An 18th century workhouse thought to have inspired Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist has been saved from demolition.

Camden Council had been considering a planning application to turn the site of former Strand Union Workhouse into a private residential development.


The well-preserved Georgian workhouse was the inspiration for Oliver Twist

But the building, in Fitzrovia, has now been given a Grade II listing by the government's heritage minister. The Covent Garden Workhouse, as it was originally known, was built in 1778.

It became an infirmary in the late-19th century and until recently housed the outpatients department of Middlesex Hospital.

Dickens is understood to have lived a few doors away from the building for nearly five years, in his formative years.

Historian Dr Paul Schlicke, editor of The Dickens Companion, said that the workhouse was used as the model for Dickens' famous novel Oliver Twist.

"It's inconceivable it wasn't that workhouse," he said. "He lived so close to it. He would have been seeing it,
hearing it. It will have been the one he knew best."

Heritage minister John Penrose said, "It is an important and interesting part of our history and heritage, and deserves the extra protection that listing provides."

u00a0