The future of Charles Dickens's shedlike writing chalet looks a lot brighter thanks to a major financial lifeline from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Set in the gardens of Eastgate House, just off Rochester's High Street, it will receive a £240,000 grant to help develop plans to restore the architectural treasure and open it up to the public. Medway Council is contributing £40,000, while project partners from the Rochester and Chatham branch of the Dickens Fellowship are contributing £5,000.
Now more than 160 years old, this Grade I-listed structure, situated in Eastgate Gardens, is extremely fragile and at serious risk of being lost.
Dickens worked there on several of his novels including Our Mutual Friend, The Uncommercial Traveller, and his final, unfinished, work The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He also rehearsed there before his numerous public appearances and lined the second floor with mirrors to help him prepare.
The chalet was given to him as a present from actor friend Charles Fechter in 1864 when Dickens lived at Gads Hill in Higham. It arrived at Higham Railway Station on Christmas Eve 1864, in 94 pieces packed into 58 boxes, an early example of prefabricated design and was moved to its current location in Rochester in the 1960s.
The project will conserve and restore the Chalet where organisers plan to develop a programme of events for residents, schools, and visitors to explore Dickens’ creativity and his contemporary relevance as a social campaigner. If development plans are successful, they will unlock a further funding of £1.2m from the Heritage Fund.
Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: "I’m pleased we are adding the Charles Dickens Writing Chalet, the writing nook where he wrote his last novels in peace and tranquillity, to the writing heritage we’ve funded over the years."
Image: Nick Johnson/The Imageworks
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