Church Lane

Church Lane, which ran between High Street and New Oxford Street in Holborn, was a notorious slum in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1877, John Thomson wrote in his Victorian London Street Life in Historic Photos that most houses on either side of Church Lane had been cleared.

Coordinates

Latitude: 51.516041577784
Longitude: -0.128209590912

View on the COVE Master Map

Timeline of Events Associated with Church Lane

Date Event Manage
Oct 1883

The Bitter Cry of Outcast London

Poverty map of Old Nichol slumIn mid-October 1883, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor, a twenty-page penny pamphlet detailing the housing conditions of the poor in South London, was published to extraordinary critical attention. The pamphlet generated political, journalistic, and layperson commentary alike, and culminated in the 1884 Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes and the pivotal Housing Act that followed. Image: Poverty map of Old Nichol slum. This image is in the public domain in the United States as its copyright has expired.

Articles

Barbara Leckie, “‘The Bitter Cry of Outcast London’ (1883): Print Exposé and Print Reprise”