Cooling Churchyard, Kent and Rochester
St James’ Church in the village of Cooling is now a closed church; however, it provided the inspiration for the opening setting of ‘Great Expectations’ when Pip, meets the convict, Magwitch. Little changed since Dickens’ day, it is a place he would have been very familiar with. Pip stands over the graves of his parents and ‘the five little stone lozenges…which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave’. The above picture shows the graves of children from the Baker and Comport families who died between 1771-79. The children’s ages ranged from one to seventeen months, forming a potent reminder of the infant mortality rate at this time. Now known as ‘Pip’s Graves’, these are thought to have inspired Dickens when he wrote the dramatic opening scene to what he himself regarded as one of the best of his books.
In nearby Rochester, there are other locations related to ‘Great Expectations’. The Guildhall, at the western end of the High Street, was where Pip was bound as a blacksmith’s apprentice to Joe Gargery for 25 guineas. Pip comments that it is a ‘queer place…with higher pews in it than a church’. Also in the High Street is a half-timbered building on which Dickens based Uncle Pumblechook’s premises. He used this same building in ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ for the home of Mr Sapsea.
At 16-18 High Street, The Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel is a traditional coaching inn over 400 years old. Dickens stayed here on many occasions and the Hotel featured in ‘Great Expectations’ as ‘The Blue Boar’ as well as in ‘Pickwick Papers’.
Charles II is said to have stayed in this house on the 28th May 1660 prior to his restoration. Dickens called it Satis House, the home of Miss Haversham where she lives in isolation after being jilted on her wedding day. Only open to the public on certain days, I was not lucky when I visited, but have plans to return and explore this very soon!
You can read about the Dickens’ Birthplace Museum here , the Charles Dickens Museum in London here and Dickens in Exeter here.
