OLIVER TWIST
THE RED LION, BARNET--THE ANGEL, ISLINGTON--THE COACH AND HORSES,
ISLEWORTH--THE THREE CRIPPLES--THE GEORGE INN--THE EIGHT BELLS,
HATFIELD
There are not many inns that can be identified in _Oliver Twist_, and
those that can play very little part in the enactment of the story, or
have any notable history to relate in regard to them. The first one to
attract attention is that at Barnet, where the Artful Dodger took Oliver
Twist for breakfast on the morning they encountered each other on the
latter's tramp to London.
Although Dickens does not name this inn, we believe he had in mind the Red
Lion, for it was one of those inns that was an objective when he and his
friends went for a horse-ride out into the country. One such occasion was
chosen when his eldest daughter, Mamie, was born, in March, 1838. He
invited Forster to celebrate the event by a ride "for a good long spell,"
and they rode out fifteen miles on the Great North Road. After dining at
the Red Lion, in Barnet, on their way home, they distinguished the already
memorable day, as Forster tells us, by bringing in both hacks dead lame.
This trip along the Great North Road was a favourite one, and Dickens
consequently became well acquainted with the highway. At the time of
Forster's specific reference to the Red Lion, Dickens was engaged on the
early chapters of _Oliver Twist_, and we find him describing the district
in those pages wherein particular mention is made of Barnet.
Tramping to London after leaving Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, Oliver,
on the seventh morning, "limped slowly into the little town of Barnet," we
are told. "The windows," Dickens proceeds, "were closed; the street was
empty; not a soul was awakened to the business of the day." Oliver, with
bleeding feet, and covered with dust, sat upon a doorstep. For some time
he wondered "at the great number of public houses (every other house in
Barnet was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as
they passed through." Here he was discovered by Jack Dawkins, otherwise
the Artful Dodger, who, taking pity on him, assisted him to rise, escorted
him to an adjacent chandler's shop, purchased some ham and bread, and the
two adjourned finally into a public-house tap-room, to regale themselves
prior to continuing their journey to London. As the Red Lion was so
familiar to Dickens, we may assume that this was the inn to which he
referred.
The inn, no doubt, was the same from which Esther Summerson, in _Bleak
House_, hired the carriage to drive to Mr. Jarndyce's house, near St.
Albans. Arriving at Barnet, Esther, Ada and Richard found horses waiting
for them, "but, as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them,
too," she said, "and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old
battle-field, before the carriage came up." Doubtless the posting-house
where this change was made was the Red Lion, for Dickens had used it for
posting his own horse many a time.
It is there to-day, and drives a busy trade, more as a suburban hostelry
than as a posting-inn.
Continuing their walk to London, the Artful Dodger and Oliver gradually
reached Islington, and entered the City together. Islington in days gone
by was a starting point for the mail-coaches going to the north, and as
a consequence was famous for its old inns. Perhaps the most famous,
particularly from the antiquarian standpoint, was the old Queen's Head, a
perfect specimen of ancient domestic architecture, which was destroyed in
1829. Another was, of course, the Angel; but the house bearing that name
to-day can claim none of the romance or attractiveness of its ancient
predecessor, and has recently been modernised on the lines adopted by a
very modern firm of caterers. But the Angel of its palmy days was
well-known to Dickens, and, although he does not make it the scene of any
prominent incident in his books, it has mention in _Oliver Twist_ in the
chapter describing Oliver's trudge to London. It was nearly eleven o'clock
when he and the Artful Dodger reached the turnpike at Islington. They then
crossed from the Angel into St. John's Road, on their way to the house
near Field Lane, where Oliver was dragged in and the door closed behind
him.
[Illustration: THE RED LION, BARNET
_Photograph by T. W. Tyrrell_]
The inn is mentioned again in the same book on the occasion when Noah
Claypole and Charlotte traversed the same road. "Mr. Claypole," we read,
"went on, without halting, until he arrived at the Angel, at Islington,
where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and number of
vehicles, that London began in earnest." He, too, led the way into St.
John's Road.
The Angel has been a London landmark for over two centuries. There have
been at least three houses of the same name, but the one Dickens knew and
referred to was apparently that built after the destruction in 1819 of the
original.
In those days, it was the first halting-place, after leaving London, of
coaches bound along the Holyhead and Great North Roads. The original house
presented the usual features of a large old country inn, and "the inn
yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, with
double galleries, supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with
caryatides and other figures." Now, as we have said, it is merely a very
ordinary, everyday modern refreshment house.
