Gads Hill Place - wikipedia Gads Hill Place Gads Hill Place today Dickens ' Dream by Robert William Buss, portraying Dickens at his desk at Gads Hill surrounded by many of his characters Group portrait in the porch at Gads Hill Place in 1862, H.F. Chorley, Kate Dickens, Mamie Dickens, Charles Dickens, C.A. Collins and Georgina Hogarth Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad 's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens, the most successful British author of the Victorian era. 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 ). Contents 1 Dickens 2 Later history 3 References 4 External links Dickens 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. As a boy, Charles 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. 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. '' 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 in March 1856 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 the ' Dickens Centre ' in Rochester High Street, Rochester, as a memorial to the writer. The house remained Dickens 's country home until his death in 1870, when he died from a stroke on a couch in the dining room of the house. Many of the contents of the house were auctioned after his death. Later History 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. The house was bought in 1890 by the Hon. Francis Law Latham, the then Advocate - General of Bombay. In 1924 the house became Gad 's Hill School, which it remains today. In June 2008 the house was shown in the Channel 4 TV docudrama Dickens ' Secret Lover, presented by actor Charles Dance, on Dickens 's alleged affair with the actress Ellen Ternan during the last 13 years of his life. Coordinates : 51 ° 24 ′ 40 '' N 0 ° 27 ′ 28 '' E ﻿ / ﻿ 51.4112 ° N 0.4579 ° E ﻿ / 51.4112 ; 0.4579 Gads Hill Place is a Grade I listed building. References ^ Jump up to : Forster, John ' The Life of Charles Dickens ' Published by Cecil Palmer, London ( 1872 - 74 ) ^ Jump up to : Ackroyd, Peter ' Dickens ' Published by Sinclair - Stevenson Ltd ( 1990 ) pg32 ISBN 1 - 85619 - 000 - 5 Jump up ^ Ackroyd, pg 749 Jump up ^ Fido, Martin Charles Dickens Published by Hamlyn Publishing, London ( 1970 ) pg 119 ISBN 0 - 600 - 50158 - 2 Jump up ^ Ackroyd, pg781 Jump up ^ Ackroyd, pg 956 Jump up ^ Ackroyd, pg 1082 Jump up ^ The Children of Charles Dickens Jump up ^ ' Personal Notes ' Otago Witness, Putanga 1921, 11 Hakihea ( 1890 ), Page 42 - National Library of New Zealand Jump up ^ Carlisle, D.J., ' A History of Gad 's Hill Place School for Girls from 1924 to 1946 ', ( 2010 ), ISBN 978 - 0 - 9565494 - 0 - 2 Jump up ^ Gadshill.org Jump up ^ Gads Hill School website External links The Gads Hill Appeal Gads Hill Visitors Centre BBC News 2008 Gads Hill Place on Discover Gravesham Description of Gads Hill Place from c. 1900 Charles Dickens Bibliography Novels The Pickwick Papers Oliver Twist Nicholas Nickleby The Old Curiosity Shop Barnaby Rudge Martin Chuzzlewit Dombey and Son David Copperfield Bleak House Hard Times Little Dorrit A Tale of Two Cities Great Expectations Our Mutual Friend The Mystery of Edwin Drood Christmas books A Christmas Carol The Chimes The Cricket on the Hearth The Battle of Life The Haunted Man and the Ghost 's Bargain Short stories `` The Long Voyage '' `` The Signal - Man '' Short story collections Sketches by Boz The Mudfog Papers Master Humphrey 's Clock Non-fiction American Notes Pictures from Italy The Life of Our Lord A Child 's History of England The Uncommercial Traveller Letters Plays The Frozen Deep No Thoroughfare : A Drama : In Five Acts Journalism Bentley 's Miscellany Master Humphrey 's Clock The Daily News Household Words All the Year Round Collaborations `` A House to Let '' `` The Haunted House '' `` A Message from the Sea '' `` Mugby Junction '' No Thoroughfare Related Catherine Dickens ( wife ) Dickens family Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton Bleak House Tavistock House Gads Hill Place Dickens and Little Nell ( statue ) Dickens of London ( 1976 miniseries ) Dickens in America ( 2005 documentary ) The Invisible Woman ( 2013 film ) Dickensian ( 2015 TV series ) The Man Who Invented Christmas ( 2017 film ) Book Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gads_Hill_Place&oldid=847172765 '' Categories : Country houses in Kent Charles Dickens Gravesham Talk Contents About Wikipedia Español Edit links This page was last edited on 23 June 2018, at 12 : 25 ( UTC ). 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Question: when did charles buy gad's hill place
Answer: March 1856