There is an hotel standing in Covent Garden with the same name to-day, but, although it is on the same spot, it is not the Hummum’s of which Pip speaks. That was demolished long ago, and was the scene of a marvellous ghost story told in Boswell’s Johnson concerning Parson Ford.
The Ship at Gravesend, mentioned as the waterside inn where Pip and his assistants managed to row the convict Magwitch, with the idea of smuggling him out of the country, is known as the Ship and Lobster.
THE SHIP AND LOBSTER, GRAVESEND
Drawn by C. G. Harper
Having run alongside a little causeway made of stones, Pip left the rest of the occupants of the boat and stepped ashore, and found the light they had observed from the river to be in the window of a public-house. “It was a dirty place enough, and I daresay not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat and various liquors to drink. Also there were two double-bedded rooms—‘such as they were,’ the landlord said.... We made a very good meal by the kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms.... We found that the air was carefully excluded from both as if air was fatal to life; and there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.”
Outside this inn Magwitch was again captured, and transferred to a galley, where Pip eventually joined him and accompanied him to his destination.
Dickens knew Gravesend well, and his description of the Ship and Lobster is a faithful one. It is situated on the shore at Denton, a village adjoining the town, not far from the official Lighterman’s at Denton Wharf. At one time it flourished as a popular tea-garden resort.
There are two other inns in the book that must not be overlooked. The Blue Boar at Rochester, where Pip stayed when he visited his old town, which was the Bull Inn there, and is dealt with in “The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick”; and the tavern where Wemmick’s wedding-breakfast was held. This is said to be the Fox under the Hill, nearly at the top of Denmark Hill. It is now a modern public-house, but sixty or seventy years ago it was an old wayside inn—a pleasant little tavern, and a favourite resort, especially on Sunday evenings in the summer, for the youthful population of Walworth and Camberwell.
We close this chapter with the brief account of the festive occasion:
“Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green[2] and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick’s arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. We had an excellent breakfast, and, when anyone declined anything on the table, Wemmick said, ‘Provided by contract you know; don’t be afraid of it!’ I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.”