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Marshalsea wall & St George the Martyr

The one surviving wall of the Marshalsea, where Dickens's father was jailed, and the church where Little Dorrit was christened and married.

In the storyGo insideFree

John Dickens was locked up for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824 and his twelve-year-old son walked here on Sundays; the prison's southern wall survives along the alley of Angel Place, with the novel's lines set into the paving, beside the churchyard of St George the Martyr, which stood outside the gate. In Little Dorrit the heroine is born in the prison, christened in the church and married at its altar, and the east window, reglazed in 1951, has her kneeling in the corner. One of the few places in London where a novel's geography can be walked yard for yard.

Where
Angel Place and Borough High Street, SE1 1JA
Nearest station
Borough · 2 min walk

The wall and the churchyard garden are open at any hour; the church keeps its own hours.

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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