Richard Jones has written numerous books on Walks around London. They include Walking Haunted London, Uncovering Jack the Ripper’s London and Walking Dickensian London.
Recently we were approached by a client who wanted to know which were the best Dickens London walks for an avid Dickens fan to do.
Charles Dickens can be encountered all over London. Indeed his books an even be used to plot a series of exciting and fascinating London walks that take you in to the lesser known places of this great City.
But for the ultimate Charles Dickens London walk you should begin at Chancery Lane Underground Station. Close by is Gray’s Inn one of London’s four Inns of Court. As a teenager Charles Dickens came to waork here for the solicitor’s firm of Ellis and Blackmore and the first Square you come in to is as it was in Dickens day.
From here you can make your way across Holborn into Staple Inn, a black and white timebered building that admits you to a peaceful oasis that has hardly changed since Dickens featured it in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Then making your way along Chancery Lane you can turn into Lincoln’s, Inn another of the Inns of Court where Dickens begin his most scathing attack on the English Legal System in Bleak House.
Across Lincoln’s Inn Fields you arrive at the former home of John Forster Dickens great friend and business advisor. It was in an upstairs room of this house that Dickens gave the first reading of his Christmas book The Chimes.
Close nearby is the Old Curiosity Shop in Portugal Street which, although not the one that Dickens wrote about in his book of that name, is nonetheless worth a look at as it is a very picturesque building that dates from 1567.
So within a few short streets you can enjoy a Dickens London walk that takes in numerous locations that are associated with England’s greatest novelist.
Tags: Charles Dickens, Dickens London, Gray's Inn, Inns of Court, London walks, Richard Jones, The Chimes, The Old Curiosity Shop, Uncovering Rack the Ripper's London, Walking Haunted London, Walking Tours of London
