Afterword:

A Bloomsbury and Somers Town Walk

Number 4, Euston Square – and, indeed, half of the square itself – is long gone. In the 1960s, the northern half was redeveloped as offices and a bus station for the railway station. But it is still possible, in some nearby corners, to see the city that Hannah Dobbs, Severin Bastendorff and Matilda Hacker moved through daily.

Just a few streets south of the Euston Road and St Pancras station is Mecklenburgh Square. Although hit in the Blitz, it has two beautiful surviving Georgian terraces which look over a large garden square. The terraces are close in feel and style to those of Euston Square in 1879. The wide road, at the weekend, is broadly traffic free. And it is possible to stand here, gazing at the houses, and imagine what it would be like filled with horse-drawn vehicles.

Now, dart a few hundred yards north, over the Euston Road, up past the red brick wonder of St Pancras International station, and thence to the extraordinary graveyard of St Pancras Old Church: the Hardy Tree – with all the gravestones pressed and clamouring around it – is still there. And, if you step inside the church, dating back to the eleventh century, you feel thrillingly removed from time.

Then beyond to Camley Street, Goods Way and the renovated wonder of the gas works, canal and rail-marshalling yards: Victorian industrial architecture on a vast scale, now repurposed for the modern city. The Bloomsbury promenading enjoyed by young Victorians has been transposed here triumphantly – now couples stroll along a landscaped towpath, past dancing fountains, enjoying the restaurants, theatres, nature reserve.

And, more than anyone, Matilda Hacker, dressed in her blue silk dress and sash, would have absolutely adored this fashionable concourse.