The Workhouse

In the shadow of the Telecom Tower &
the subject of a recent furore in Fitzrovia :
Given Grade II listed status.
— ministerhttp://ow.ly/4dZsm #in #fitzrovia
dividing the residents between those who
wanted it pulled down & those who wanted
it preserved as an important part of history.
I fall into the latter category. The historian,
Prof Ruth Richardson makes a compelling case
that Charles Dickens, who lived 100 yards
away (No.22) in the same street, describes
this workhouse in Oliver Twist. Whatever
the case, it was once a workhouse where
the work was carpet beating. The men, women
& children — even from the same family –were
split up, stripped of all posessions &, with only
one bowl of gruel (watery porridge) to eat a day
made to work till most died. The luckier ones
were conscripted by Florence Nightingale to
work for her in the Middlesex Hospital opposite.
One of my pictures here shows the exercise yard
under which was recently found, a burial ground
with bones going 20 feet deep.
Unfortunately, you can only see it from the outside
at the moment. for security reasons.
With your back to the entrance notice the building
opposite with balconies: No 47 was the Studio of the
Pre-​Raphaelites Rossetti & Holman Hunt in 1849