Route by London, Chatham and Dover Railway, vi Sittingbourne and Faversham to Canterbury; The Queen’s Head Inn, “the little hotel” patronised by the Micawbers—By Mercery Lane and Christ Church Gate to Cathedral Close for King’s School, the Establishment at which David Copperfield was educated—Dr. Strong’s House—The Fleur de Lys Hotel; Mr. Dick’s stopping-place at Canterbury—The George and Dragon Inn; the old London Coach Office—Palace Street and Church of St. Alphege; the scene of Dr. Strong’s marriage to Miss Annie Markleham—No. 65 North Lane, the “’umble dwelling” of Uriah Heep, afterwards the residence of the Micawber Family—71 St. Dunstan Street; Mr. Wickfield’s house, and Home of Agnes—Canterbury to Dover—Corner of Church and Castle Streets, Market Place; David’s resting-place—Priory Hill, Stanley Mount; Miss Betsy Trotwood’s Residence—“The King’s Head”; Mr. Lorry, Lucie Manette, and Miss Pross—The Staplehurst Disaster—Postscript to “Our Mutual Friend.”

The excursion proposed in Ramble VI. to Chatham, Rochester, Gadshill, etc. (see page 82), could be advantageously extended to include Canterbury and Dover, for visiting the localities in these towns associated with the history of David Copperfield.

Beyond Chatham the journey is continued on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, by three minor stations to Sittingbourne, formerly a favourite resting-place for pilgrims (as its name would seem to indicate) en route for Canterbury; but the modern mode of travel only now necessitates a halt of twenty minutes. Passing Teynsham and Faversham, the train proceeds by the intermediate station of Selling, to the fair old city of

CANTERBURY,

pleasantly situated on the banks of the Stour. Seat of the Primate of England, where, as Mr. Micawber writes, “the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical.” A quaint and quiet cathedral town, redolent with fragrant memories of Agnes Wickfield, fairest type of English womanhood—her father, and friends.

Proceeding from the station towards the Cathedral, by Castle Street, we reach the old Roman road of Watling Street (extending from Chester to Dover), at the south corner of which (right), and facing St. Margaret Street, stands the “Queen’s Head Inn.” This is “the little hotel” patronised by Mr. and Mrs. Micawber on the occasion of their first visit to Canterbury, as related in chapter 17 of “David Copperfield”—“Somebody turns up.”

“It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of Dr. Strong’s.’”

It will be remembered that the amiable lady thus referred to, here confidentially explained to David the reason of their visit to this part of the country—

“‘Mr. Micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was to come and see the Medway; which we came and saw. I say ‘we,’ Master Copperfield, ‘for I never will,’ said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, ‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. . . . Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to come on and see the Cathedral—firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and, secondly, on account of the great probability of something turning up in a cathedral town.’”

We may also recollect the dinner and convivial evening thereafter, celebrated two days later at this address, when David attended as the honoured guest of the occasion—

“We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it, observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury.”

Later on there is recorded in the Copperfield autobiography (chapter 42) how David, accompanied by his aunt and friends—Messrs. Dick and Traddles—sojourned for the night at this same hotel. They had arrived at Canterbury by the Dover Mail, as desired by Mr. Micawber, in readiness to assist the next day at the memorable “Explosion” which resulted in the final discomfiture of Uriah Heep, “the Forger and the Cheat”—

“At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half-past nine. After which, we went shivering at that uncomfortable hour to our respective beds, through various close passages, which smelt as if they had been steeped for ages in a solution of soup and stables.”

Following the course of St. Margaret Street northward, and passing (left) the old Church of St. Margaret—recently restored by Sir Gilbert Scott—we soon arrive at the central main thoroughfare, which here divides the town, extending from St. Dunstan’s Church (west) to the New Dover Road, leaving Canterbury on the east.

Crossing the High Street, and continuing northward through the narrow thoroughfare of Mercery Lane (on the opposite side)—once the resort of the many pilgrims who came aforetime to worship at the shrine of Thomas-À-Becket—we enter the precincts of the Cathedral by Christ Church Gate (16th century).

Turning to the right within the Close, and passing the secluded residences of several “grave and reverend seigniors,” we may find, on the farther side, King’s School, an educational establishment of good repute and old foundation, pleasantly and quietly situated. The school is supervised by certain “worthy and approved good masters,” successors to the amiable Doctor Strong and assistants, under whose careful tutorship David Copper-field was educated after his adoption by Miss Betsy Trotwood. In the commencement of chapter 16 of his autobiography, David thus describes the place:—

“Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot—and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.”

Doctor Strong’s Private Residence—at which “some of the higher scholars boarded”—is an antiquated house, situated at the corner of Lady’s Green (No. 1), at a short distance eastward. Here David was a frequent visitor, learning particulars of the Doctor’s history, and becoming intimate with the various personages therewith connected. Pleasant reminiscences of the doings and sayings of Mrs. Markleham—“the Old Soldier” (so called by the boys “on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations against the Doctor”)—the tender associations which cluster round the story of Annie, the good doctor’s true-hearted wife; with a casual recollection of the family cousin—Mr. Jack Maldon—(no better than he should be)—may combine to enhance the interest of a visit to this old-fashioned but comfortable home.

Crossing the Lady’s Green towards the gate of the ancient Augustinian Monastery, and proceeding onwards by Monastery Street, we may find at the end and corner of the street, on the left hand, a noteworthy antique-looking house, partly incorporated with a second gate of the old Monastery, at present the residence of a gentleman of the medical profession. In bygone time this house was a point of considerable attraction to David during his later school-days at Canterbury, as being the home of “The Eldest Miss Larkins,” his second love. In chapter 18, as we may remember, is contained a very pleasant piece of natural sketching, entitled “A Retrospect,” comprising, inter alia, the story of his youthful passion. David says:—

“I worship the eldest Miss Larkins. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a chicken, for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds. . . . Everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. . . . I regularly take walks outside Mr. Larkins’s house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly spooney manner, round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s instead), wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left behind, and perish in the flames.”

The Drawing-Room here mentioned is situated above the old Monastery Gate, between the two towers which stand on either side. We may recollect it was here that David, having received an invitation to a private ball given at the Larkins’s, enjoyed his first dance with “his dear divinity;” afterwards being introduced to Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower from the neighbourhood of Ashford, “a friend of the family,” and—alas for David!—the future husband of the eldest Miss Larkins—

“I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium. . . . I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain, elderly gentleman, who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says, ‘Oh, here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. Copperfield.’ I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. . . . I think I am in a happy dream. I waltz again with the eldest Miss Larkins. She says I waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity.”

Proceeding westward, we pass along the opposite roadway which faces the house above referred to, by Church Street St. Paul, and Burgate Street, to the Old Cathedral entrance.

As the Rambler returns, again traversing Mercery Lane, there may be noted on the left—No. 14—a respectable Butcher’s Shop, now in the keeping of Mr. Cornes. It is evident from its position, near Christ Church Gate, that this was the establishment where flourished, in days of yore, that obnoxious “young butcher” who was “the terror of the youth of Canterbury,” and the especial enemy of the pupils at King’s School. In chapter 18—“A Retrospect”—Copperfield writes as follows:—

“There is a vague belief abroad that the beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of this tongue is to disparage Dr. Strong’s young gentlemen. He says publicly that if they want anything he’ll give it ’em. He names individuals among them (myself included) whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher.

“It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our boys; the butcher by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another moment I don’t know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher; we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes I see nothing, but sit gasping on my second’s knee; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes, from which I augur justly that the victory is his.”

But a few years afterwards David—Ætat. 17—becomes a better match for his opponent; and we read in the same chapter how—after his youthful disappointment in re “the eldest Miss Larkins”—having received new provocation from the butcher, he goes out to battle a second time, and gloriously defeats him.

