Charles Dickens and Higham - A circular walk - www.kent.gov.uk/explorekent
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Charles Dickens
and Higham
A circular walk
www.kent.gov.uk/explorekent
KENT
Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth
on the 7th of February 1812 to John and Elizabeth
Dickens, the 2nd of 8 children. John was a pay clerk
in the Royal Navy and the family moved with his job,
coming to Chatham when Charles was 5 years old.
Dickens was so inspired by what he found in Kent that he
returned here for the last years of his life. Many people and places in his
novels have Kentish roots. The marshland around this area lent itself to the
vivid opening of Great Expectations.
Dickens was a dedicated walker. 12 miles was an average daily walk. He
would walk in all weathers, turning ideas over in his mind.
This walk covers 6.6 miles and includes places & landmarks that Dickens
would have known well.
1 Arrivals 2 Building a new life
It is unlikely that Dickens would Dickens’s early life was happy, but his
have chosen to live at Gad’s Hill father John was careless with money
Place had Higham lacked a railway and fell into debt. In 1823 John was
station. Regular railway travel was compelled to put his son Charles to
vital to Dickens. Even his traumatic work in Warren’s blacking factory near
“…walking was, perhaps,
experience of the Staplehurst railway the Strand, pasting labels onto bottles
his chiefest pleasure, and crash on the 9th of June 1865 did not of boot polish for 6 shillings a week.
the country lanes and city curtail this. Dickens felt the indignity keenly.
streets alike found him a close Only a few days after Dickens began
observer of their beauties Dickens would often walk or ride his factory life his father served 3
down to Higham Railway Station to months in the Marshalsea Prison for
and interests. He was a rapid greet visitors to Gad’s Hill Place on unpaid debts.
walker, his usual pace being their arrival in Higham.
four miles an hour, and to Dickens’s intense drive for personal
keep step with him required From the entrance road to Higham success was in reaction to these
energy and activity similar to Railway Station, turn right and cross childhood experiences. He bought
his own.” Mamie Dickens the railway bridge. Take the footpath Gad’s Hill Place, not only as a home
on the right which leads over open but also to mark his achievements.
fields. Follow the path until you reach
a track, (The Landway.) Turn right and
head uphill past White House Farm.
The Knole
Gads Hill Place c1900
My father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, ‘If you
Clerks Cottage
were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you
might some day come to live in it.
Gads Hill Place was leased to Joseph would ensure “audibility in reading to a 5 A Writer’s refuge In 1859, a tunnel was built under the
Hindle (the vicar of Higham from congregation.” road so Dickens could cross to his
1829 to 1874.) Dickens allowed him to In 1864, the actor Charles Fechter chalet unimpeded by traffic.
remain there until Hindle’s newly built After passing the church, turn left on gave Dickens a Swiss chalet as a In the 1960s, the chalet was moved
house, ‘The Knowle’ was ready. to Forge Lane. Christmas present. The chalet was to the garden of Eastgate House in
delivered to Gad’s Hill, via Higham Rochester, which was fictionalised as
You will find Higham Library on your Railway station, in 58 boxes. It was
Shortly after the farm, take the path the Westgate House Establishment for
right, next door to the Gardeners assembled across the road from Gad’s
bearing right across the field with St Young Ladies in The Pickwick Papers
Arms. Hill Place in the area that Dickens
John’s Church in front of you. Upon and the Nun’s House in The Mystery
reaching the field edge, turn left referred to as ‘the shrubbery’. In May of Edwin Drood.
4 Reading Dickens 1868 he wrote: “The place is lovely,
alongside allotments and then right
along Hermitage Road. 200 years since his birth, Charles and in perfect order. I have put five Please note that The Wilderness is
Dickens remains the most popular mirrors in the Swiss chalet (where I private property.
