“In Tavistock Square stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of garden in front of it are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. A large garden, with a grass plat and high trees, stretches behind the house, and gives it a countrified look in the midst of this coal and gas steaming London. In the passage from street to garden hung pictures and engravings. On the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing-table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter Dickens and his friends acted plays to the satisfaction of all parties.”
Eastgate House, Rochester
see [page 18]
Eastgate House, the original of the Nuns’ House in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” forms one of the most picturesque bits of the Rochester High Street, one side of the old building being half hidden from the roadway by overhanging trees. “Cloisterham” in “Edwin Drood,” of course, represents Rochester.
“In the midst of Cloisterham stands the Nuns’ House: a veritable brick edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived from the legends of its conventual uses. On the trim gate enclosing its courtyard is a resplendent brass plate flashing forth the legend: ‘Seminary for Young Ladies. Miss Twinkleton.’ The house front is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general result has reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with a large modern eyeglass stuck in his blind eye.”
Gad’s Hill Place, near Rochester
see [page 26]
Gad’s Hill Place was the novelist’s last residence, where he wrote “The Uncommercial Traveller,” “Great Expectations,” “Our Mutual Friend,” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”
On this house Dickens had fixed his choice in his boyish days. It had always held a prominent place amid the recollections connected with his childhood. Forster wrote of Dickens that “upon first seeing it as he came from Chatham with his father, and looking up at it with admiration, he had been promised that he might live in it himself, or some such house, when he came to be a man, if he would only work hard enough.” It is pleasant to record that this ambition was gratified in after life, when the dream of his boyhood was realised.
Restoration House, Rochester