Dickens loved the area so much that he decided to return to it for the remaining years of his life. He moved into his dream house, Gad Hill Place in Higham and openly participated in the community.
Charles Dickens regularly attended St John’s Church where he advised the church’s curate, Christopher Cay, on how to read his sermons.
“Reading more from the chest and less from the throat (would ensure) audibility in reading to a congregation.”
Dickens was an avid fan of walking. He would have explored chalk and the surrounding areas.
“ Walking was, perhaps, his chiefest pleasure, and the country lanes and city streets alike found him a close observer of their beauties and interests. He was a rapid walker, his usual pace being four miles an hour, and to keep step with him required energy and activity similar to his own.” - Mamie Dickens
Great Expectations: Charles Dicken's love affair with the land
It is evident that his love of Higham, the surronding villiages and the Green Belt fields influenced his novels.The marshland, which could possibly be home to option C, lent itself to the opening scenes of Great Expectations:
" Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea.
The dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea."
Great Expectations pp. 1-2.
Charles Dickens mixed all his favourite locations into one fictonal place
Next Page: Option C's development: Is it time to say goodbye?
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Having covered the history of the area it is now important to look at the development plans which threaten such a rich past.
Charles Dickens' favourite walks.
Christoph Bull explians how Dicken's favourite places were in corprated into his novels.