Turning again on the right into the main central thoroughfare, we may find, on the south side, the Fleur de Lys Hotel—34 High Street. A well-appointed and respectable establishment, at which, in the time of Copperfield’s school-days, Mr. Dick was in the habit of stopping every alternate Wednesday, arriving from Dover by the stage-coach on his special fortnightly visits to David. We read that

“These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick’s life; they were far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every boy in the school, and though he never took an active part in any game but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as any one among us.”

On the opposite (north) side of the road stands the old-fashioned George and Dragon Inn—No. 18 High Street. In the days of Copperfield, the London and Dover Coach, passing en route through Canterbury, stopped here for change of horses. At this inn, therefore, was the “Coach Office,” referred to in chapter 17 as being the place of arrival and departure of Mr. Dick, as aforesaid. This London Coach is also mentioned in the closing paragraph of the same chapter, David being on his way to offer Micawber a soothing word of comfort in reply to a dismal letter just received from that “Beggared Outcast”—

“Halfway there, I met the London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber’s conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they did not see me, I thought it best, all things considered, not to see them. So, with a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, relieved that they were gone, though I still liked them very much, nevertheless.”

Turning on the right (northward) from High Street, by a short intermediate road, the Rambler approaches Palace Street, on the east side of which, near the western end of the Cathedral, stands the Church of St. Alphege. This edifice was casually referred to by the “Old Soldier,” Mrs. Markleham, as the church where the marriage of her daughter Annie with the worthy Dr. Strong was solemnised. The reference occurs, by way of interruption on the part of Mrs. M., during a very touching conference between the doctor and his wife, as related in “Copperfield,” chapter 45—“Mr. Dick fulfils my aunt’s predictions.”

Passing onwards through St. Peter’s Street to Westgate Street, crossing the western branch of the river, we come by a turning on the right to North Lane, in which is situated the former Residence of Uriah Heep. It is a small two-storeyed house with plastered front, on the right side, near the entrance of the lane—No. 65; the “’umble dwelling” to which David was introduced as described in chapter 17 of his history—

“We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street, and found there Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, only short. . . . It was a perfectly decent room, half parlour and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. The tea things were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an escritoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah’s books commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard, and there were the usual articles of furniture. I don’t remember that any individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look, but I do remember that the whole place had.”

Returning to the main street, we pass the ancient West Gate—a fine specimen of medieval architecture, built between two massive round towers, with battlements and portcullis—and continue westward by St. Dunstan Street. At a short distance onwards, on the south side of the thoroughfare, nearly facing the approach to the South-Eastern Railway Station, there may be observed—No. 71—an old picturesque timbered house, with three projecting gables and antiquated windows. This was the Residence of Mr. Wickfield, as described by David, in chapter 15, when he was first taken to Canterbury by Miss Betsy Trotwood—

“At length we stopped before a very old house, bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends, bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.”

This house does not answer in every respect to the full description as contained in the book. The “little round tower that formed one side of the house”—containing Uriah Heep’s circular office—being wanting to complete; but we may readily imagine that this existed, some sixty years’ since, at the western side, in the space now occupied by some gates and a roof of more modern erection. This residence must certainly be located in the main London road, as David—referring, at the close of chapter 15, as above, to his recent pedestrian journey from the Metropolis to Dover—speaks of his “coming through that old city and passing that very house he lived in, without knowing it.”

[Some friends resident at Canterbury have been disposed to locate Mr. Wickfield’s house at No. 15 Burgate Street, now in occupation of the legal firm of Messrs. Fielding and Plummer (names, by-the-bye, which are used by Dickens in “The Cricket on the Hearth”); but neither the house nor its position will in any way correspond with Copperfield’s description of the same.]

