Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where certain gabled houses some centuries of age still stand looking on the public way, as if disconsolately looking for the Old Bourne that has long run dry, is a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It is one of those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing street, imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in his ears, and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of those nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees, as though they called to one another, 'Let us play at country,' and where a few feet of garden-mould and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that refreshing violence to their tiny understandings.

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Here in this particular article you will find neither shocking disclosures, nor horrifying murders or evidence investigation. My simple wish was to unfold my mere imagination, as if I were a free bird, a tiny sparrow of Staple Inn residence, having the opportunity to observe people of the Victorian Era, inhabitants of London in general and Staple Inn in particular. Let’s rewind 164 years back to the streets of Holborn following Rosa into Staple Inn gateway (I just wanted to say ‘Staple Inn gates wide open for a hospitable reception’, however the gateway was shut by night at Rosa’s arrival).

'Hiram Grewgious, Esquire, Staple Inn, London.' This was all Rosa knew of her destination; but it was enough to send her rattling away again in a cab, through deserts of gritty streets, where many people crowded at the corner of courts and byways to get some air, and where many other people walked with a miserably monotonous noise of shuffling of feet on hot paving-stones, and where all the people and all their surroundings were so gritty and so shabby!

Her jingling conveyance stopped at last at a fast-closed gateway, which appeared to belong to somebody who had gone to bed very early, and was much afraid of housebreakers; Rosa, discharging her conveyance, timidly knocked at this gateway, and was let in, very little bag and all, by a watchman.

A watchman didn’t have to open the Church gateway to let Rosa in, since there was a small guest entrance for such occasion. The watchman was usually rewarded by gentlemen returning from music halls and theatres with a pence or two, but since he volunteered himself he would not demand any payment from the lady.

The Staple Inn gateway was open throughout the day, yet the watchman sat down under an arch. His main duties were to prevent merchants in cheap rags, children and horses from entering. On the left, there was a water pump with a couple of taps and a handle right after an iron lattice, though the water was intended for Staple Inn inhabitants, but not for just any thirsty man out there. There was no plumbing or whatsoever, which is common for buildings of the XVI century, therefore Tartar had to carry water in buckets for his so-called ‘bathroom’ and probably heat it in a cauldron in his chimney.

'Does Mr. Grewgious live here?'

'Mr. Grewgious lives there, Miss,' said the watchman, pointing further in.

Staple Inn, composed of two irregular quadrangles connected with a path through one of the nooks, was covered with paving blocks (quite expensive indeed). There were also few lanes made of flat slabs, designed in order to avoid noise of merchant carriages cluttering over heavy stones, leading from the gateway to the very entrance of Staple Inn. There were scantly trees, but a little soil still left untouched for the sake of sparrows.

In the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence of a railroad afar off, as menacing that sensitive constitution, the property of us Britons: the odd fortune of which sacred institution it is to be in exactly equal degrees croaked about, trembled for, and boasted of, whatever happens to anything, anywhere in the world: in those days no neighbouring architecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow Staple Inn. The westering sun bestowed bright glances on it, and the south-west wind blew into it unimpeded.

It could be guessed from the watchman’s pointing further in, that Mr. Grewgious’s apartment was not an apartment with its front towards Holborn Street (i.e. porch without gates), and wasn’t one of the apartments located next to the house. There were only five such doorways, according to the Staple Inn plan and only one of them matches the description: two doorways on the same porch, one leading to a clerk’s room with two chimneys, the other leading to the only sleeping-room with a single chimney. This is to be the second doorway to the right of the gateway, it is usually illustrated as PJT 1747.

The first floor was clerk’s room. Mr. Grewgious used to assign a substitute clerk, in case Bazzard was absent for some reason. Thus, his own office might be located on either second or the third floor, second is more probable since we all remember ‘a flying waiter’ bringing much of that London fog with him while carrying dishes and beverage all on his shoulders. It sure is unlikely for the fog to reach the third floor by a narrow staircase.

The window of the second floor was very convenient for the purpose of Mr. Grewgious’s having Jasper under his eye, who was also watching over Neville from his second floor across the courtyard.

Now, let’s continue our exploration by following Rosa to Mr. Grewgious’s room.

So Rosa went further in, and, when the clocks were striking ten, stood on P. J. T.'s doorsteps, wondering what P. J. T. had done with his street-door.

Guided by the painted name of Mr. Grewgious, she went up-stairs and softly tapped and tapped several times.

