Eastgate House — Attraction in England

Admission is £7, a 20% English Heritage discount is available and the concessionary admission is £5. I think the house doesn't offer quite enough to justify charging £7 for entry, that's £14 for a couple! Bear in mind that you can breeze through it in 20-30 minutes. Drop the price to £3.50-£4 a head and that's reasonable.

I will say that the house is kept in stunning condition and the Lottery Heritage Fund's cash infusion has worked wonders. The original blue-grey painted walls are featured in all their splendour. I also enjoyed the yellow ochre colour in one of the rooms, again an original paint colour. Many original Tudor features remain, in particular a considerable number of fireplaces/hearths with Tudor brickwork.

I felt the information displays were of good spec and quality with good design, fonts and colours for readability and legibility, but the overall direction of the displays and signage could have been more concise and focused on interesting and salient points.

I personally found the Tudor history the most interesting and the Victorian (& later) stuff was less important, in my opinion. Of course the Dickens links are excellent and well worth mentioning, but an entire room for him? (also the slightly uncanny, creepy and disheveled Dickens model needs to go, it doesn't exactly invite someone to want to stay in that space for long!).

Keep the room furnished as it would have been in the Tudor period. Dickens only took cursory inspiration from the building and nothing more. I also found the murder mystery room a bit of a nonstarter.

They could have elaborated more about the Tudor Royal Chatham Dockyard and Sir Peter Buck's role in the bigger picture of the area's naval heritage, but I felt the building's post-Tudor/Jacobean history was crowding it out. If the museum rebalances its exhibits it could help lift the quality of the experience. Introducing audio guides are a brilliant way of unlocking a historical place and allowing someone to look and listen simultaneously - something well worth considering here.

Dickens's Grade I listed Chalet: Besides the house itself, in the garden can be found Charles Dickens's quirky chalet, where he spent time writing at his home in Gad's Hill, Higham. He spent time writing in the chalet the day before his death on June 9th, 1870.

It originally stood in a part of his garden called 'The Wilderness'. He arranged the building so that the second floor gave him a view of the River Thames. To avoid the busy and muddy road he had to cross to reach it, Dickens constructed a tunnel to go underneath the road. The tunnel still exists today. The chalet was later moved to Cobham and then finally to Eastgate Gardens in 1960. I think it should ideally remain at Gad's Hill in its original location, but to my understanding Dickens's former home (Gad's Hill Place) is now privately owned as a school, but open to tours on select dates. Plans are now underway to make essential repairs to the chalet. At present it is unsafe to go inside but it is hoped that in the future it can be opened...

This is one of the buildings that initially doesn't give too much of a vibe, but boy, you'll be so wrong to believe that! Only after entering the house will be mesmerised by the roch history, colours, and all the interesting and fascinating bits that you will learn about the place. The building was constructed in 1590 for Sir Peter Buck and is Grade I listed. It was used as a bording school from 1791 for about 100 years. In 1897, it was bought by the Rochester Corporation and transformed in a museum dedicated to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This house was used mentioned by Charles Dickens in two of his writings. Next to this house, in 1961, Dicken's chalet was moved here, and you can visit it for free(only the...

A nice interesting ancient house, with some Dicken's related connections. There is a 'rabbit' hunt being run at the moment for children, as it's the Easter break. There is also a dressing up area with mirror and period clothes in child sizes to keep the younger visitors happy. One room is set up as a school room and the kitchen is nicely arranged with displays of products that would have been cooked in the day. Out doors the writing 'chalet' used by Dickens from Gads Hill, is on display and there is a garden area. A visit won't take up more than an hour or so, but Rochester is full of many other interesting places and has lots of coffee shops, restaurants and public houses to provide refreshment once your...