The Dickens Museum

It is quite hard in England, with our houses opening out on street level, to pass by without taking a covert glance at the goings on inside. Who's in there? What are they up to? Have they caught me looking?

The nicer the house, the more irresistible it is to walk past without taking a peek at them indoors. Unfortunately, most of the fine homes of London are used as company headquarters and haven’t housed a Duchess in years.

Ring the bell at number 48 Doughty Street and for £6 you can do better than peek through windows at the office workers.
It’s a private museum. The only surviving London home to possibly the greatest categorizer the world has ever seen: Charles Dickens, writer and reformer.

Built on four floors, the house is crammed with a world- class collection of manuscripts, furnishings, paintings and ‘stuff’ used by the man himself. Domestic voyeurism doesn’t get better than this.

Karl Marx said of Dickens "…His work issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together...".

The impact of Dickens’ work for social conscience and change is enormous.
His invented characters reflect the wretched trials of those he was urging the Victorian world to help get scrubbed, fed, educated and ready for life.
Time blurs relevance as the torch gets passed through generations but Dickens stands shoulder to shoulder in equality reform with the likes of Emily Pankhurst, Dr Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Wandering through, I pinch myself to remember I’m in a lion’s den.
It seems mundane that a creative genius could be contained within the four walls of a regular home but here we are and this is where he came up with the juice although I’m still inclined to visualize him somewhere less than accessible. On top of a mountain, perhaps, with paranormal energy zooming out of his fingertips to communicate ‘truth’ on to stone through a gale force wind.

Here at the museum, one feels he was a real man with a life and whilst Dickens lived at 48 Doughty Street for a mere two years he managed to conjure three of history’s most enduring novels in that time: “Oliver Twist”, “Nicholas Nickleby”, “The Pickwick Papers” and so, I shouldn’t think Charles Dickens had a minutes time to look up from his work here let alone care about who was checking him out from the street.

If you do the right thing and visit the Charles Dickens Museum then make sure to drop in at “Bea’s of Bloomsbury” (44 Theobald’s Street, WC1 X8NW. Tel: 020 7242 8330) for tasty cakes, non air- freighted coffees and salty delights like cheddar and chive scones, or a feta, olive and sun-dried tomato muffin. If you are a Sunday visitor, traditional cream teas go at £5 for two scones with tea or as much as you like for £13 but make sure you note the telephone number above and reserve your table.

The Charles Dickens Museum 

48 Doughty Street 
London 
WC1N 2LX 



Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday 10.00-17.00, Sunday 11.00-17.00
Last admission is 30 minutes before closing time. Special opening times can be arranged for groups or private viewings.
Admission: Adults £6/ Children £3/ Families £15

By Bus: 7, 17, 19, 38, 45, 46, 55, 243.
By Underground: Piccadilly Line (Russell Square Station) Central Line (Chancery Lane or Holborn).