Britain’s long, rich literary history is made all the richer by the country’s many magnificent landscapes. In this series, we’ll be taking a look at the countryside that has served as inspiration for some of our most beloved works. In this instalment, we head to Kent which provided rich inspiration for Charles Dickens.
Is there a more quintessential English writer than Charles Dickens? I would wager that the overwhelming majority of people can name at least one of his characters, even if they have never read his works. This is the man behind Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and the wonderfully Gothic Miss Haversham. Having grown up on the Kent coast, I visited Bleak House and other Dickens-related locations from an early age. If you are looking for a literary bent to your seaside trip, there is lots to discover.
Kent, sir—everybody knows Kent—apples, cherries, hops, and women.
Jingle. Pickwick Papers, ch. 2.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, but it was Kent where he spent the happier years of his childhood. And it was Kent that would be the home he returned to. At the age of four, he and his family moved to the Medway town of Chatham. His father worked at the Chatham Dockyards as a clerk.
In 1822, the family moved again, this time to London. Unfortunately, his father was sent to debtors’ prison at Marshalsea. Dickens’ mother and younger siblings joined him there. Meanwhile, young Charles had no choice but to find work at a blacking factory to help his family. Even though his father was able to leave prison within a few months, thanks to a family bequest, Mrs. Dickens decided that Charles should continue to work at the factory. The decision would greatly cloud his opinion of her and of women’s roles as wives and mothers.
Eventually, though, Charles returned to school and worked as a law clerk before turning his attention to writing. Although barely in his 20s, life had already introduced him to a wide range of characters who would appear in his novels. But let’s look at some of the locations that might also seem a little familiar.
Broadstairs and Bleak House
In 1837, Dickens took his first holiday in Broadstairs. It was the beginning of a love affair with the coastal town, then a much smaller village. Between 1837 and 1862, he made 20 trips to Broadstairs, sometimes alone, sometimes with his family. While his children played on the sands, he worked on his most famous novels.
Over the years, Dickens rented a number of properties around town for his holidays. His favourite was Fort House, now widely known as Bleak House. He wrote parts of David Copperfield and Bleak House during visits to the large property which looms, some might say rather ominously, over the coastal skyline. For a time, the house was a museum. It is now privately owned.
The Dickens House Museum was once owned by Miss Mary Pearson Strong. Dickens paid frequent visits to Miss Strong and, as with so many other people he encountered in life, she earned a place in literature. Miss Strong appeared in David Copperfield under the guise of Betsey Trotwood. Visitors to the museum will clearly recognise the site as Betsey’s house from the novel.
The Royal Albion Hotel now encompasses the former Albion Hotel and several neighboring houses. Dickens stayed here on various occasions, working on Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Dombey & Son. While visiting Broadstairs, you can walk the Dickens Town Trail which includes the afore-mentioned locations as well as a number of pubs and restaurants frequented by Dickens.
Rochester and Medway
During the time that Dickens lived in Chatham as a boy, he and his father would often take long walks into the nearby town of Rochester. One place he often passed was Gad’s Hill Place, a stately-looking house in Higham. He dreamed of being wealthy enough to own it one day. Such a dream must have seemed a million miles away as he toiled away in the blacking factory. But years later, Gad’s Hill would be on the market and he was indeed wealthy enough to buy it. Dickens spent the last 14 years of his life living there. Today Gad’s Hill is a private school and so not open to the public.
One remaining vestige of Dickens’ time at Gad’s Hill that the public can visit is his Swiss chalet. The building was a gift from an actor friend who shipped it to him on Christmas Eve, 1864 in 58 boxes. After some struggles putting it all together, Dickens hired a carpenter to complete it and it served as the author’s writing room. From the second floor, he could see out to the Thames. He even built a tunnel so that he could access it from his Gad’s Hill home without being bothered by traffic or the weather.
After Dickens’ death, the chalet was moved to Cobham, but eventually it was relocated to Eastgate House in Rochester. There it is undergoing restoration in the hope that visitors will one day be able to look inside.
While you are in Rochester, also be sure to stop by the Guildhall Museum to view the permanent exhibition, The Making of Mr Dickens, an immersive look at his life in the Medway area. Although the annual Rochester Dickens Festival is not taking place in 2024, there are hopes to revive it in the future. The town’s Dickensian Christmas is expected to go ahead as planned.
A Walk in Dickens’ Footsteps
After visiting Broadstairs and Rochester, you might choose to follow in the footsteps of Charles Dickens by walking the North Marshes or Hoo Peninsula Trail. The Hoo Peninsula is a fairly isolated piece of land between the Medway towns and the Thames. Close to London and Rochester, it is marshland, with a few villages, churches, and derelict forts scattered here and there. You can download a map detailing the trail here. The walk begins and ends in Upnor, just across the river from St. Mary’s Island and the Chatham Dockyards.
St. Mary’s Island was a military prison during the Napoleonic wars, and later a domestic prison. If you are familiar with Great Expectations, and the scene of Magwitch fleeing across the marshes, this is where Dickens got his inspiration for the scene. Speaking of Great Expectations, while you are exploring the peninsula, you might choose to leave the walking trail and go further afield to the village of Cooling, specifically St. James Church. This was the inspiration for the opening chapter of Great Expectations where Pip first encounters Magwitch among the gravestones. Wandering through the churchyard, you will also see “Pip’s Graves” – the tiny lozenge-shaped gravestones that mark the burial spot of 13 babies alongside their parents.
