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CHAPTER II

Oliver Twist

THE RED LION, BARNET—THE ANGEL, ISLINGTON—THE COACH AND HORSES, ISLEWORTH—THE THREE CRIPPLES—THE GEORGE INN—THE EIGHT BELLS, HATFIELD

There are not many inns that can be identified in Oliver Twist, and those that can play very little part in the enactment of the story, or have any notable history to relate in regard to them. The first one to attract attention is that at Barnet, where the Artful Dodger took Oliver Twist for breakfast on the morning they encountered each other on the latter’s tramp to London.

Although Dickens does not name this inn, we believe he had in mind the Red Lion, for it was one of those inns that was an objective when he and his friends went for a horse-ride out into the country. One such occasion was chosen when his eldest daughter, Mamie, was born, in March, 1838. He invited Forster to celebrate the event by a ride “for a good long spell,” and they rode out fifteen miles on the Great North Road. After dining at the Red Lion, in Barnet, on their way home, they distinguished the already memorable day, as Forster tells us, by bringing in both hacks dead lame.

This trip along the Great North Road was a favourite one, and Dickens consequently became well acquainted with the highway. At the time of Forster’s specific reference to the Red Lion, Dickens was engaged on the early chapters of Oliver Twist, and we find him describing the district in those pages wherein particular mention is made of Barnet.

Tramping to London after leaving Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, Oliver, on the seventh morning, “limped slowly into the little town of Barnet,” we are told. “The windows,” Dickens proceeds, “were closed; the street was empty; not a soul was awakened to the business of the day.” Oliver, with bleeding feet, and covered with dust, sat upon a doorstep. For some time he wondered “at the great number of public houses (every other house in Barnet was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through.” Here he was discovered by Jack Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, who, taking pity on him, assisted him to rise, escorted him to an adjacent chandler’s shop, purchased some ham and bread, and the two adjourned finally into a public-house tap-room, to regale themselves prior to continuing their journey to London. As the Red Lion was so familiar to Dickens, we may assume that this was the inn to which he referred.

The inn, no doubt, was the same from which Esther Summerson, in Bleak House, hired the carriage to drive to Mr. Jarndyce’s house, near St. Albans. Arriving at Barnet, Esther, Ada and Richard found horses waiting for them, “but, as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them, too,” she said, “and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field, before the carriage came up.” Doubtless the posting-house where this change was made was the Red Lion, for Dickens had used it for posting his own horse many a time.

It is there to-day, and drives a busy trade, more as a suburban hostelry than as a posting-inn.

Continuing their walk to London, the Artful Dodger and Oliver gradually reached Islington, and entered the City together. Islington in days gone by was a starting point for the mail-coaches going to the north, and as a consequence was famous for its old inns. Perhaps the most famous, particularly from the antiquarian standpoint, was the old Queen’s Head, a perfect specimen of ancient domestic architecture, which was destroyed in 1829. Another was, of course, the Angel; but the house bearing that name to-day can claim none of the romance or attractiveness of its ancient predecessor, and has recently been modernised on the lines adopted by a very modern firm of caterers. But the Angel of its palmy days was well-known to Dickens, and, although he does not make it the scene of any prominent incident in his books, it has mention in Oliver Twist in the chapter describing Oliver’s trudge to London. It was nearly eleven o’clock when he and the Artful Dodger reached the turnpike at Islington. They then crossed from the Angel into St. John’s Road, on their way to the house near Field Lane, where Oliver was dragged in and the door closed behind him.

THE RED LION, BARNET
Photograph by T. W. Tyrrell

The inn is mentioned again in the same book on the occasion when Noah Claypole and Charlotte traversed the same road. “Mr. Claypole,” we read, “went on, without halting, until he arrived at the Angel, at Islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and number of vehicles, that London began in earnest.” He, too, led the way into St. John’s Road.

The Angel has been a London landmark for over two centuries. There have been at least three houses of the same name, but the one Dickens knew and referred to was apparently that built after the destruction in 1819 of the original.

In those days, it was the first halting-place, after leaving London, of coaches bound along the Holyhead and Great North Roads. The original house presented the usual features of a large old country inn, and “the inn yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, with double galleries, supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures.” Now, as we have said, it is merely a very ordinary, everyday modern refreshment house.

The low public-house in the “filthiest” part of Little Saffron Hill, in whose dark and gloomy den, known as the parlour, was frequently to be found Bill Sikes and his dog, Bull’s-Eye, probably was no particular public-house so far as the novelist was concerned, although he gave it the distinguishing name of the Three Cripples. At any rate, it has not been identified, and must be assumed to be typical of the many with which this district at one time was infested. First referred to in Chapter XV, it is more minutely described in Chapter XXVI. “The room,” we are told, “was illuminated by two gas-lights, the glare of which was prevented by the barred shutters and closely drawn curtains of faded red from being visible outside. The ceiling was blackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaring lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more. By degrees, however, as some of it cleared away, through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the voices that greeted the ear, might be made out; and, as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectators gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a long table, at the upper end of which sat a showman with a hammer of office in his hands, while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner.” That was a scene common to the “low public-house,” of which the Three Cripples was a notorious example, and the atmosphere depicted no doubt applied generally to most of them.

THE COACH AND HORSES, ISLEWORTH
Drawn by C. G. Harper