BARNABY RUDGE.
“The Golden Key”—the house of honest Gabriel Varden, the locksmith—was in Clerkenwell, situated in a quiet street not far from the Charter House—
“A modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall, not bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one eye. It was not built of brick, or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster; it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity, for no one window matched the other, or seemed to have the slightest reference to anything beside itself.”
This was its description one hundred years ago, and its exact whereabouts cannot now be ascertained. There are some old plaster-fronted houses, evidently belonging to the last century, still to be found in Albemarle Street, near St. John’s Square, but none of these fairly correspond with the description of “The Golden Key.”
The Cellar of Mr. Stagg was situated in Barbican. We read that its position was “in one of the narrowest of the narrow streets which diverge from that centre, in a blind court or yard, profoundly dark, unpaved, and reeking with stagnant odours.”
“The Black Lion” Tavern can only be identified as being situated in Whitechapel. It was a favourite resort of Mr. John Willett, landlord of the “Maypole Inn” at Chigwell, when he came to town; and we may remember it as the scene of Dolly Varden’s satisfactory interview with her lover Joe, after his return from “the Salwanners.”