7th February 2014 sees the 102nd birthday of one Charles John Huffam Dickens and, to celebrate Richard will be leading a very special Dickens birthday walk entitled Happy Bozday Mr. Dickens.
The walk will start from Exit Three of Bank Underground Station and will explore the old alleyways that have changed very little since the days when Dickens himself would explore them seeking inspiration for the likes of Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol and Our Mutual Friend.
In the course of the 1 hour 45 minutes tour, you will visit the location of Scrooge’s counting house and hear of the real life counterpart of literatures most famous miser. You will also see the site of the house where Dickens first love, Maria Beadnell, lived and hear how, when she rejected him, the devastated 21 year old Dickens would make his way through the early morning London streets to gaze up at the room in which “Maria slept.”
The tour will also make its way through Victorian London’s most beautiful market to arrive at the Monument to the Great Fire of London, before twisting its way through a warren of decidedly Dickensian alleyways to end at the church that Dickens, in The Uncommercial Traveller dubbed “the church of St Ghastly Grim.”
All in all, the Charles Dickens Birthday Walk will prove an intriguing introduction to the life, times and works of England’s greatest novelist and will depart at 2.30pm from Exit Three of Bank Underground Station.
You can get full details of the walk and book your places by following this link.
Incidentally, the walk will end close to Tower Hill Underground Station where there are several old pubs where you can enjoy an evening meal and then, if you wish, make the short walk, or even take the tube, to Aldgate East Underground Station where you can then take our Jack the Ripper Tour.
So you can, if you wish, spend the afternoon and evening exploring the London of the Victorian era’s most famous and most infamous characters. There’s food for thought!