Save the Cleveland Street Workhouse (1775)
We have carried a few items about this on our News pages recently, but here’s your chance to stand up and be counted, but please be quick.
The Cleveland Street Workhouse (also known as the Strand Union workhouse) is an unlisted Georgian building in Fitzrovia which faces demolition unless Camden Council steps in, something it hitherto has been unwilling to do. There has been a high profile campaign to rescue it for some time now, led by celebrities such as Simon Callow (“TV’s Charles Dickens”), Griff Rhys Jones and Dan Cruickshank. To no avail so far. More recently, Cambridge historian Ruth Richardson has revealed strong evidence which suggests that Dickens based the workhouse in Oliver Twist on the Cleveland Street building itself, it would no doubt have been very familiar to him.
To find out more about the campaign and to sign the petition, please go here. Right away. Thank you.
I’ve signed the petitiion and will now post an item on our blog urging our readers to do the same.
Please sir, I want some more.
The Georgian block was listed in 2011. There is a continuation of the campaign to save the rest, the Victorian attachments. I saw those buildings when they were the Middlesex Hospital annexe. Well worth the effort. Link here:
http://londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/save-the-cleveland-street-workhouse-1775/
Some other petitions which you might be interested in:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-st-jamess-gardensthe-national-temperance-hospital-london-nw1.html
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/redevelopment-of-swan-wharf-in-fish-island