Bleeding Heart Yard - A Walk in Dickensian London

I was inspired to do this self discovery of Dickensian London after seeing a programme on Sky Arts 2 about Dickens' England and from reading The Stories Behind London's Streets by Peter Thurgood and London by Edward Rutherfurd. I have always had a fascination for the city I was born in and have enjoyed visiting many places in and around this great city but cannot claim to truly know the place.


Bleeding Heart Yard is a cobbled courtyard in the Farringdon area of London. It is mentioned in Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit as being the home of the Plornish Family. "... A place much changed in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient greatness about it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few large dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of their old proportions, gave the Yard a character. It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard, that it had a character.
As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which it stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that you got into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original approach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby streets, which went about and about, tortuously ascending to the level again. At this end of the Yard and over the gateway, was the factory of Daniel Doyce, often heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron, with the clink of metal upon metal. The opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of its name. The more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a murder; the gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the whole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of former times closely imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father for remaining true to her own true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he chose for her. The legend related how that the young lady used to be seen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of which the burden was, 'Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,' until she died."

The murder mentioned by Dickens is that of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the widowed daughter in law of Sir Christopher Hatton, one time consort of Queen Elizabeth I. Legend has it that during her annual winter ball in January 1662, a strange man entered the house and danced with Lady Elizabeth before leading her out into the gardens. The lady was not seen again that night but the following morning her body was found in a corner of the courtyard outside the house. She had been mutilated and the frozen snow was stained with her blood. When she was found, her heart was still pumping blood onto the cobblestones. Who the mysterious man was, no one knows although it is rumoured that he was a prominent European Ambassador. Other stories say that Lady Elizabeth was an unvirtuous woman who had made a pact with the devil but then turned away from him in favour of others. To exact his revenge on her, he had appeared in human form and murdered her.

It is said to this day that Lady Elizabeth's ghost still returns to the cobbled street to remove all traces of blood from the street - now called Bleeding Heart Yard.