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Location 1 (1.02): Liverpool Rd/Batchelor St
The former Agricultural Hall, site of the turnpike where Oliver made his entry into London.
Location 2 (10.53): The Harlequin, Arlington Way
The popular plays put on in the cheap, non-West End theatres like Sadler's Wells hugely influenced Dickens's writing. One of Dickens's friends is remembered inside the Harlequin– the creator of the modern clown, Joe Grimaldi.
Location 3 (16.25): Spa Green Park
A tiny surviving piece of the greenery on what was the edge of London. On the south-east side of the park stood a Quaker workhouse.
Location 4 (21.03): Spa Fields
In Oliver's time the buildings here were major prisons. The Clerkenwell House of Detention's huge underground chambers are still beneath the school playground here.
Location 5 (25.10): Exmouth Market/Mount Pleasant
On the site of Royal Mail's main sorting office stood an infamous prison, to deal with London's burgeoning crime problem in Oliver's time. Experimental treatments here included the silent system, and the treadmill …
Location 6 (31.38): The Coach & Horses, Ray Street
This area was Hockley-in-the-Hole in Oliver's day, the worst kind of criminal slum, or rookery.
Location 7 (37.35): The One Tun, Saffron Hill
Site of Field Lane, Fagin's headquarters. The One Tun itself may have been the original Three Cripples pub, headquarters of Bill Sikes.
Location 8 (47.32): The Old Sessions House
A purpose built 18th-century law court, sited just outside London in Dickens's time. The Artful Dodger involves Oliver in a pocket-picking incident on this site.
Location 9 (54.24): Hatton Place
The site of the Hatton Garden Magistrates Court, presided over by a real magistrate, AS Laing, on whom Dickens based Mr Fang.
