see [page 34]
In “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” Dickens described the Old Gatehouse at Rochester, facing Pump Lane, with its archway, which stands angle-wise in the street. There is a small postern at the back of the gate. This building was the residence of Mr. Tope, “chief verger and showman” of the Cathedral, with whom lodged Mr. John Jaspar, the uncle of Edwin Drood. The house is a gabled wooden structure, two storeys high, built over the stone gateway. Dickens pictured it as “an old stone gatehouse crossing the Close, with an arched thoroughfare passing beneath it.”
Watts’s Charity, The House of the Six Poor Travellers, Rochester
see [page 35]
This house formed the basis for a short story called, “The Seven Poor Travellers,” which appeared in the Christmas number of Household Words for 1854. The inscription over the doorway of this striking-looking building runs as follows:—
RICHARD WATTS, Esq.,
by his will dated 22 August, 1579,
founded this charity
for six poor travellers.
Who not being Rogues, or Proctors,
may receive gratis for one night,
Lodging, Entertainment,
and four-pence each.
Dickens called it “a clean white house of a staid and venerable air, with a quaint old door (an arched door), choice, little, long, low lattice windows, and a roof of three gables.”
The Grave of Dickens in Westminster Abbey. From a painting by S. Luke Fildes, R.A.
see [page 38]
Charles Dickens died on the 9th of June, 1870. Five days later he was buried in Westminster Abbey, with, according to Forster, only such ceremonial as would strictly obey all injunctions of privacy. The solemnity lost nothing by its simplicity. “All day long,” wrote Dean Stanley, two days after the funeral, “there was a constant pressure to the spot, and many flowers were strewn upon it by unknown hands, many tears shed by unknown eyes.” On the stone are inscribed the words: