The Charles Dickens Museum – where Dickens lived and wrote in London!
Today is a big day for Charles Dickens fans around the world! After a brilliant £3.1million renovation and transformation, the Charles Dickens Museum in London re-opens to the public on December 10, 2012. What a perfect way to cap off the bicentenary celebrations for Dickens’s 200th birthday! Located at 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, not far from the British Museum, the Charles Dickens Museum is the author’s only remaining London home. The charming Georgian terrace house was where Charles Dickens lived with his wife Catherine from 1837 to 1839. This was a busy period for Dickens as he was hard at work on his novels Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.
The late 18th-century home was saved from demolition by the Dickens Fellowship in 1923 and first opened as a museum in 1925. It has become a place of pilgrimage for Dickens lovers around the world and home to the finest Dickens-related collections. After the recent restorations, the newly re-opened Charles Dickens Museum has doubled in size and offers a new accessible visitor experience and a chance to step back in time to see how Dickens and his family lived in their Victorian home. The experience of standing in the rooms where Dickens lived and where he wrote his masterpieces is a moving experience – one that every Dickens lover visiting London should do!
The goal of the restorations at the Charles Dickens Museum has been to recreate the traditional Victorian appearance of the rooms as well as creating new displays that bring Dickens and his works to life through the author’s own words describing home life in the Victorian era. The museum hopes visitors will feel like Dickens has just stepped out from his home and might return at any moment. We’re looking forward to walking in the footsteps of this great author at the Charles Dickens Museum!
The Charles Dickens Museum
48 Doughty Street,
London, WC1N 2LX
www.dickensmuseum.com
Open Monday to Sunday from 10am until 5pm
Admission Prices from December 2012:
Adult: £8.00
Child 6-16 years: £4.00
Children under 6 years: Free
Transport details
By bus: 7, 17, 19, 38, 45, 46, 55, 243
Underground: Russell Square (Piccadilly Line), Chancery Lane or Holborn (Central Line) or Kings Cross St Pancras
A Very Dickensian Christmas!
The Charles Dickens Museum has opened just in time for the holidays, and a series of special events are planned to mark the bicentenary celebrations. From readings of The Christmas Carol, to Victorian Christmas trimmings and night walks through Dickensian London, the holidays are the perfect time to visit the Charles Dickens Museum.
A festive reading of A Christmas Carol by Professor Michael Slater
Date and time: 18 December, 6.30pm
Tickets: £12
This is an annual tradition at the Charles Dickens Museum and Michael’s reading is given with great wit and panache. It is a one off event and tickets for this sell out very quickly.
A Christmas Carol, adapted and performed by Dominic Gerrard
Dates: 19 – 22 December, 27 – 29 December
Times: 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Tickets: £15
Tim Carroll (currently directing Twelfth Night & Richard III, Globe/West End) directs a magical bicentennial production of A Christmas Carol in Dickens’s home using puppetry and music to tell his classic story.
Adapted and performed by Dominic Gerrard, this show will transport the audience – stave by stave – through Scrooge’s life as he journeys out, one bleak Christmas night, with the ghosts that have been sent to reclaim him…
Dickensian London Christmas Walks
Dates and times: From Monday 10 December 2012 – Wednesday 2 January 2013
Mondays 3- 5pm (exc 24 December), Wednesdays 10.30am – 12.30pm & 5.15pm – 7.15pm
Tickets: £7
Visitors are taken on a guided festive walk through the streets of London , enjoying festive excerpts and biographical information regarding Dickens at the age he was writing A Christmas Carol.
A Very Dickensian Christmas
Date: 24, 25, 26 December
Time: 11am – 6pm (last admissions 5pm)
Tickets: Adults £18 / Children £8
The newly re-opened museum will be decked with festive greenery and authentic Victorian trimmings to celebrate a Very Dickensian Christmas. There will be screenings of the classic film A Christmas Carol and lively readings. All visitors can enjoy special festive treats including mince pies and gift packs.
From 3-5pm on Boxing Day, Wednesday 26 December, there will be an Exclusive Dickensian Christmas walk and Museum visit incorporating a London Christmas Walk, where guests will be treated to readings from A Christmas Carol at Dickensian sites along the way, as well as a visit to the museum as above. Places are strictly limited to 25 only. Tickets are £25 per person.
Find out more about Christmas festivities, walking tours and events at the Charles Dickens Museum by visiting A Very Dickensian Christmas. Enjoy the holidays in London this year … and experience The Christmas Carol in a whole new way at the Charles Dickens Museum in London!
Photos used with kind permission of the Charles Dickens Museum.
