Walking with Christina
- Julia Warren
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
A Literary Tour Through Victorian London
Celebrating Christina Rossetti's birthday earlier this month with a walking tour.
“She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Browning, by a long way; and in artless art, if not in intellectual impulse, is greatly Mrs. Browning’s superior.” (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
The poet Christina Rossetti, is perhaps best remembered for 'Goblin Market', 'Remember', and 'In the Bleak Midwinter'. The daughter of Italian poet,scholar and political exile Gabriele Rossetti and Frances Polidori, Rossetti spent nearly her entire life in London, with only occasional visits to France and Italy.
This walking tour explores the places most connected with her creativity and spirituality, following Rossetti’s footsteps through the heart of the city she called home — a London of bookshops and church bells, of radical artists and quiet devotion, of dazzling creativity and deep compassion.
🌿 Tour Overview
Starting Point: Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia
Length: 1.5–2 hours
Best for: Literature lovers, fans of the Pre-Raphaelites, solo explorers, small groups
Experience Level: Easy city walking
⭐ STOP 1: 38 Charlotte Street – Rossetti’s Birthplace
Christina Rossetti was born here in 1830, into a household bustling with creativity and learning. Her Italian father, Gabriele, a political exile, was appointed to chair of Italian at King's College; her mother, Frances, was a passionate teacher; and her siblings — Maria, William, and Dante Gabriel — each later earning a place in scholarship, poetry and art.
Charlotte Street had been home to various artists, including Constable, Morland and Violet; it was also the address of Sass's Academy, where William Powell Frith studied, while the Highland actor-painter McLan lived at number 36.
At number 38 meanwhile, the Rossetti children played, wrote, read, for another six years until they moved a little further down the street, to number 50. Here Christina wrote her earliest verses. A collection of these was privately printed by her grandfather Polidori in 1847 - for he had a printing press at his home.
As you stop before the house, spare a moment to imagine the Rossetti family about its daily routine:breakfasting, playing, studying, with dinner being prepared for visitors, which would include scholars, musicians, painters and poets, who came 'to lament the state of their country and discuss literature, art, and mystical interpretations of Dante with Professor Rossetti' (Project Canterbury: Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1933)
⭐ STOP 2: Regent's Park
The Rossetti children loved all feathered and furry animals - their pets included a tabby cat, birds and a squirrel; but there were exotic beasts to be found at the newly opened Zoological Gardens, so Regents' Park was a popular excursion for them - the parrots, armadillos and sloths counting among their favourites. Animals and the natural world remained a source of inspiration for Christina, in such poems as 'The Goblin Market' and her book of nursery rhymes 'Sing Song':
'The peacock has a score of eyes, With which he cannot see ;
The cod-fish has a silent sound, However that may be ;
No dandelions tell the time, Although they turn to clocks ;
Cat's-cradle does not hold the cat, Nor foxglove fit the fox.'
Although Christina and her parents moved to Somerset in 1853, they found themselves back in London within a year, and Regent's Park had lost none of its attraction:
'We have revisited the Z. Gardens. Lizards are in strong force, tortoises active, alligators looking up. The weasel-headed armadillo as usual evaded us. A tree-frog came to light, the exact image of a tin toy to follow a magnet in a slop-basin. The blind wombat andneighbouring porcupine broke forth into short-lived hostilities, butapparently without permanent results. The young puma begins tobite. Your glorious sea-anemones : —I well know the strawberryspecimen, but do not remember the green and purple.'
From a letter to her brother William, August,1858.
Sidebar: Highgate :
'I have promised to go to Highgate for a short time."
'The statement, " I have promised to go to Highgate," relates to an institution at Highgate for the reclamation and protection of women leading a vicious life : Christina stayed there from time to time, but not for lengthy periods together, taking part in the work.'
The Family Letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti, ed. William Michael Rossetti
From 1859 to 1870 Christina Rossetti volunteered at the St. Mary Magdalene “House of Mercy”.
During this time her first collection of poetry was published under her own name, entitled Goblin Market and Other Poems, with woodcut illustrations by her brothers Dante Gabriel. They collaborated again for her next collection The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
⭐ STOP 3: Oakley Square – The Site of the Working Men’s College – The Rossetti Circle
Both Dante Gabriel and Michael William Rossetti were heavily involved in the Working Men’s College, and Christina often visited. The college was a alive with mid-Victorian creativity, attracting radical thinkers, designers, and members of the emerging Arts & Crafts movement, such as Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.
What to do here: Imagine Christina with her brothers, walking and talking across this area in company with Edward Burne-Bones and William Morris, discussing the values, role and responsibility of the arts and creatives.
⭐ STOP 4: Upper Albany Street
In 1854, after some financial difficulties, the Rossetti family were reunited under one roof in 45 Upper Albany Street - this was owing to the generosity of Christina's brother William Michael, who by now was earning a good income and took a house here to offer the whole family a home.
In the same year Christina wrote 'From an Antique' :
It's a weary life, it is, she said:
Doubly blank in a woman's lot:
I wish and I wish I were a man:
Or, better then any being, were not:
Were nothing at all in all the world,
Not a body and not a soul:
Not so much as a grain of dust
Or a drop of water from pole to pole.
Still the world would wag on the same,
Still the seasons go and come:
Blossoms bloom as in days of old,
Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.
None would miss me in all the world,
How much less would care or weep:
I should be nothing, while all the rest
Would wake and weary and fall asleep.
⭐ STOP 5: The British Museum – Creativity in Bloomsbury
No Rossetti tour is complete without a visit to the British Museum. Christina was known to frequent the Reading Room, finding solace among books, manuscripts, and the quiet hum of study, in particular between 1876 and the early 1880s (by now she was living in Torrington Square with her mother and aunt).
During this period she continued to compose poetry inspired by themes of faith and her love of nature; in 1881 her collection 'A Pageant and other poems' was published.
A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain ;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track ;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above ;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring ?
What to do here:Stand on Great Russell Street, close your eyes, and imagine Victorian London: hansom cabs rattling past, young Rossetti walking to the museum with a notebook in her bag.
⭐ STOP 6: The Embankment – A Poet’s Final Walks
In her later years, living with illness and declining mobility, Christina often walked the path along the Thames for exercise and peace.
These waterside walks represent resilience and quiet strength — qualities found throughout her poetry.
What to do here:Take a slow walk along the river and consider the gentle, contemplative tone of her late work.
⭐ Optional: The National Portrait Gallery – Meeting the Rossettis
End your tour by visiting Christina’s portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, alongside images of her brother Dante Gabriel, the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and the wider artistic movement she helped inspire.
More about Christina Rossetti, her poetry (in particular about animals) can be heard here in our podcast 'Lewis Carroll and Christina Rossetti' :
There is also a full reading of Goblin Market with members of the Penny Blood Players :
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