The Home of Agnes

Here then was the Home of Agnes—that finest delineation of feminine portraiture ever conceived by our author—the central figure of the many pure and beautiful associations which entwine themselves with the chief interests of this most charming tale. In view of the personal history and character of its heroine, we may well understand Thackeray’s eulogium of his contemporary, as providing for the delectation of his daughters “the pure pages of David Copperfield;” and we can as readily appreciate the preference of Charles Dickens himself, when he says:—

“Of all my books I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have, in my heart of hearts, a favourite child, and his name is David Copperfield.”

Leaving Canterbury by the direct line of the London, Chatham And Dover Railway, we are carried onward through a pleasant country towards the south-east coast; the white roads of the district indicating the abundant chalkiness of the soil. In Copperfield’s 13th chapter, narrating the circumstances of his long tramp to Dover, he says, “From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust as if I had come out of a lime-kiln.”

Passing three minor stations, the train arrives at Dover Priory—about which more anon—whence it proceeds through an intervening tunnel to the town station, at the old port of

The town is of especial interest to readers of “David Copperfield,” as containing on its suburban heights the cottage residence of Miss Trotwood and Mr. Dick.

Proceeding eastward from the station, a short distance along Commercial Quay; turning left, then right; and walking onwards vi Snargate, Bench and King Streets, the Rambler may reach the Market Place, centrally situated in the lower part of the town, and may recall the circumstance of poor David resting near at hand, on his arrival—a juvenile stranger in a strange land—after a morning’s fruitless inquiry as to the whereabouts of his aunt. We read (in chapter 13) as follows:—

“I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and could be only visited at half-tide; a third, that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child stealing; a fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind and make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers among whom I inquired were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not liking my appearance, generally replied without hearing what I had to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn out, and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in London.”

At the junction of Church Street and Castle Street, both leading to and from the Market Place—at the northeast angle—there may be noted the Street Corner at which David sat down, considering the position of affairs, and where he received the first practical intimation for the proper direction of his search:—

“The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the Market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man’s face, as I handed it up, encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. . . . ‘I tell you what,’ said he. ‘If you go up there,’ pointing with his whip towards the heights, ‘and keep right on till you come to some houses facing the sea, I think you’ll hear of her.’”

Leaving the Market Place from its north-west corner, and keeping somewhat to the left, the Rambler may ascend by Cannon and Biggin Streets, as indicated by the coachman’s whip, to the heights of Priory Hill, on which elevation, in the neighbourhood of St. Martin’s Priory and the Priory Farm, there may be found several semi-detached residences pleasantly overlooking the “silver streak” and the intervening town below. Here, in an eligible position, there may be seen Stanley Mount, a villa residence of two storeys, with bow windows and contiguous lawn. This house now replaces an older one, which aforetime was the cottage at which the worthy Miss Trotwood lived; the miniature lawn in front being the “patch of green” over which that amiable lady asserted private right of way; persistently maintaining it against all comers in general, and the Dover donkey boys in particular—

“The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water and watering-pots were kept in secret places, ready to be discharged on the offending boys, sticks were laid in ambush behind the door, sallies were made at all hours, and incessant war prevailed.”

Midway between Railway Stations and Quay, there may be noted The King’s Head Hotel, as being the old Coaching House at which the London Mail terminated its journey, and referred to in “The Tale of Two Cities” by the name of “The Royal George.” Here may be recalled the interview related in chapter 4, which took place at this hotel between Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette, and at which the reader is first introduced to the eccentric Miss Pross—“dressed in some extraordinary tight-fitting fashion”; wearing on “her head a most wonderful bonnet, like a Grenadier measure (and a good measure too) or a great Stilton cheese.”

Returning to London by South-Eastern Rail, the Rambler will pass, about half-way on the road, the picturesque village of Staplehurst. Near this station it may be remembered that, on June 9th, 1865, a sad disaster occurred to the train in which Mr. Dickens was a traveller. The Postscript to “Our Mutual Friend” contains the following reference:—

“Mr. and Mrs. Boffin (in their manuscript dress) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage—nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were very much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. . . . I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever than I was then, until there shall be written against my life the two words with which I have this day closed this book—The End.”