The Artful Dodger

London Pub Signs – The Artful Dodger…

by exploringlondon

It won’t come as a surprise, but this pub, located a short distance east of Tower Hill, is named for the character from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

PICTURE: Google Maps

Located in Royal Mint Street, the pub was formerly known as the Crown and Seven Stars. It closed in 1981 and reopened under its current name in 1985.

While the history of the Crown and Stars apparently goes back some years earlier, the current four storey building, which is Grade II-listed, dates from a rebuild in the 1820s. But the facade, which features a crown and seven stars on the uppermost level, was partially rebuilt in the 1880s.

It’s not quite clear why the pub is so re-named – there doesn’t appear to be any particular connection of the character – known as the Artful Dodger but whose ‘real’ name in the novel is Jack Dawkins – with the location except that it’s in the East End where large sections of the book are set.

The pub is located at number 47. For more, see https://camra.org.uk/pubs/artful-dodger-london-155070.

10 fictional character addresses in London – 7. Saffron Hill…

by exploringlondon

Saffron-Hill2Once at the heart of one of London’s most infamous rookeries or slums, Saffron Hill – located between Holborn and Clerkenwell – is forever associated with Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel, Oliver Twist, and in particular with the arch criminal Fagin.

In the text, Fagin’s den is located “near Field Lane” (the southern extension of Saffron Hill beyond Greville Street) and it is here that Fagin’s young associate, Jack Dawkins (better known as the Artful Dodger), takes Oliver after first encountering him.

As Oliver is led down Saffron Hill, Dickens records his thoughts and it’s worth quoting to get a flavour of the place as he saw it: “A dirtier of more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place, were the public-houses; and in them, the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses, where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth; and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or harmless errands.” (Oliver Twist, p. 55, Vintage, 2007)

Saffron-Hill3Saffron Hill, known as London’s Italian quarter in the 19th century, takes its name from the saffron which was once grown here but which was not to be seen by the time Dickens’ wrote his book. As well as Fagin’s lair, the street is also home to salubrious pub The Three Cripples, Bill Sikes’ favoured watering-hole (The Three Cripples was apparently the name of a lodging house in Saffron Hill during Dickens’ time – it was located next to a pub called The One Tun) .

It’s worth noting that this is only one of many addresses in London associated with Dickens’ characters but the ill-fated Fagin does stand out as one of his most memorable.

PICTURE: Saffron Hill as it is now.

For more on Dickens’ London, check out Alex Werner’s  Dickens’s Victorian London: The Museum of London.