A DICKENS OF A STROLL
Celebrate the 150th anniversary of the author’s death with a historic hike around his beloved Kent
WHEN he was a boy growing up in Kent, Charles Dickens would often walk with his father past a distinguished house: Gad’s Hill Place. His father, seeing he was especially fond of the house, said to him: ‘If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.’
And so he did, at the age of 44, for the final 14 years of his life, dying after a stroke in the dining room of his dream home in unusual circumstances in 1870. Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of his death, although there remains much conjecture about exactly what transpired that June day.
Had Dickens suffered a stroke in the company of his mistress, actress Nelly Ternan, at her house in Peckham and been whisked by coach to his home for a scandal-free death?
That’s the scenario writer A.N. Wilson outlines in his gripping new biography, The Mystery Of Charles Dickens, which suggests that the great writer was not perhaps the best all-round family man.
‘One does not need to speculate on what brought on his seizure,’ Wilson writes. ‘Clearly Dickens, the father of ten children, was a highly sexed man.’
Dickens wrote four novels in the time he was at Gad’s Hill, including A Tale Of Two Cities and Great Expectations. He was working on the uncompleted The Mystery Of Edwin Drood at the very end.
His presence at Gad’s Hill Place, now an independent school (although it is possible to take a tour of the building on certain weekends during usual, non-Covid years), is strong, especially in his bookshelf-lined study. This remains much as it was, with a replica of his desk by the window.
The Victorian writer made many alterations to the house, replacing mullioned windows to allow in more light and installing mirrors to create an airy feel. Some of these are to be found in the study, as well as the library, where Dickens would sometimes read stories to guests, including Hans Christian Andersen (with whom he did not get on particularly well). He also added a conservatory and converted a back room into a billiards and smoking den. His bedroom is now a classroom where English is taught.
His most remarkable addition is a tunnel beneath the road in front of the house. This led to a wooden Swiss-style chalet he had built amid an area of trees he referred to as The Wilderness. This place provided him with peace and quiet for writing.
Gad’s Hill Place, which is reached easily from London by train to the village of Higham, forms a corner of Kent often referred to as Dickens Country.
Across the road is the Sir John Falstaff Inn, where he would regularly cash cheques with the landlord Mr Trood. It is about three miles south- east from here to Rochester, where Dickens would often walk with his dogs to post letters.
About five miles north- east of Gad’s Hill Place is the village of Cooling. Here, in the cemetery of St James’ Church, Dickens noticed the gravestones of 13 children and was moved to poignantly describe them as ‘ little stone lozenges’ in Great Expectations.
He also drew inspiration from the bleak, marsh land leading to the Thames estuary. ‘Ours was a marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, 20 miles of the sea . . .’ is how Pip describes his world.
Looking out across the flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and gates, The Horseshoe & Castle pub, which has a fine terrace, makes a good pit stop for lunch.
Just a couple of miles eastwards of Cooling is the quaint village of Cliffe, where a lovely walk is to be had on a network of paths at Cliffe Pools, a nature reserve popular with twitchers.
Returning inland on the northern edge of Higham is the ancient church of St Mary’s, where Dickens’ daughter, Katey, married artist and writer Charles Allstone Collins, brother of Dickens’ friend, the author Wilkie Collins, in 1860. In the register Katey’s father is described as a ‘Literary Gentleman’. At St John’s, another church in the village, the current vicar, Rev Canon James Southward says that one of his congregation remembers her father telling her that ‘when he was little Dickens patted him on the head’. Dickens seems to haunt these parts. In the dining room where he passed away at Gad’s Hill Place, all seems so respectable now: the chaise longue, the chandelier, the portraits of the writer. Yet the mysteries still remain — 150 years on.