Saffron Hill is a street and former ward in Holborn, in the south eastern corner of the London Borough of Camden, between Farringdon Road and Hatton Garden. The name of the street derives from the fact that it was at one time part of an estate on which saffron grew. The ecclesiastical parish was St Peter, Saffron Hill, a daughter parish of Holborn, which is now combined with St Alban (the Martyr), Holborn.[1]
In 1850, it was described as a squalid neighbourhood, the home of paupers and thieves. In Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist (1837), the Artful Dodger leads Oliver to Fagin's den in Field Lane, the southern extension of Saffron Hill: "a dirty and more wretched place he [Oliver] had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours".[2]
- ^ https://www.achurchnearyou.com/search/?lat=51.52&lon=-0.1075 Church of England - ecclesiastical parish finder
- ^ Dickens, Charles (1838). Oliver Twist: or, The Parish Boy's Progress. New York: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. p. 43. ISBN 91-1-937201-9. Retrieved 28 December 2009 – via Internet Archive website.
Saffron Hill.