Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens. Today the building is the independent Gad's Hill School.
The house was built in 1780 for a former Mayor of Rochester, Thomas Stephens, opposite the present Sir John Falstaff Public House. Gad's Hill is where Falstaff commits the robbery that begins Shakespeare's Henriad trilogy ( Henry IV, Part 1 , Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V).
Charles Dickens first saw the mansion when he was 9 years old in 1821, when his father John Dickens told Charles that if he worked hard enough, one day he would own it or just such a house. [1] As a boy, Dickens would often walk from Chatham to Gads Hill Place as he wished to see it again and again as an image of his possible future. [2] Dickens was later to write, " I used to look at it as a wonderful Mansion (which God knows it is not) when I was a very odd little child with the first faint shadows of all my books in my head - I suppose." [2] Thirty-five years later, after Dickens had risen to fame and wealth, he discovered that the house was for sale and bought it for £1790 (circa £246,636 as of 2023) in March 1856 [1] from fellow writer Eliza Lynn (later known as novelist Mrs. Eliza Lynn Linton). Initially Dickens bought the house as an investment, intending to let it, [3] but changed his mind and used it instead as a country retreat, moving into the house in June 1857.
Dickens had bookshelves installed in his study at Gads Hill Place, some of which contained dummy books the titles of which he invented to reflect his own prejudices and opinions, including Hansard's Guide to Refreshing Sleep, History of a Short Chancery Suit in twenty-one volumes, Socrates on Wedlock, King Henry the Eighth's Evidences of Christianity, and the series The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: I Ignorance, II Superstition, III The Block, IV The Stake, V The Rack, VI Dirt, and VII Disease. Alongside these was placed a very narrow dummy volume entitled The Virtues of Our Ancestors. [4]
Dickens was visited at Gads Hill Place in 1857 by Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen, who was invited for two weeks but who stayed for five. [5] Other guests included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Allston Collins, Wilkie Collins, Marcus Stone, H.F. Chorley, Percy Fitzgerald, John Leech, Alexander William Kinglake, William Powell Frith and Charles Fechter.
In 1864 Fechter gave Dickens a prefabricated two-storey Swiss chalet as a Christmas present. Dickens had it assembled on land he owned on the opposite side of the Rochester High Road. [6] Later, he had a brick-lined tunnel dug between the house's front lawn and the chalet. During the spring and summer months, Dickens worked on many of his later works in his study on the top floor of this Swiss chalet, including A Tale of Two Cities , Great Expectations , Our Mutual Friend and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood . The chalet has been preserved and was moved to Eastgate House in Rochester High Street, Rochester, as a memorial to the writer.
The house remained Dickens's country home until his death in 1870, dying as he did of a stroke on a couch in the dining room there. Much of the contents of the house were auctioned after his death. [7]
Gads Hill Place was bought by Charles Dickens, Jr. after his father's death, but he was forced to give it up in 1879 because of his own ill-health and financial difficulties. [8] The house was bought in 1890 by the Hon. Francis Law Latham, the then Advocate-General of Bombay. [9] In 1924 the house became Gad's Hill School, which it remains today. [10]
As of 2013, the school was moving into purpose-built buildings in the grounds of the house, and there was a plan to open the house as a museum. [11] [12]
In June 2008 the house was shown in the Channel 4 TV docudrama Dickens' Secret Lover, presented by actor Charles Dance, on Dickens's affair with the actress Ellen Ternan during the last 13 years of his life. [13] 51°24′40″N0°27′28″E / 51.4112°N 0.4579°E
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Rainham. It lies on the northwest bank of the River Medway at its lowest bridging point.
Higham is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. The village lies south-east of Gravesend and just north-west of Strood, in Medway. The civil parish had a population of 3,938 at the 2001 Census, increasing slightly to 3,962 at the 2011 Census.
The Charles Dickens Museum is an author's house museum at 48 Doughty Street in King's Cross, in the London Borough of Camden. It occupies a typical Georgian terraced house which was Charles Dickens's home from 25 March 1837 to December 1839.
Higham railway station is in the hamlet of Lower Higham in north Kent. The village of Higham is about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south.
Ellen Lawless Ternan, also known as Nelly Ternan or Nelly Wharton-Robinson, was an English actress known for her relationship with the elderly Charles Dickens.
Restoration House in Rochester, Kent in England, is a fine example of an Elizabethan mansion. It is so named after the visit of King Charles II on the eve of his restoration.
Dickens World was a themed attraction located in the Chatham Dockside retail park in Kent, England. It was themed around elements of the life and work of Charles Dickens. After a soft opening in April, Dickens World officially opened to the public on 25 May 2007. It closed on 12 October 2016.
Frederick William Dickens was the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens and was Charles Dickens's younger brother, who lived with Charles when he moved on to Furnival's Inn in 1834. He was the inspiration for two different Freds in his brother's books: the jovial nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and the dissolute brother of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.
Gad's Hill School in Higham, Kent, England, is an independent school for day pupils, founded in 1924. It is set in the former Gads Hill Place, the country home of Charles Dickens.
Alfred Lamert Dickens was an English railway engineer and the younger brother of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens.
Cedric David Charles Dickens was an English author and businessman, a great-grandson of Charles Dickens and the steward of his literary legacy. He was a lifelong supporter of the Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn, London, and twice President of the Dickens Fellowship.
Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC was an English barrister, who served as a KC and Common Serjeant of London. He was the eighth of ten children born to English author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine, and the last surviving child of Dickens.
Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens was a Royal Navy officer, the fifth son and seventh child of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine.
Mary "Mamie" Dickens was the eldest daughter of the English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She wrote a book of reminiscences about her father, and in conjunction with her aunt, Georgina Hogarth, she edited the first collection of his letters.
Dora Annie Dickens was the infant daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She was the ninth of their ten children, and the youngest of their three daughters.
Charles Dickens's England is a feature documentary written and produced by David Nicholas Wilkinson, directed by Julian Richards and presented by Derek Jacobi. Other participants include Roy Hattersley, Adrian Wootton, Tony Williams, Thelma Grove, Lee Ault and Tony Pointon.
Tavistock House was the London home of the noted British author Charles Dickens and his family from 1851 to 1860. At Tavistock House Dickens wrote Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities. He also put on amateur theatricals there which are described in John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Later, it was the home of William and Georgina Weldon, whose lodger was the French composer Charles Gounod, who composed part of his opera Polyeucte at the house.
Eastgate House is a Grade I listed Elizabethan townhouse in Rochester, Kent, England. It is notable for its association with author Charles Dickens, featuring as Westgate in The Pickwick Papers and as the Nun's House in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Now a Dickens Museum, the grounds of Eastgate House contain the Swiss chalet in which Dickens penned several of his novels.
