Nancy's Steps and Charles Dickens: the truth about a hidden feature of London Bridge
- London On The Ground
- Aug 8
- 5 min read
A blue plaque under the south side of London Bridge claims the steps are where Nancy is murdered in Dickens' Oliver Twist. This is not true, but the plaque prompts discoveries about 19th century poor laws, workhouses and the rebuilding of the bridge.
The plaque does not include details of who placed it there, but it is unlikely to be either Southwark Council (the local authority), or the City of London Corporation (which is responsible for London Bridge).
As is often the case when I start to find out more about something that attracts my attention, looking into this plaque led me on an interesting path of discovery. I learned details about the social and legislative context for Dickens’ book and what still remains from the demolished 1831 London Bridge.
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Contrary to the claim on the plaque, in the novel Oliver Twist Nancy is murdered (by her lover, Bill Sikes) not on these steps, but at the flat they share in Bethnal Green in the East End. Both Nancy and Sikes are members of the criminal gang led by Fagin, where the nine-year old Oliver is a recent recruit.
It was Lionel Bart's 1960 musical Oliver!, not Dickens' book, that placed the murder on London Bridge. Nevertheless, London Bridge and Nancy's Steps do play a part in Dickens' story.
In Chapter 46, Nancy meets Oliver's benefactors on London Bridge to give them information that will help the boy. Fearful of talking to them on the bridge itself she urges them, “Come away—out of the public road—down the steps yonder!”. Little do they know that another gang member is spying on Nancy on behalf of Bill Sikes.
Today's London Bridge was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973, so it is not the structure on which Nancy meets the benefactors.
However, parts of the previous structure, designed by John Rennie and completed in 1831, remain in place on the approaches to the modern bridge, over the land rather than the water. These sections feature blocks of granite stone, rather than the concrete of the 20th century bridge.
They include the section on the Southwark side leading east to west under the bridge from Tooley Street to Montague Close. The steps on the Montague Close side, known as Nancy’s Steps, are also survivors from the from the 1831 bridge.
The Rennie bridge replaced a much older one, which had been the first stone bridge over the Thames. Now referred to as Old London Bridge, that one was built between 1176 and 1209 around 30 metres (100 feet) downstream of the bridge of 1831 and today’s bridge.
Incidentally, the 1831 bridge was sold and rebuilt at Lake Havasu City in Arizona, USA in 1971.
Some people have suggested that, although Oliver Twist was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, Dickens set the story earlier than 1831. This would place Nancy’s conversation with Oliver’s benefactors on Old London Bridge, with the consequence that the steps from the 1831 bridge are not the right ones for this scene.
According to this line of thinking, a reference in the book to the "ancient bridge" implies Old London Bridge. In the chapter where Nancy first meets the benefactors on London Bridge, Dickens sets the scene:
“The tower of old Saint Saviour’s Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom.”
However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the meeting described in the book took place on the ancient bridge, simply that those two churches were once the warders of that ancient bridge.
Moreover, and crucially, Dickens used Oliver Twist to highlight the impact of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on the workhouses, which were institutions for people unable to support themselves. This means that the main action of the story is set after 1834.
The Act led to the formation of workhouse unions, each with its own workhouse on behalf of several parishes. It ended the option for the poor to receive ‘outdoor relief’, which previously allowed them to remain in their own homes while receiving aid.
The able bodied poor had little choice but to enter a workhouse, where family members were separated and personal clothing and possessions were surrendered. Inmates were given a minimal diet in return for performing manual labour in conditions little better than in a prison.
In Chapter 2 of Oliver Twist, Dickens is scathing about the changes introduced by the 1834 Act:
“So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water, and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal, and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays.”
The grinding hunger suffered by the boys in the workhouse leads to Oliver’s famous request, “Please, sir, I want more”.
Branded a trouble maker, this leads to his removal from the workhouse to an apprenticeship with an undertaker. After a fight with another apprentice, Noah Claypole, for which he is beaten, Oliver runs away to London, where he meets the Artful Dodger and is taken into Fagin’s gang.
In this way, Dickens drew a direct line from Oliver’s hunger in the workhouse to his recruitment by a gang of pickpockets in London. Oliver's story ends well, but Dickens made a powerful point about the link between poverty and crime.
You can't always trust a blue plaque, but Nancy's Steps are justifiably named as they are the scene for Nancy’s meeting with Oliver's benefactors, even though the plaque is wrong in saying it was the scene of her murder.
To see my short YouTube video on Nancy’s Steps, please click below.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.
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