In a passageway leading out of Brick Lane at No. 120 is still to be seen
the large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and
commodious ladder, where, in "Pickwick Papers," Dickens located "The
Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance
Association." It is as Dickens pictured it, except that now the Mission
Hall is below at the foot of the ladder, and the former mission room at
the top is now a shop. It was here that Brother Tadger stumbled up the
ladder with Mr. Stiggins, and in the room above Sam Weller and his
father found the ladies drinking tea "until such time as they considered
it expedient to leave off." And if they are still in England it is safe
to say that they have never left off but are still drinking tea.
In Commercial Street, Whitechapel, at the corner of Flower and Dean
Street, is a dull and superior looking four story clothier's wareroom.
Though it does not seem it, this building has a history, for years ago
and until 1882 it was a cooking depot for the workers of this
neighbourhood, conducted upon the co-operative system. Dickens, in the
"Uncommercial Traveller" paper called "The Boiled Beef of New England,"
gives an account of the workings and merits of this establishment.
The Minories leads from the Tower to Aldgate High Street. Black and grim
at the head of this thoroughfare, rises the spire of the church of St.
Botolph. This structure, built in 1744, is on the site of an ancient
church. Here is still preserved the head of the Duke of Suffolk, father
of Lady Jane Grey, a relic formerly kept in the church of Holy Trinity.
Off this busy street called Minories, the first turning south of Aldgate
is a narrow hidden way called Church Street. Here, literally buried
from sight, is the tiny yellow and ancient church of Holy Trinity, once
belonging to an abbey of Minorites which was founded by Blanche, Queen
of Navarre, now used as a parish chapel of St. Botolph Aldgate. Many
persons sought out this church in the past, to look upon the head of the
Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, who was executed on nearby
Tower Hill in 1554, and whose head was preserved as a relic here for
more than three centuries until its removal to St. Botolph Aldgate where
it is now.
The Little Wooden Midshipman, marking Sol Gills' instrument shop told of
in "Dombey and Son," is now used as a sign by an instrument maker at 9
Minories E. The firm employing the sign formerly were located in
Leadenhall Street, just as was Sol Gills' shop which Dickens has made so
real to all of us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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