Place Name
Samuel Pickwick is the eponymous leader of the Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens’s widely successful first novel – originally told as a part work. The book follows the exploits of Pickwick, a retired successful businessman, and the members of the Pickwick Club. Pursuing what they believe to be intellectual and philosophical fact finding, they are in fact just a drinking club. At the end of the book Pickwick announces his retirement from the club announcing he is going to live in Dulwich “one of the most pleasant spots near London”. He takes a house with a large garden, and “fitted up with every attention to substantial comfort… Everything was so beautiful! The lawn in front, the garden behind, the miniature conservatory, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bed-rooms, the smoking-room, and above all the study… with a large cheerful window opening upon a pleasant lawn, and commanding a pretty landscape, dotted here and there with little houses almost hidden by trees”. Dickens reputedly attended several Dulwich Club dinners at the famous Greyhound inn (although there if he did the club minutes didn’t record the fact). The road was constructed in 1906 across the vacant site of the old inn, which closed in 1900 when it amalgamated with the Crown across the road.
