"The Spike" is a 1931 essay by George Orwell in which he details his experience staying overnight in the casual ward of a workhouse (colloquially known as a "spike") near London. This episode in Orwell's life took place while he was intentionally living as a vagrant in and around London as part of the social experiment that would form the basis of his first book Down and Out in Paris and London. The events of this essay are also found in that book, though the essay is not reprinted verbatim in the book.