Locke & Vale Investigators
14, Pennington Street, Wapping
The working headquarters of private investigators Gideon Locke and Eve Vale, in modest upstairs rooms above a Wapping stairwell. Inside, one wall is given over entirely to the case-board — pins, thread, and cord connecting evidence across a case, Gideon's signature method of working.
It's here that most investigations begin and end, and where Gideon and Eve's partnership — professional, and slowly, cautiously, something more — plays out across quiet evenings between cases. Featured throughout all three novels.
Scotland Yard
Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall
The real historic home of the Metropolitan Police's detective force — a modest converted building rather than the grand headquarters later associated with the name (that building wasn't constructed until 1890, after the series' timeframe).
Inspector Reid, Gideon and Eve's most consistent police contact, works from here.
Appears throughout the series as the official counterpart — sometimes ally, sometimes obstacle — to Locke & Vale's private investigations.
E Sikes & Co. Hatters
Cable Street, Stepney
A respectable hatter's shopfront, rows of toppers and bowlers displayed for passing trade — but step through to the workshop behind it and the trade changes entirely.
This is where engineer Sikes, Gideon's oldest friend, builds the mechanical devices and specialist tools the investigations sometimes require. Described in the books as "a furnace disguised as a room," hissing with steam and heat.
Featured throughout all three novels.
East London Observer
Fleet Street
A working newspaper office on the historic heart of British journalism. Home to columnist J.P. Flintoff, whose reporting gives the series' villains and victims a public voice — and whose columns are how uncomfortable truths about institutional cruelty reach the wider city.
Features prominently in The Black Imp.
Barb Mott Printers
Wapping Lane, Wapping
A small, ink-stained print shop run by Barb Mott — sharp-tongued, well-connected, and one of the best sources of dockside gossip in Wapping.
Nothing moves through the neighbourhood without Barb hearing about it first.
Appears across all three novels as a source of information and comic relief in equal measure.
The Wreck of the Morrigan
St Katharine Docks, Wapping
Once a tea clipper, found eerily and perfectly moored at Wapping with her entire crew missing — the mystery that opens the series.
By the climax of Book 1 she's a burned, listing hull, slowly claimed by the Thames.
St Katharine Docks itself is a real historic dock complex, opened in 1828, known for handling high-value cargo — a fitting home for a ship carrying smuggled treasure.
Central to The Morrigan but a landmark throughout the series.