You’ll find the Ragged School Museum in a group of three canalside former warehouse buildings which were once the largest “ragged” or free school in London. Copperfield Road Free School was established by the London missionary and philanthropist Dr Bernado in 1877. It provided a basic education to tens of thousands of children until it closed in 1908. The museum includes several galleries, an authentic Victorian classroom where you can sit at a desk and experience a lesson, and an East End Kitchen from the 1900s, demonstrating what life would have been like in a simple, one-room home with no electricity or running water.

Somehow, Copperfield Road seems an appropriate address; Twist Lane might have been better.

Photo credit Gordon Joly via flickr