The London of the House of Fallen Sisters

Submitted: 8th April 2026

The London of the House of Fallen Sisters

Louise Hare is your guide

Welcome to the House of Fallen Sisters….

The House of Fallen Sisters Louise Ware

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

Living in London can be a little like living in a real-life time machine. You can walk down a street, past buildings that have survived hundreds of years. Streets full of history, where you barely have to use your imagination in order to be transported to another time. The House of Fallen Sisters is mostly set amongst the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden, in the brothel where my protagonist Sukey finds herself trapped, but it was actually a real life story that initially inspired me to write Georgian London.

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

I first came across the story of Jonathan Strong in a chapter of David Olusoga’s epic book Black and British. Strong was a young slave from Barbados, brought to London by his master in the 1760s. The history books record that after being beaten almost to death by that master, Strong found his way to the surgery of Dr William Sharp, a doctor at St Bartholomew’s (another current reminder of hundreds of years of London life). Sharp admitted Strong to St Bart’s and covered his care for several months until Jonathan was well enough to leave. He got work as an apothecary’s assistant and, although he never regained his full health, he was able to lead a good life. Until a couple of years later, his old master somehow found out that he was still alive.

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

Jonathan was kidnapped off the street and imprisoned in the Poultry Compter, a small prison that was generally used for minor criminals. He’d been sold to a new owner and was due to be shipped back to the Caribbean imminently. Luckily, Jonathan managed to get a message out to the Sharps – William and his brother Granville, who later became a prominent campaigner for the abolition of slavery, learning the law in order to help those escaped slaves who came to him seeking help.

Louise Hare

Granville managed to have Jonathan’s case brought before the Lord Mayor of London and he was freed on a technicality – that he had been snatched off the street and imprisoned without clear cause. This was not a comment on whether slavery was legal or not, and the question was never discussed. Either way, Jonathan was free though he died five years later, at the age of twenty-five.

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

What fascinated me about this case was the ambiguity around slavery on British shores. My knowledge of slavery, and the transatlantic slave trade in particular, was focused on the Americas. For so long, Black stories only really seemed worthy if they focused on the hardships. I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women, and savoured every word. But it’s one thing to read about a plantation in the heat of Jamaica, or imagine the back breaking effort of cotton picking in the southern US. These settings feel far from my own experience.

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

On the other hand, how remarkable it is to walk down Mincing Lane and know that it was a house on that street that Jonathan Strong was lucky to find his way to, and where he found help. You can do a guided tour of St Bart’s hospital (monthly on Wednesday afternoons) and learn about the pioneering medics who have worked there over the past nine hundred years. I was able to wander through Covent Garden and imagine the tourists and entertainers removed, replaced by the chaos of the markets, the coffee houses and taverns and, most importantly, the bagnios and houses of ill repute that feature in my novel.

Book map of House of Fallen Sisters

It was while walking along Cheapside that I started thinking about how Jonathan had made his way to the Sharp’s. Someone so gravely injured must have had help from someone, but none of the books I pored over in the British Library could tell me. Most of the history is written from the perspective of Granville Sharp rather than those who sought his assistance.

The House of Fallen Sisters Louise Ware

This is where Sukey comes in. A young girl in a desperate situation who stops to help. Who is she? What would a girl like her be doing on a London street in the dead of night in the middle of winter? Those questions begin to be answered in the opening chapter of this novel, so if you want to find out you’ll need to start reading!