According to Dickens’s portrayal there were two adjacent rooms in Grewgious’s house, the first one was clerk’s room (13) where Bazzard sat (with his built-in chimney between two closets), and Mr. Grewgious’s room (14) was there behind a partition (a wooden partition must be built later, therefore not marked in the original plan). It’s reasonable to separate a 16 sq. m. room with two chimneys by a partition.

So, “As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that afternoon, so did the clerk of Mr. Grewgious sit and write by HIS fire.” Grewgious’s chimney was sticking far out of the wall with a sharp angle, leaving a little space behind with a small piece of a window, while the space to the other side of the chimney was Mr. Grewgious’s sleeping-room. Grewgious might have been sitting with his back facing the chimney, while his left to the office, thus the sunlight had a beneficial to him angle.

The shape of the chimney was also mentioned by Dickens: “Mr. Grewgious came and stood himself with his back to the other corner of the fire, and his shoulder-blades against the chimneypiece, and collected his skirts for easy conversation.” That means, Grewgious was able to step behind the chimney, since its triangular shape allowed him to do so. It is also likely that ‘an old-fashioned occasional round table’ was brought out behind that chimney after business hours, ‘from a corner where it elsewise remained turned up like a shining mahogany shield’.

There is also a curved staircase in the room with two chimneys on Staple Inn plan, leading to somewhat a gallery. However, it should be noticed that those plans usually include first floors of buildings, while Mr. Grewgious resided on the second. Perhaps, there was such a staircase in the clerk’s room leading either to a gallery or basement.

If Mr. Grewgious appeared to pass a staircase hall to unlock the door of his office he found himself in a sleeping-room (12) with two and a half windows and a chimney. There is nothing to be said about that room, except that it was damp and cool, while the opposite room stayed dry and warm, not surprising at all having two chimneys in it.

We can view Rosa and Mr. Grewgious in an illustration by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, sitting behind a table in Grewgious’s room; chimney, window behind Rosa’s back and mess so peculiar to an old bachelor it’s all there. It should be mentioned, that Grewgious’s office, on the contrary, was a place of immaculate order.

Windows of Mr. Grewgious’s sleeping room (12) served a great observation post: he could watch over Jasper in his window across (11), and Neville expecting somebody at his doorway (1), and even could show Rosa or see himself the Landlesses room by holding aside a window-blind (i.e. at a very sharp angle). However, latter could be done by craning out his neck, since Landlesses resided high above, just under the loft.

Finding the Landlesses room is much bigger of a deal, and it also should be attached to Tartar’s. Let’s review some of the descriptions:

“He [Crisparkle] took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T. and Mr. Grewgious. Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he reached some attic rooms in a corner, turned the latch of their unbolted door, and stood beside the table of Neville Landless.

An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and about their inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly mouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a prisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret-window, which had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles; and on the cracked and smoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left their crutches in their nests; and there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that would have been melody in the country.”

“It was midnight when he [Neville] returned from his solitary expedition and climbed his staircase. The night was hot, and the windows of the staircase were all wide open. Coming to the top, it gave him a passing chill of surprise (there being no rooms but his up there) to find a stranger sitting on the window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesome glazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in fact, so much more outside the window than inside, as to suggest the thought that he must have come up by the water-spout instead of the stairs.”

“I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a good deal, and that you seem to like my garden aloft here. If you would like a little more of it, I could throw out a few lines and stays between my windows and yours, which the runners would take to directly. And I have some boxes, both of mignonette and wall- flower, that I could shove on along the gutter (with a boathook I have by me) to your windows, and draw back again when they wanted watering or gardening, and shove on again when they were ship- shape; so that they would cause you no trouble. I couldn't take this liberty without asking your permission, so I venture to ask it. Tartar, corresponding set, next door.”

So: Neville’s room was the only room in the yard with window to the roof, otherwise how could Tartar possibly climb it? His office is situated right behind the doorway with windows facing either West or North-West, otherwise there would be sunlight during the day, but not in the evenings only. Neville’s and Tartar’s windows must be next to each other (“I could shove on along the gutter to your windows, and draw back again when they wanted watering or gardening”), also they must be angled so that one could be viewed from the other. Here are few more examples:

“When they had got through such studies as they had in hand, they stood leaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon the patch of garden.”

“‘I am very glad to take your windows in tow,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘From what I have seen of you when I have been gardening at mine, and you have been looking on, I have thought you (excuse me) rather too studious and delicate.’”

“Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with his hand, happened at the moment to have Neville's chambers under his eye for the last time that night. Fortunately his eye was on the front of the house and not the back, or this remarkable appearance and disappearance might have broken his rest as a phenomenon.”

