The Monks' Vineyard of Edwin Drood exists as "The Vines," and is one of the "lungs" of Rochester, belonging to the Dean and Chapter, by whom it is liberally leased to the Corporation for a nominal consideration. It was a vineyard, or garden, in the days of the monks, and is now a fine open space, planted with trees, and has good walks and well-trimmed lawns and borders. Remains of the wall of the city, or abbey, previous to the Cathedral, constitute the northern boundary of "The Vines." There are commodious seats for the public, and it was doubtless on one of these, as represented in the illustration entitled "Under the Trees," that Edwin Drood and Rosa sat, during that memorable discussion of their position and prospects, which began so childlike and ended so sadly. "'Can't you see a happy Future?' For certain, neither of them sees a happy Present, as the gate opens and closes, and one goes in and the other goes away." A fine clump of old elms (seven in number), called "The Seven Sisters," stands at the east end of the Vines, nearly opposite Restoration House, and it was under these trees that the conversation took place.
So curiously exact at times does the description fit in with the places, that we notice opposite Eastgate House the "Lumps of Delight Shop," to which it will be remembered that after the discussion Rosa Bud directed Edwin Drood to take her.
Dickens's last visit to Rochester was on Monday, 6th June, 1870, when he walked over from Gad's Hill Place with his dogs; and he appears to have been noticed by several persons in the Vines, and particularly by Mr. John Sweet, as he stood leaning against the wooden palings near Restoration House, contemplating the beautiful old Manor House. These palings have since been removed, and an iron fence substituted. The object of this visit subsequently became apparent, when it was found that, in those pages of Edwin Drood written a few hours before his death, Datchery and the Princess Puffer held that memorable conference there. "They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks' Vineyard; an appropriate remembrance, presenting an exemplary model for imitation, is revived in the woman's mind by the sight of the place," in allusion of course to a present of "three shillings and sixpence" which Edwin Drood gave her Royal Highness on a previous occasion to buy opium.
Restoration House, Rochester, as it appeared in Dickens's time. (From a sketch by an Amateur.)
The extensive promenade called the Esplanade (where in 1889 we saw the Regatta in which, after a series of annual defeats, Rochester maintained its supremacy), on the east side of the river Medway, under the Castle walls, pleasantly approached from the Cathedral Close, is memorable as having been the spot described in the thirteenth chapter where Edwin and Rosa met for the last time, and mutually agreed to terminate their unfortunate and ill-assorted engagement.
"They walked on by the river. They began to speak of their separate plans. He would quicken his departure from England, and she would remain where she was, at least as long as Helena remained. The poor dear girls should have their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the first preliminary, Miss Twinkleton should be confided in by Rosa, even in advance of the reappearance of Mr. Grewgious. It should be made clear in all quarters that she and Edwin were the best of friends. There had never been so serene an understanding between them since they were first affianced."
We are anxious to identify Cloisterham Weir, frequently mentioned in Edwin Drood, but more particularly as being the place where Minor Canon Crisparkle found Edwin's watch and shirt-pin. The Weir, we are told in the novel, "is full two miles above the spot to which the young men [Edwin and Neville] had repaired [presumably the Esplanade] to watch the storm." There is, however, no Weir nearer than Allington, at which place the tide of the Medway stops, and Allington is a considerable distance from Rochester, probably seven or eight miles. How well the good Minor Canon's propensity for "perpetually pitching himself headforemost into all the deep water in the surrounding country," and his "pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir in the cold rimy mornings," are brought into requisition to enable him to obtain the watch and pin.
"He threw off his clothes, he plunged into the icy water, and swam for the spot—a corner of the Weir—where something glistened which did not move and come over with the glistening water drops, but remained stationary. . . . He brought the watch to the bank, swam to the Weir again, climbed it, and dived off. He knew every hole and corner of all the depths, and dived and dived and dived, until he could bear the cold no more. His notion was that he would find the body; he only found a shirt-pin sticking in some mud and ooze."