3 Shrinking the Sunday walk novelist in the English language. His write) and they reflect and refract in
books are read around the world all kinds of ways the leaves that are 6 Dickens’s dream house
Joseph Hindle was conscious that and the characters he described – quivering at the windows, and the
his church was almost 2 miles away Ebenezer Scrooge, Miss Haversham, great fields of waving corn, and the “A mansion of dull red brick, with a little
from the growing communities of Mr Pickwick – full of the life and sail-dotted river. weathercock-surmounted cupola on the
Mid & Upper Higham. He paid for energy of their creator, are immortal. roof, and a bell hanging in it.”
the building of St John’s Church on My room is up among the branches A Christmas Carol
Hermitage Road. The church was To find out more about Charles of the trees; and the birds and the
consecrated in January 1862. Dickens & his written works visit butterflies fly in and out, and the As a boy, Charles would walk with
Higham Library. green branches shoot in, at the open his father to Gad’s Hill, famous as the
As residents of Upper Higham, The windows, and the lights and shadows location of Falstaff’s failed attempt
Dickens family began to attend St As you enter the library you will see of the clouds come and go with the at highway robbery in Shakespeare’s
John’s Church in preference to St a framed large scale map of Higham rest of the company. The scent of the Henry IV Part I. Dickens recalled his
Mary’s. The family had a pew in the to the left of the door. The map is flowers, and indeed of everything that early fascination with Gad’s Hill Place
chancel. dated 1864 so the streets, buildings is growing for miles and miles, is most in The Uncommercial Traveller:
and landmarks of Dickens’ day are delicious.” “You admire that house?” said I.
Christopher Cay, the curate of St recorded. “Bless you, sir,” said the very queer
John’s Church, benefited from Here Dickens worked on Great small boy, “when I was not more than
Dickens’ “practice and experience”
Leaving the Library, continue down Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Our half as old as nine, it used to be a treat
as a famous public reader. Dickens Mutual Friend, The Uncommercial for me to be brought to look at it. And
Forge Lane to the end of the road and
advised him that “reading more from
turn left. Traveller and The Mystery of Edwin now, I am nine, I come by myself to look
the chest and less from the throat”
Drood. at it. And ever since I can recollect,
View from Hermitage Rd
We ascend to the monument. Stop at the gate. Moon is
rising. Heavy shadows… Suddenly, as we enter the field, a
most extraordinary noise responds...
8 Dickens the man of the world From The Larches continue along
my father, seeing me so fond of it, has foot-races and rustic sports in my field
often said to me, ‘If you were to be very here… As I have never yet had a case of (& ghost hunter!) Hermitage Road. Enjoy the great views
persevering and were to work hard, you drunkenness, the landlord of The Falstaff to either side.
Dickens paid attention to current
might some day come to live in it.’ had a drinking-booth on the ground… Take the footpath on your left just
affairs and as a young man worked as
We had two thousand people here. before Mill Barn. You can see the base
a parliamentary reporter. He would
Dickens paid for the house on the of the old windmill. Follow the well
have been familiar with the reforms
14th of March 1856. His son Charley defined path straight and cross the
introduced in 1832 by Rochester
recalled the purchase: “We inspected
auctioneer Charles Larkin giving the road to take the restricted byway.
the premises as well as we could
vote to every householder owning Follow the track straight ahead to
from the outside – my father, full of
property worth more than 10 pounds. another road. Turn right towards
pride at his new position as a Kentish
The monument on Telegraph Hill was Lillechurch and take the footpath
freeholder…and we lunched at the
erected to commemorate Larkin after opposite the farm entrance.
Falstaff Inn opposite, and walked to
his death in 1833 and has since been Head across the field passing through
Gravesend to dinner, full of delightful
renovated twice. kissing gates, when you reach the
anticipation of the country life to come.”
St Johns Falstaff
road, take the track opposite through
In 1860 rumour spread that the hill
Please note that Gad’s Hill School is Oakleigh Nursery & Farm.
was haunted. Dickens took his young
private property. When the track splits, take the left-
sons ghost-hunting as he wrote to his
friend the author Wilkie Collins: hand fork with St Mary’s church spire
7 A merry man Among the crowd were soldiers, navvies,
directly in front of you.