“My poor Neville is reading in his own room, the sun being so very bright on this side just now.”

Rooms matching these particular descriptions are not ambiguous on the plan — Neville’s room on top left of the gateway and Tartar’s room is even located in the other courtyard.

(The whole idea of finding book characters’ apartments in real world seems all like a miracle of visualization. Here they lived, there they walked on that pavement, there is tap, Helena collected water from and that is the window Jasper peeped out lifting its frame, for that was the only way to see Neville’s doorway under that angle.)

Thus, the Landlesses apartment was two rooms with chimneys in corners, the smallest room (2) was about 6 sq. m. and a sleeping-room (3) about 14 sq. m. (also taking into account the sloping ceilings, which might cut the area out, while windows were placed in such niches). There were three windows in the sleeping-room facing South, and there was a flower-garden below, not the Tartar’s garden, but one with hollyhocks and even a fountain in the middle. The total annual rent collected from tenants of Staple Inn made approximately two thousand and a half pounds — gardening expenses were not included in the sum.

Calculating the annual amount Neville paid for his rent might be very exciting.

The windows of Neville’s reading room (2) were facing North, meaning there was barely sunshine in his room, the room therefore remained dark cold and damp. Being able to see Grewgious’s doorway was not a great of consolation.

There were neither toilets nor kitchens in Staple Inn apartments. Mr. Grewgious usually had lunch at Wood’s Hotel in Furnivall’s Inn. As for Neville, his meals were never mentioned, he might be buying some food on Holborn Street which could be easily prepared by the means of his chimney, like grilling a slice of fish or boiling a teapot (however, Londoners preferred beer); fried eggs and bacon doesn’t seem any possible though. The way they used chamber pots doesn’t seem clear either.

The absence of any wardrobes and valet stands is peculiar to Victorian Era. People arranged their clothes stacked on shelves or hanging on nails sticking out of walls, clothes might be as well lumped in a pile on drawers.

Tartar the Sailor had things arranged in a slight better, than the Landlesses way: he had some kind of a garderobe in his nook (including half of his neighbour’s window), which he turned into a bath-room (8), looking more like a ‘dairy’. Why dairy? Maybe because there were couple of white enamel buckets, reminding of cows and milking, a jug on a tripod and a basin, no more than this could be fitted in such a limited space.

A room with four windows, was probably divided with a thin partition in half into symbolic sitting-room (6) and a sleeping-chamber (7). There was a chimney in the sleeping-chamber facing the door to the sitting-room, so both rooms could be kept warm. Both the sunrise and the sunset could be observed from Tartar’s windows, thus the whole chamber was bright throughout the day.

Just like in the Landlesses chambers, there were wooden beams beneath the ceiling supporting the roof in Tartar’s sleeping-room; unlike Neville’s creating the coziest look, rather than prisonous, Tartar’s chambers were ‘the neatest, the cleanest, and the best- ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars.’ Maybe it was different simply because the beams were dyed and finished. Tartar used those beams to install a sailor hammock with two rings screwed in and an additional rope to hide the hammock up under the ceiling, gaining thus more space in the daytime.

Behind the wall of Tartar’s sleeping-chamber (as well as Neville’s sleeping-room) there was an uninhabited room (could be concluded by the absence of windows on slopes), which seemed to be a loft (4). The difference was that Tartar had a chimney in that wall, while Neville had nothing, therefore the wall was always cold, since the loft was never heated. There was another barely heated room beyond the opposite wall — Staple Inn Hall.

“Moreover, it is one of those nooks which are legal nooks; and it contains a little Hall, with a little lantern in its roof: to what obstructive purposes devoted, and at whose expense, this history knoweth not.”

That is Staple Inn, ascetic but cozy shelter for its inhabitants — Grewgious, Bazzard, Tartar, Neville and Helena Landlesses.

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I would worth finding on the map of another apartment — Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square (now Southampton Place). It sure is possible. The nearest to Bloomsbury Square apartment is 28, Southampton Place. The building has everything required to match Billickin’s apartment: a bedroom and Mrs. Billickin’s back parlour, then the first floor with a sitting-room and wide windows, the second floor for Mrs. Twinkleton and also attendant’s loft. And may the lightning strike me dead, if the brass door-plate doesn’t say the single name ‘BILLICKIN’ on it any longer!

“This lady's name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable size on a brass door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition, was BILLICKIN.”

16.01.2013

Translated by Lucius Tellus