Place | Extract |
| Boulogne-sur-Mer |
As he returned there, Charles Dickens must have liked the town of Boulogne, the following year he rented the property of M... |
| Boulogne-sur-Mer | The Dickens family and Miss Hogarth spent the summer of 1853 at the château des Moulineaux in Boulogne, owned by M... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens entertained extensively at Broadstairs and was often inviting his friends to stay... |
| Broadstairs | Mr and Mrs Dickens entertained a great deal in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | However, he often mentioned in his letters a certain Ballard, whom he found difficult to bear... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens was obviously enjoying the summer in Broadstairs when he wrote this letter entreating his friend Mark Lemon and his wife to come visit the family in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | He was also well acquainted with some of its outlandish characters and frequently described and sometimes satirised them in his letters... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens knew Broadstairs sufficiently well to expect certain things there... |
| Broadstairs | This letter to John Forster states that had the weather been calm Dickens would have taken a boat to visit his friend... |
| Broadstairs | The weather being stormy Dickens ‘has no other choice but to return by land’ and seems to regret not being able to make use of the steam-boats... |
| Broadstairs | This in turn attracted street performers and tradesmen which contributed to rob Broadstairs of its peacefulness... |
| Broadstairs | The following letter, addressed to his American friend Professor Charles Felton, provides first-hand insight into Dickens’s habits in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | In this letter to his friend Macready, Dickens ‘solemnly declares’ his affection for Broadstairs and proclaims it to be ‘the finest feature in all creation’... |
| Broadstairs | By 1849, when this letter was written, Dickens was well acquainted with Broadstairs and with its unpredictable weather... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens gives a delightful portrayal of Broadstairs in this letter to his friend Miss Allan... |
| Broadstairs | Although the fictitious donkey-chaser, Miss Betsey Trotwood, lived in Dover, her real-life equivalent, Miss Pearson Strong, lived in Broadstairs along Victoria Parade... |
| Broadstairs | Fond of Broadstairs as he was, Dickens was however not oblivious to the dramatic weather that it could host, nor to the fact that it was chosen by many (including himself) as a place of pure air and therefore beneficial to the health... |
| Broadstairs | The situation must indeed have been unbearable as it nearly drove Dickens from the town he cherished so much as he mentions in this letter to John Forster... |
| Broadstairs | The wit and dynamism of the Paper are proof of the health benefits Dickens reaped from Broadstairs... |
| Chalk | Dickens had begun work on ‘The Pickwick Papers’ which were to assure his reputation as a writer... |
| Chatham | Steam trains had obliterated his playground, the stagecoach office had vanished and his childhood sweetheart had grown fat... |
| Chatham | The essence of the town as it must have lingered in the mind of the 10 year old Charles is also felt by the young fugitive: ‘ … and toiling into Chatham, - which, in that night’s aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah’s arks’... |
| Chatham | Together with most of the rest of the local population he must have turned out to watch the military reviews, mock battles and practice manoeuvres which frequently animated the area with noise, colour and movement... |
| Cliffe-at-Hoo | In Dickens’s day there were still lime-kilns at Cliffe from which the prepared lime was transported down the canal and into Thames barges on the river... |
| Cobham | Later in life, when the successful writer had taken up residence at Gadshill, he became a friend of Lord Darnley, the owner of Cobham Hall, and was given a key to the Park so that he could walk there whenever he chose... |
| Cobham | They were no doubt his own sentiments that he put into the mouth of Mr... |
| Condette | Today Baeucourt-Mutuel’s house at Condette has a bust of the author and is known as the Dickens’ châlet... |
| Cooling | Werburgh - have laid a claim to being the setting for this encounter, but it is most likely that Dickens incorporated features of many of the local villages and their churchyards for this scene and others set in the peninsula... |
| Faversham | An article of uncertain authorship, featuring Faversham and entitled ‘Assault and Battery’ (1864), was published in Dickens’s periodical All the Year Round... |
| Gadshill | Too young to be aware of the irony of such advice coming from his notoriously disorganised parent, Dickens was impressed by his father’s words: ‘If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it!’ His childhood fascination with the place remained, for when the property came onto the market in 1855, Dickens was persistent in his negotiations to purchase it... |
| Gadshill | Christmas was another occasion when Gad’s Hill Place came into its own; sometimes the extra guests at these very traditional festivities had to be accommodated in the Falstaff Inn across the road... |
| Gravesend | Peggotty’s Great Yarmouth home in ‘David Copperfield’ (1849-50)... |
| Herne Bay | uk/database/en/author/Jerrold%20Douglas%20William>Jerrold sent Dickens several letters from his holiday home near Herne Bay... |
| Margate | Consequently, the town is not described in great detail in any of his writings... |
| Margate | uk/database/en/advanced... |
| Pegwell Bay | Tuggs, a London grocer, who having come into money, decide to holiday at Ramsgate... |
| Ramsgate | Accommodation seems to have been a problem for Dickens at the time when he wrote this letter to John Forster in September 1839... |
| Ramsgate | uk/database/en/advanced... |
| Ramsgate | Full of irony, the story narrates how the Tuggs family are parading their newly acquired wealth by going to Ramsgate intending to lead a life of leisure... |
| Ramsgate | Bathing was one of Dickens pastimes when he was in Kent... |
| Rochester | So closely associated is Dickens with this part of Rochester that College Gate is often referred to as ‘Jasper’s Gate’... |
| Sheerness | They rented a small house next to the theatre before moving to Chatham four months later... |
| Strood | Dickens not only knew the Medway towns well enough to describe their individual characteristics, he was also able to capture the impression they would collectively make on the visitor such as Mr... |
