Dickens’ London study visit
This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
We are beginning our programme of study visits for creative writing students with a Dickens’ double bill on Friday 24 May. In the morning, a walking tour starting on the fringe of the City near The Strand which will bring to life the London where the most prolific of the Victorian novelists lived and worked. In the afternoon, a chance to see behind the doors of 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, the only remaining London home of the writer and where he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.
The walk begins at 11am. It is being led by London Walks, which claims to be the oldest urban walking company in the world. All walks are led by Blue Badge guides. A private walk (there will only be OCA students in the group), the guide will be chosen with our interests as writers in mind. London Walks was founded nearly 50 years ago by Australian Keith Baverstock, who was fed up with ‘the banality of typical London tourist fare’, and is still family owned and run. The current owners are a classically trained dancer and actress whose West End credits include ‘Gone with the Wind’ and a literary historian, university lecturer and journalist.
The Dickens House Museum houses one of the most important collections of the novelist’s artefacts in the world – manuscripts, rare editions, personal items, painting and other visual sources. Two of Dickens’ daughters were born here, his sister-in-law Mary died aged 17 in an upstairs bedroom and some of Dickens’s best-loved novels were written here. The OCA visit begins at 2.30pm. Visitors to the house have the chance to experience what it would have been like when Dickens and his family lived there, and to learn more about his life and works. The Museum was opened in 1925 and the house has just been reopened after an extensive refurbishment last year, the bi-centenary of Dickens’ birth.
The day is expected to be an active and energetic one. The walk in the morning lasts for two hours, much of it down alleyways and into the nooks and crannies that many Londoners miss. London Walks asks that people wear sturdy shoes and come prepared with waterproof clothing. The Dickens House Museum is in a Georgian terrace house with narrow staircases and visitors have to stand through the hour-long tour.
Places on the study visit are free to OCA students and are strictly limited to 12, the maximum group size for The Dickens House Museum. T o book email enquiries@oca-uk.com.
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This looks like a great opportunity to find out more about the working methods – and writing space! – of a very prolific writer.
Seeing parts of London that are now almost forgotten and that found their ways in to the novels should also be instructive.
Yes, of course, very evocative.
Many thanks for Elizabeth for running this study visit, and for other students for the discussion. It was an very interesting visit, and provide some brain food for me to think and reflect on my studies.
I will follow the tradition in the OCA photography study visit to put my blog post of this visit here.
http://illustration-sip.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/oca-study-visit-dickens-london.html
I too, would like to thank Elizabeth for coordinating things and making it a great study visit for all! I found the tour inspiring–down a tangle of alleyways and stepping back in time to Dickens’ beautiful Georgian home was a treat. I think we all had a few laughs as we splashed through puddles and came upon a tiny door of a ‘Curiosity Shop’. It also was nice meeting other OCA students! Elizabeth–I appreciate your kindness and efforts in creating a worthwhile event.