Charles Dickens in Redhill

Charles Dickens apparently visited The Philanthropic School in Redhill, Surrey in 1852, and wrote of the visit in an article 'Boys to Mend' in the journal Household Words.

The local council has recently published a booklet containing directions for a walk including some of the locations Dickens may have visited at the time. I decided to try it out today, and, apart from losing my gloves and my copy of the leaflet, spent an enjoyable couple of hours doing so.

Redhill has a lot of Victorian houses, but most of them late Victorian, so the view above would have been very different for Mr Dickens.The church was there, but not the spire, which was only added in 1895.