell Road_ (approached by _Laystall
Street_), in the neighbourhood of the MIDDLESEX HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
George’s Shooting Gallery is memorable as the place where _Gridley_—“the
man from Shropshire”—died; where also _Poor Jo_, clinging to the spars of
the Lord’s Prayer, drifted out upon the unknown sea. It is described as
“a great brick building, composed of bare walls, floors, roof-rafters,
and skylights; on the front of which was painted ‘George’s Shooting
Gallery.’” Its location is given as being up a court and a long
whitewashed passage, in
“That curious region lying about the Haymarket and Leicester Square,
which is a centre of attraction to indifferent foreign hotels and
indifferent foreigners, racket courts, fighting men, swordsmen,
foot-guards, old china, gambling-houses, exhibitions, and a large
medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of sight.”
Mr. Bagnet and his “old girl” kept house and home on the Surrey side of
the river; but no more precise indication of their whereabouts is given
than is contained in the following reference:—
“By Blackfriars’ Bridge, and Blackfriars’ Road, Mr. George sedately
marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that ganglion
of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the bridges of
London, centreing in the far-famed Elephant who has lost his castle.”
The Town House of Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock was situated in a dull
aristocratic street in the western district of London,
“Where the two long rows of houses stare at each other with that
severity, that half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have
been slowly stared into stone, rather than originally built in that
material. It is a street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not
to condescend to liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy
state of their own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews
behind have a dry and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to
stable the stone chargers of noble statues.”
Harold Skimpole and family had their residence in the _Polygon_, near to
the EUSTON TERMINUS (on the east side), in the centre of _Clarendon
Square_, _Somers Town_. The house is described as being sadly in want of
repair—
“Two or three of the area railings were gone; the water-butt was
broken; the knocker was loose; the bell-handle had been pulled off a
long time, to judge from the rusty state of the wire; and dirty
footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited.”
LITTLE DORRIT.
The House of Mrs. Clennam was situated not far from the river, in the
neighbourhood of _Upper Thames Street_. We read that Arthur Clennam, on
his arrival in London,
“Crossed by Saint Paul’s and went down, at a long angle, almost to
the water’s edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets
which lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river
and Cheapside . . . passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here
and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched
little bill, ‘Found Drowned,’ was weeping on the wet wall; he came at
last to the house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be
all but black, standing by itself within a gateway.”
Mr. Tite Barnacle had his residence in _Mews Street_, _Grosvenor Square_—
“It was a hideous little street of dead wall, stables, and dunghills,
with lofts over coach-houses inhabited by coachmen’s families, who
had a passion for drying clothes, and decorating their window-sills
with miniature turnpike-gates. The principal chimney-sweep of that
fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews Street. . . . Yet
there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of
Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being
abject hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of
these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for
they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as a
gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of the town,
inhabited solely by the élite of the beau monde.”
The Patriarchal Casby, with his daughter—the irrepressible _Flora_—and
_Mr. F.’s Aunt_,
“Lived in a street in the Gray’s Inn Road, which had set off from
that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into
the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; but which
had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood still
ever since. There is no such place in that part now; but it remained
there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at the
wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens, and pimpled with eruptive
summer-houses, that it had meant to run over in no time.”
TALE OF TWO CITIES.
In this Tale we read of the funeral of _Cly_, the Old Bailey Informer;
the interment taking place in the burial-ground attached to the ancient
church of St. Pancras in the Fields. This edifice still exists in
PANCRAS ROAD (east side, opposite _Goldington Crescent_), which leads
from King’s Cross, northward, to Kentish Town. There is a church of the
same name to be found in the EUSTON ROAD—east of _Upper Woburn Place_,
but this is altogether another and more modern structure than the one
above referred to. A century since, at the time of the funeral
described, the name of this locality was literally correct; the church
being situated in the outlying fields of the suburban village of PANCRAS.
We may here recollect the fishing expedition undertaken by _Mr. Cruncher_
and his two companions, on the night following the funeral; when young
_Jerry_ quietly followed his “honoured parent,” and assured himself of
the nature of his father’s secret avocation.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
Mr. Jaggers, the Old Bailey lawyer, had his private residence on the
south side of _Gerrard Street_, _Soho_, where he lived in solitary state,
with his eccentric housekeeper, the mother of Estella: “Rather a stately
house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty
windows.”
Wemmick’s Castle at _Walworth_ is altogether a place of the past;
Walworth being now one of the most populous and crowded of metropolitan
districts. We read that in Pip’s time
“It appeared to be a collection of black lanes, ditches, and little
gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement.
Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of
garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery
mounted with guns.”
Mr. Barley, _alias Old Gruff-and-Glum_, lived at _Mill Pond Bank_, by
Chinks’s Basin and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk. Pip says the place
was anything but easy to find. Losing himself among shipbuilders’ and
shipbreakers’ yards, he continues the description of his search as
follows:—
“After several times falling short of my destination, and as often
overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond
Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered,
where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and
there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a
ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk—whose
long and narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series
of wooden frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated
haymaking rakes, which had grown old and lost most of their teeth.
Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank, a house with
a wooden front and three storeys of bow-window (not bay-window, which
is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read
there Mrs. Whimple . . . the name I wanted.”
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
The House of Gaffer Hexam, the humble home of _Lizzie Hexam_ and her
brother, was situated somewhere in the district of _Limehouse_, near the
river. In a description given of the route by which Messrs. Lightwood
and Wrayburn approached this locality, we read—
“Down by the Monument, and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by
Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe. . . . In and out among vessels that
seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have got
afloat—among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows staring into
ships—the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner,
river-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted
and opened the door.”
“The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters” was located in this same vicinity,
overlooking the river. A waterside public-house, kept by _Miss Abbey
Patterson_, who enforced a certain standard of respectability among her
numerous clients, and conducted the house with a strict regard to
discipline and punctuality—
“Externally, it was a narrow, lop-sided, wooden jumble of corpulent
windows heaped one upon another, as you might heap as many toppling
oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water;
indeed, the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flagstaff on
the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the
condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the
brink that he will never go in at all. . . . The back of the
establishment, though the chief entrance, was there so contracted
that it merely represented, in its connection with the front, the
handle of a flat iron set upright on its broadest end. This handle
stood at the bottom of a wilderness of court and alley; which
wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the ‘Six Jolly Fellowship
Porters,’ as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyond its
door.”