HERITAGE and design consultancy PLB has completed a design contract at the Charles Dickens Museum, which has been restored for the author’s bicentenary this year.

The Malton-based company helped to increase access within the London house and recreate the interiors true to Dickens as part of a £3.1 million regeneration project of Dickens’ only surviving London home at 48 Doughty Street.

Jamie McCall, of PLB, said: “New displays return rooms to their Victorian appearance and help improve visitors’ understanding of Dickens and his works. Our interpretive design work aims to transport visitors to Victorian times and create an atmosphere which will make visitors truly feel as if Dickens has just left the building.”

Dickens visited Malton on a number of occasions to vist his friend, the lawyer Charles Smithson.

It is widely believed the office of Scrooge, from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, was based on Smithson’s office in Chancery Lane in Malton.

Earlier this week, The Press reported how a signed edition of A Christmas Carol had been bought at auction in New York after people in the town managed to raise £27,100. The book is currently housed at Castle Howard.