The low public-house in the "filthiest" part of Little Saffron Hill, in
whose dark and gloomy den, known as the parlour, was frequently to be
found Bill Sikes and his dog, Bull's-Eye, probably was no particular
public-house so far as the novelist was concerned, although he gave it the
distinguishing name of the Three Cripples. At any rate, it has not been
identified, and must be assumed to be typical of the many with which
this district at one time was infested. First referred to in Chapter
XV, it is more minutely described in Chapter XXVI. "The room," we are
told, "was illuminated by two gas-lights, the glare of which was prevented
by the barred shutters and closely drawn curtains of faded red from being
visible outside. The ceiling was blackened, to prevent its colour from
being injured by the flaring lamps; and the place was so full of dense
tobacco smoke that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything
more. By degrees, however, as some of it cleared away, through the open
door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the voices that greeted the
ear, might be made out; and, as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene,
the spectators gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous
company, male and female, crowded round a long table, at the upper end of
which sat a showman with a hammer of office in his hands, while a
professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the
benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner."
That was a scene common to the "low public-house," of which the Three
Cripples was a notorious example, and the atmosphere depicted no doubt
applied generally to most of them.
[Illustration: THE COACH AND HORSES, ISLEWORTH
_Drawn by C. G. Harper_]
On the other hand, the Coach and Horses, at Isleworth, where Bill Sikes
and Oliver alighted from the cart they had "begged a lift" in, is no
flight of Dickens's imagination and can be discovered to-day exactly where
he located it.
The tramp of the two from Spitalfields to Chertsey on the burglary
expedition can easily be followed from Dickens's clearly indicated
itinerary. The point on the journey where they obtained their lift in a
cart bound for Hounslow was near Knightsbridge. Having bargained with the
driver to put them down at Isleworth, they at length alighted a little way
beyond "a public-house called the Coach and Horses, which stood at the
corner of a road just beyond Isleworth leading to Hampton." They did not
enter this public-house, but continued their journey. Mr. John Sayce Parr,
in an article in _The Dickensian_, Vol. I, page 261, speaks of the
topographical accuracy of Dickens in this instance: "The literary
pilgrim," he says, "sets out to follow the route he indicates, doubtful if
he will find the places mentioned. There is, however, not the slightest
excuse for making mistakes, for Dickens apparently visited the scenes and
described them with the accuracy of a guide-book. Thus, one finds the
Coach and Horses, sure enough, at the point where Brentford ends and
Isleworth begins, by the entrance to Sion Park, and near the spot where
the road rambles off to the left."
[Illustration: THE "EIGHT BELLS" Hatfield
_Drawn by F. G. Kitton_]
The Coach and Horses, the same writer says, is not a picturesque inn. It
is a huge four-square lump of a place, and wears, indeed, rather a dour
and forbidding aspect. It is unquestionably the house of which Dickens
speaks, and was built certainly not later than the dawn of the nineteenth
century.
It still exists to-day, although the surroundings have altered somewhat
by the advent of the electric tramways and other "improvements."
The George Inn, mentioned in Chapter XXXIII, where Oliver took the letter
for Mr. Losberne to be sent by "an express on horseback to Chertsey,"
cannot be identified, as the market-town in whose market-place it stood is
not mentioned or hinted at. Mr. Percy FitzGerald claims that the
description applies to Chertsey, but, as the letter had to be taken to
Chertsey, something seems wrong in his deduction.
In the chapter describing the flight of Bill Sikes, we read that, on
leaving London behind, he shaped his course for Hatfield. "It was nine
o'clock at night when the man, quite tired out, and the dog, limping and
lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the hill by the church of
the quiet village, and, plodding along the little street, crept into a
small public-house whose scanty light had guided them to the spot. There
was a fire in the tap-room, and some of the country labourers were
drinking before it. They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in
the farthest corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog, to
whom he cast a morsel of food from time to time." Here he met the pedlar
with his infallible composition for removing blood-stains. This
particular public-house is no doubt the Eight Bells, a picturesque old
house which still remains on the spot where Dickens accurately located it.
It is a quaint little building with a red-tiled roof and dormer windows,
and local tradition assigns it as that at which Bill Sikes sought refuge
for a short time before continuing his journey to St. Albans, enabling
Hatfield to claim it as a veritable Dickens landmark, together with that
other, the churchyard, where Mrs. Lirriper's husband was buried.