The Basement > The Main Hallway
The Basement's Main Hallway
On the main wall of the passage is a
massive iron grill in a wooden frame. This grill is from the Marshalsea Goal, where Dickens's father spent three months, imprisoned for debt, during the period that Dickens himself was working at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, sealing bottles of boot blacking. At the age of twelve, he lived in lodgings by himself, for a time at such a distance that he could only see his parent on Sunday only. This was the most painful and formative episode of his early life.
Also featured in the basement's main hallway are an
inventory of fixtures present at 48 Doughty Street completed in the 1830s, a
door knocker from Dickens's Childhood home, and a
letter of appreciation regarding the first issue of
Household Words.