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Description
The REAL Fagin's Lair (c1870)

Reference image: www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/591027…

For anyone who is a fan of the author Charles Dickens' novel and film(s) of Oliver Twist, you will already know about the grimey den of child thieves that the villain Fagin resided in, where, in return for lodgings and food, they would operate as pickpockets and thieves targeting the London city population.

Charles Dickens often used to trawl around the seedier, rougher and poorer parts of London taking notes of the sights, smells and sounds of the poor, destitute and criminal fraternity that he could use as references for his novels. One of these places was the notorious 'Saffron Hill' in London, which is the location of the photograph above. This was taken around 1870, a little later than when Dickens visited around the 1830s when it was described as an 'overcrowded and impoverished residential area, a ‘rookery’, whereas here there are not that many people about. Unsuspecting visitors to Saffron Hill in Dickens' day, would be incensed by child stooges attempts ‘to seduce them into the purchase of the very handkerchief which you had in your pocket at the entrance’.

So named, because in earlier days, it was known for growing fields of Saffron, Saffron Hill in 1850 was described as a squalid neighbourhood, the home of paupers and thieves. In Dickens's novel Oliver Twist (1837), the Artful Dodger leads Oliver to Fagin's den in Field Lane, the southern extension of Saffron Hill: "a dirty and more wretched place he [Oliver] had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours".

Saffron Hill is also mentioned in the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons', as the Italian Quarter where the Venucci family can be found. The area still retains a local nomenclature of 'Little Italy'.

The character Fagin in Dickens’ Oliver Twist is believed to have been based on the real life criminal Ikey Solomon, who was a fence at the centre of a highly publicised arrest, escape, recapture, and trial. Like Fagin, Solomon is also thought to have been a London underworld “kidsman” (an adult who recruited and trained children as pickpockets in exchange for providing them free food and lodging). Also like Fagin, he was born into a Jewish family in the East End of London, Solomon was one of nine children and was introduced to a life of crime at an early age by his father. He firstly opened a shop in Brighton and later a pawn shop in London through which he bought and sold stolen goods.

This link (below) is from the 1948 film called Oliver Twist, were Oliver meets a shady character called the Artful Dodger who takes him to meet Fagin at Saffron Hill

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigmgU…

The link below is the south end of Saffron Hill as it looks today (including across the crossroad) in which Dickens described was the location of Fagins's lair. To the right is 'the One Tun' Public House which was originally established in 1759, meaning that it was around at the time of Dickens' treks around the area, and is said it was actually patronised by him. It is also said that it was this was the pub mentioned in "Oliver Twist" under the fictional name of "The Three Cripples" or at least based on it. The current pub is on the same site, but it was rebuilt in 1875 over the cellars of the old one.

www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5198…

Description
The REAL Fagin's Lair (c1870)

Reference image: www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/591027…

For anyone who is a fan of the author Charles Dickens' novel and film(s) of Oliver Twist, you will already know about the grimey den of child thieves that the villain Fagin resided in, where, in return for lodgings and food, they would operate as pickpockets and thieves targeting the London city population.

Charles Dickens often used to trawl around the seedier, rougher and poorer parts of London taking notes of the sights, smells and sounds of the poor, destitute and criminal fraternity that he could use as references for his novels. One of these places was the notorious 'Saffron Hill' in London, which is the location of the photograph above. This was taken around 1870, a little later than when Dickens visited around the 1830s when it was described as an 'overcrowded and impoverished residential area, a ‘rookery’, whereas here there are not that many people about. Unsuspecting visitors to Saffron Hill in Dickens' day, would be incensed by child stooges attempts ‘to seduce them into the purchase of the very handkerchief which you had in your pocket at the entrance’.

So named, because in earlier days, it was known for growing fields of Saffron, Saffron Hill in 1850 was described as a squalid neighbourhood, the home of paupers and thieves. In Dickens's novel Oliver Twist (1837), the Artful Dodger leads Oliver to Fagin's den in Field Lane, the southern extension of Saffron Hill: "a dirty and more wretched place he [Oliver] had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours".

Saffron Hill is also mentioned in the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons', as the Italian Quarter where the Venucci family can be found. The area still retains a local nomenclature of 'Little Italy'.

The character Fagin in Dickens’ Oliver Twist is believed to have been based on the real life criminal Ikey Solomon, who was a fence at the centre of a highly publicised arrest, escape, recapture, and trial. Like Fagin, Solomon is also thought to have been a London underworld “kidsman” (an adult who recruited and trained children as pickpockets in exchange for providing them free food and lodging). Also like Fagin, he was born into a Jewish family in the East End of London, Solomon was one of nine children and was introduced to a life of crime at an early age by his father. He firstly opened a shop in Brighton and later a pawn shop in London through which he bought and sold stolen goods.

This link (below) is from the 1948 film called Oliver Twist, were Oliver meets a shady character called the Artful Dodger who takes him to meet Fagin at Saffron Hill

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigmgU…

The link below is the south end of Saffron Hill as it looks today (including across the crossroad) in which Dickens described was the location of Fagins's lair. To the right is 'the One Tun' Public House which was originally established in 1759, meaning that it was around at the time of Dickens' treks around the area, and is said it was actually patronised by him. It is also said that it was this was the pub mentioned in "Oliver Twist" under the fictional name of "The Three Cripples" or at least based on it. The current pub is on the same site, but it was rebuilt in 1875 over the cellars of the old one.

www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5198…