I went to Rochester to buy paints and brushes from Frances Iles' s shop in the High Street and plonked into a Dickens Festival. I am not particularly interested in festivals like this but everybody was having fun dressed up or watching those who were. I had a vulture for the shop to spend and so I decided that now was the time to venture into oil paintings. So I took my fuji and a bag and wandered in to Rochester using the park and ride bus. I was glad I did because parking would have been impossible anywhere near the town.
However, with my purchases installed in my bag I went for a stroll to look at Restoration House, the model for Satis House of Great Expectations and was pleased to discover it was open. No pictures to be taken inside but I was permitted free licence with the fuji in the gardens. Lovely place, a good working garden from which flowers are cut for the display in the front window facing the street and fruit and vegetables grown for the household. With a mixture of formal and informal, as the guide said, it looked as if the gardens had been there since the house was built.
The gardens are to be extended to the land beside the house (further to the left of the picture) where a Tudor wall was discovered and is being currently refurbished. Lovely!
The point of the post?
This was the place where Dickens Miss Haversham spent her fruitless days and I was amused to discover a local lad - who came from Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey - had re-created the wedding feast room complete with cobwebs and went broke doing so. The house will swallow money if you let it.
I was a bit apprehensive about the £5.50 charge for the visit but was pleased afterwards that I had forked out for the fee knowing that I would have to wait a long time to go again. The visit was worth it. The guides were friendly and knowledgeable and there was tea and cakes to be had and devoured in the garden - nice.
