Rochester from Strood Hill.
Crossing Rochester Bridge, we enter the busy town of Strood, pass through its long thoroughfare, go up the Dover Road,—which was the ancient Roman military road afterwards called Watling Street, until a little above Strood it turned slightly to the left, passing through what is now Cobham Park,—and leave the windmill on Broomhill to the right. The ground rises gently, the chalk formation being exposed here and there in disused pits. A portion of the road higher up is cut through the Thanet sands, which rest on the chalk. Again and again we stop, and turn to admire the winding valley of the Medway. As we get more into the country and leave the town behind, we find the roadsides still decked with summer flowers, notably the fine dark blue Canterbury bell—the nettle-leaved Campanula (Campanula Trachelium)—and the exquisite light-blue chicory (Cichorium Intybus); but the flowers of the latter are so evanescent that, when gathered, they fade in an hour or two. This beautiful starlike-blossomed plant is abundant in many parts of Kent. We pass on the right the pretty high-standing grounds of Mr. Hulkes at the "Little Hermitage," and notice the obelisk further to the right on still higher land, erected about fifty years ago to the memory of Charles Larkin (a name very suggestive of "the eldest Miss Larkins") of Rochester,—"a parish orator and borough Hampden"—by his grateful fellow-citizens.
A walk of less than three miles brings us to the "Sir John Falstaff"—"a delightfully old-fashioned roadside inn of the coaching days, which stands on the north side of the road a little below 'Gad's Hill Place,' and which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather."
Mr. Kitton relates in Dickensiana the following amusing story of a former waiter at the "Falstaff":—
"A few days after Dickens's death, an Englishman, deeply grieved at the event, made a sort of pilgrimage to Gad's Hill—to the home of the great novelist. He went into the famous 'Sir John Falstaff Inn' near at hand, and in the effusiveness of his honest emotions, he could not avoid taking the country waiter into his confidence.
"'A great loss this of Mr. Dickens,' said the pilgrim.
"'A very great loss to us, sir,' replied the waiter, shaking his head; 'he had all his ale sent in from this house!'"
One of the two lime-trees only remains, but the well and bucket—as recorded by the Uncommercial Traveller in the chapter on "Tramps"—are there still, surrounded by a protective fence.