and labourers of all kinds…There was
Dickens’s guests often stayed at the “We ascend to the monument. Stop
not a dispute all day, and they went
Falstaff Inn when Gad’s Hill ran out of at the gate. Moon is rising. Heavy 9 Dickens & daughter
away at sunset rending the air with
room. The landlord was called Trood, shadows… Suddenly, as we enter
cheers…” At St Mary’s church in Higham on
which may have given Dickens the the field, a most extraordinary noise
17th July 1860, Katey Dickens married
name of Edwin Drood for his responds terrific noise human noise
Immediately after The Sir John Falstaff Charles Collins, the brother of Wilkie
last novel. and yet superhuman noise… “Did you
Inn, take Telegraph Hill, and follow up Collins. The Reverend Joseph Hindle
hear that, Pa?” says Frank. “I did,” says
and down hill to the end of the road. conducted the ceremony. Katey’s
Dickens loved organising elaborate I. Noise repeated portentous, derisive,
Turn right along Hermitage Road. mother Catherine did not attend
entertainments and wrote to his dull, dismal, damnable. We advance
the wedding. Dickens had separated
friend William Macready in 1866: To visit the Larkin monument turn towards the sound. Something white
from his wife in 1858. (He had begun
“You will be interested in knowing that, comes lumbering through the darkness.
right into The Larches, taking the gate a secret relationship with the actress
encouraged by the success of summer - An asthmatic sheep!”
at the end of the road. Ellen Ternan the previous year.)
cricket-matches, I got up a quantity ofThe strain of this personal upheaval 10 “Curious little public-houses -
was felt by the whole of the Dickens
and smithies”
family.
When writing Great Expectations,
In later life Katey Dickens hinted that Dickens may well have used Lower
Higham as part of the model for Pip’s
St Mary’s Church
her first marriage was motivated by
Lower Higham
a need to escape from an “unhappy home village. It has a “lonely church,
right out on the marshes” and, in
Gads Hill
home.”
Dickens’s day, it was a working class
village with smithies and pubs. The
Dickens arranged
former Chequers Inn was the hub
for a special train of Lower Higham, as the Three Jolly
St Mary’s Church
from London to Bargemen seems to be in Pip’s village.
Higham to bring
in the wedding Continue on Chequers Street, over the
guests. Local railway bridge, and back to Higham
villagers made floral tributes and
Railway Station.
crowded round the church yard to
cheer the married couple.
1 Departures
Yet Gladys Storey, the author of On Tuesday morning 14th June 1870 Kent Libraries, Registration & Archives HQ
‘Dickens & Daughter’ recorded this a special train left Higham railway The Kent History & Library Centre
anecdote: “After the last of the guests station for Charing Cross… James Whatman Way
had departed, Mamie went up to her Maidstone ME14 1LQ
sister’s bedroom. Opening the door, she Dickens had always enjoyed reading
Design: astonesthrowdesign.co.uk. Cover photo: St Johns’ Church ,Higham
beheld her father upon his knees with his work to an appreciative public and Tel: 08458 247200
his head buried in Katie’s wedding- from the end of 1868 until 15th Email: libraries@kent.gov.uk
gown, sobbing. She stood for some March 1870, gave a series of “Farewell
moments before he became aware of Readings” Dickens poured all his
her presence; when at last he got up and energy into the performances and
saw her, he said in a broken voice: put terrible strain on his health. On The Library is situated in Villa Road, and offers a wide range of services,
including books, CDs, DVDs and free internet use. It is easy to join the
the 8th June 1870 in the dining room
‘But for me, Katey would not have left library, and it is free. See the Kent Libraries & Archives website for
at Gad’s Hill Place, Charles Dickens
further details: www.kent.gov.uk/libraries
home,’ and walked out of the room.” suffered a stroke. He died the next
day leaving his final book ‘The Mystery There is access to Higham Library through a courtyard from both the
After leaving St Mary’s Church, head of Edwin Drood’ unfinished. Although Forge Lane and from Villa Road.
down Church Street. Shortly after the he wished to be buried at Shorne
Black Cottages, take the footpath on near Gad’s Hill, he was laid to rest in
the left. Turn right into Bull Lane and Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
left on to Church Street/Chequers
Street.
This guide is printed on
55% recycled paper9
10
Start/Finish
1
2
3
4
8
5
7
6.6 miles (10.1 km) walk
Diversion - 0.4 miles return
6
Train station
Take care
Gate
KM
0
Miles
0 0.25 0.5 Crown Copyright and database right 2012. Ordnance Survey 100019238You can also read
