Archaeologists have discovered the colorful walls and fireplaces of a London workhouse

Advertising:

During its 200-year history, its premises were cramped and overcrowded, and the house itself was creepy and infested with insects.

Archaeologists discovered rooms with fireplaces and blue plaster. Photo: MOLA

However, excavations have shown that when St Pancras Workhouse opened in 1809, it was intended to bring comfort to those who had fallen on hard times.

Archaeologists from the Mole (London Museum of Archaeology) were amazed to discover “a significant part of these original buildings” and “incredible new details about the lives of the inhabitants and owners”.

Gwilym Williams, project manager at Mola, said the evidence paints “a very different picture to the dark, grimy workhouses often portrayed in popular culture”, particularly in the works of Charles Dickens.

Little was known about the building apart from its shape on parish maps. However, archaeologists have found walls up to a meter high with bright plaster and fireplaces that once lined the rooms.

These finds make it possible to understand how such houses of the beginning of the 19th century worked. In such houses, in particular, prisoners who performed hard physical work were kept. However, the excavations showed that some decorative elements indicate that the atmosphere in the house was cozy.

Advertising:

“Although the quarters are spartan, the prisoners were not there to be punished. There were gardens, an infirmary and children’s rooms, heated rooms with pale blue paint on the walls“, says Gwilym Williams.

Ceramic bottle for a warmer

Among the finds were also plates bearing the image of St Pancras and the words “Guardians of Poor St Pancras Middlesex” and the remains of a bone toothbrush with horsehair bristles.

The building in 1809 was designed for 500 prisoners. By the 1850s, their number had increased to 1,900.

Williams suggested that this room might be the same one described by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist.

According to historian Peter Higginbotham, Robert Blincoe, on whose story Dickens’ Oliver Twist is possibly based, was a child inmate of the workhouse. The conditions in the house were terrible: it was overcrowded and unsanitary.

In addition to elementary education, Blinko and his fellow inmates were sometimes forced to work 12 hours a day or more.

Dr. Leon Litvak, Editor-in-Chief of the Charles Dickens Letters Project, said:

“Dickens’ name is immediately associated with dark aspects of Victorian life that both fascinate and repulse us. His association with workhouses is a great example of this. As we know from novels such as Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend, Dickens was fascinated by the exposure of the conditions that prevailed in many workhouses throughout the country.”

Litvak added that the writer “softened” reality in his works, but in his journalistic materials he presented much more frank facts with gruesome details.

In 1929, St. Pancras Workhouse became a hospital, part of which was bombed during the Second World War and some of the workhouse buildings were demolished.

Before the construction of the medical center, archaeologists excavated the remains of the historic building.

A piece of pottery found in excavations

“It is ironic, yet heartening, that the site of such abuse is being transformed into a new state-of-the-art eye center which we believe will take better care of those it treats than it did over 160 years ago.” Litvak said.

Read also: In Israel, archaeologists were involved in the identification of the remains of the victims of the Hamas attack