Bleak House

Today was the last of my non-working Fridays for a while. I went up to London to meet my former boss and walking companion to complete a couple of Dickens themed walks that we'd devised. Starting from Shadwell our first walk took us around Docklands. We nipped into the Prospect of Whitby, which claims to be London's oldest riverside pub (built in 1520) which Dickens used to frequent. The pub is opposite the former Wapping Hydraulic Power Station (1890) which is now used as a gallery space. We stopped to view the excellent photographic exhibition ('This is not a House') by Edgar Martins which explores the collapse of the US housing market and the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

On to the Grapes for lunch - this pub appears in Our Mutual friend (where it is re-named as the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters). Then over to Chancery lance for part two, a walk around Lincoln's Inn Fields (with a stop at the Sir John Soanes Museum), Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn where Dickens had worked as a clerk.