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Oliver Twist Walking Tour
London

Trace Oliver's journey through the thieves' dens, workhouses, and back alleys of Victorian London that Dickens knew intimately.

13 stops · 5.5 km

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GPS-guided · Works offline · No signal needed

Every Stop Has a Story

Oliver Enters London

Nothing remains of the tollgate Oliver passed through here, though it survived until 1864, one of the last turnpikes standing as London outgrew the very boundaries they were built to mark.

Mr Brownlow's House

This square was home to George Cruikshank, the original illustrator of Oliver Twist, on a street in one of London's first planned suburbs, laid out in 1773 for City clerks seeking an easy commute.

The Walk to Fagin's

Dickens himself once described Sadler's Wells audiences as 'ruffianly,' with fights breaking out during every performance; today the only fights left are the ones choreographed on stage.

Oliver Follows the Dodger

The Dodger leads Oliver through what was once Hockley-in-the-Hole, a 17th-century venue notorious for bear-baiting and bull fighting.

Mr Brownlow Pickpocketed

This green began as a 12th-century buffer zone between two rival priories, and by Dickens' day was lined with shops displaying their wares outside, exactly the kind of street where a gentleman like Mr Brownlow would have been out and about.

Oliver Dragged to the Police Station

The street Oliver was dragged down, once called Mutton Hill for reasons lost to history, no longer exists, paved over to create Clerkenwell Road.

Bill Sikes Waits for Oliver

This street didn't even exist by that name in Dickens' day, when the area was home to much of London's Italian population; it wasn't renamed Herbal Hill until the 1930s, after the herb gardens the Bishops of Ely had grown here centuries earlier.

Oliver Sees the Slums

This narrow street was infamous in Dickens' day as a real market for stolen handkerchiefs, exactly the trade Fagin's gang notoriously worked here.

Police Station

Dickens based the cruel magistrate Mr Fang directly on a real judge here, Mr A.S. Laing, after visiting the court himself and being disgusted by what he witnessed.

Fagin's Den

Fagin's den stood near Field Lane, once called 'one of the most disreputable thoroughfares in London,' a street erased entirely when the Holborn Viaduct was built in the 1860s.

Oliver is Abducted

The deep church bell Oliver hears while being dragged through the fog belongs to St Bartholomew the Great, a church founded in 1123 that has survived the Reformation, the Great Fire, and two World Wars.

Nancy Meets the Maylies

Only the steps survive of the 1830s London Bridge that Nancy crossed in the novel; the rest of Dickens' actual bridge was shipped off to Arizona, where you can still visit it today.

Bill Sikes Flees

This expensive warehouse district was once one of the worst slums in Victorian London, surrounded by filthy ditches that bred rampant disease before it was redeveloped, first as industry, and eventually into the riverside flats you see today.

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