It occupies a typical Georgian terraced house which was Charles Dickens's home from 25 March 1837 (a year after his marriage) to December 1839.

In the nineteenth century, it was an exclusive residential street and had gates at either end to restrict entry and these were manned by porters.

The two years that Dickens lived in the house were extremely productive, for here he completed The Pickwick Papers (1836), wrote the whole of Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39) and worked on Barnaby Rudge (1840–41).

[3] The building at 48 Doughty Street was threatened with demolition in 1923, but was saved by the Dickens Fellowship, founded in 1902, who raised the mortgage and bought the property's freehold.

This unfinished portrait shows Dickens in his study at Gads Hill Place surrounded by many of the characters he had created.