Dickens Square

Next, we proceed along back streets to Dickens Square, named after Charles Dickens, one of Britain’s best-loved novelists.

Dickens lived in Southwark as a boy where he had an impoverished childhood and saw his father imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors prison.

Dickens became concerned with the poverty and deprivation that led to physical and mental health problems among the poor and the area provided the inspiration for many of the characters.

The local workhouse is thought to have provided him with setting for his epic tale Oliver Twist.