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Dickens' London Walking Tour
London

Walk the London that broke Dickens as a boy and obsessed him as a man, from the Strand to the Borough and back again.

11 stops · 4.8 km

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GPS-guided · Works offline · No signal needed

Every Stop Has a Story

David Copperfield Works in the Blacking Factory

Dickens kept the months he spent near here as a 12-year-old factory boy a secret all his life, and the world only found out after his death, from his friend John Forster's biography.

David's First London Home

Dickens lodged on this 17th-century street in 1834, and years later he gave David Copperfield chambers here too, with a view of the river.

Old Curiosity Shop

This crooked little building is one of the oldest in central London, but its link to Dickens' novel was painted on in the 1870s by a bookseller hoping to drum up business.

Charles Dickens' House

Dickens wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby in this house, the only one of his London homes still standing, before moving to a grander house by Regent's Park.

Oliver Twist Sees the Slums

This street takes its gentle name from the saffron crocuses once grown here by the Bishops of Ely, a stark contrast to the violent slum Dickens describes, bounded by a River Fleet that had become an open sewer.

David Copperfield Visits Agnes

The Georgian houses on this private street were built after the Bishops of Ely sold their London estate in 1772, so Agnes would still recognise the street today.

Scrooge's Counting House

Dickens never named Scrooge's church, but St Michael's is a likely candidate, and the alley beside it was home to London's very first coffee house.

Scrooge Buys Bob Cratchit a Turkey

Dickens never named Scrooge's poulterer, but this market, built over the heart of Roman London, was the City's great place to buy poultry.

Nancy's Steps

These steps are the only part of the 1831 London Bridge left in London, the bridge Dickens knew, whose granite arches now stand in the Arizona desert.

The George Inn

This galleried inn, the last of its kind in London, is said to have been a drinking spot for Shakespeare, and Dickens mentions it in Little Dorrit.

Mr. Micawber's Crisis

Dickens drew Mr. Micawber's imprisonment from his own father's experience, though the elder Dickens actually served his time at Marshalsea, not this famously two-tiered prison where wealthy debtors could pay to live outside its walls.

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