Imperial London sketches from the history of a great city
 Barnaby Rudge

 

Charles Dickens' London: Barnaby Rudge

The scene is laid alternately in London and at the Maypole (the present King's Head) in the village of Chigwell.

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In Clerkenwell, "towards that part of its confines which is nearest to the Charter House, and in one of those cool, shady streets of which a few, widely-scattered and dispersed, yet remain," was the Golden Key, the dwelling-place and shop of Gabriel Varden, locksmith, father of the lovely Dolly, and master of the redoubtable apprentice Simon Tappertit, and of Miggs, who looked after her valetudinarian mistress.

In the Temple at Paper Buildings, facing the river, lived the schemer, Sir John Chester, who was killed in a duel by Mr. Haredale, the Roman Catholic distiller.

At St. George's Fields, Barnaby Rudge met Lord George Gordon, who headed the mob as it marched to Westminster.

Newgate recalls Dickens' description of its partial destruction in these riots, and Varden's valiant refusal to pick the lock of its outer gate.

The Black Swan in Holborn, in 1900 occupied by Buchanan and Co., brings to mind the burning of the Haredale distillery and the awful scenes that ensued, when men, women and children, having fallen down insensible from drink into the pools of blazing spirits that were in the road, were roasted alive.

Next: Charles Dickens' London: David Copperfield