Charles Dicken’s birthplace lies tucked away in Portsmouth. The street is a sore thumb of nineteenth-century architecture in amongst a labyrinth of blocky sixties tower blocks.
Dickens didn’t live in the house long, moving to London when he was still a young child. The museum that is now in his old house doesn’t include any of his parent’s original furniture but has been set out to look as it might have done when they lived there. It also has the actual couch Dicken’s died on. Which gives the place an interesting ‘circle of his life’ type feeling – and is also a bit macabre.
It doesn’t take long to go round the museum, but it’s worth a look should you ever be in Portsmouth.
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