DICKENS RELIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 666, 18 May 1929, Page 27

DICKENS RELIC

CHALET IN KENT FOR SALE A FRIEND’S GIFT A unique opportunity awaits the Dickensian relic hunter whose means extend to the price of a Swiss chalet standing in the grounds of Cobham Hall, Kent, England, the home of the Earl of Darnley. This is the chalet in which Dickens wrote the last chapter of Edwin Drood, as well as other works. It may now be had by anyone who is prepared to pay the price and give a guarantee that it will be kept intact in perpetuity. The chalet in point of interest

ranks next to the birthplace at Portsmouth, Gad’s Hill, or the house in Doughty Street, where Dickens spent his early married life. It is a sturdy and substantial wooden building, familiar in design to every traveller in Switzerland. It came as a present to Dickens from Charles Albert Fechter, a Frenchman whom Dickens had invited to London on account of his acting, and who created a stir by his performances as Hamlet and Othejlo. Fechter was grateful from the first, and the present of the Swiss Chalet was an expression of his feelings. It was sent from Paris to London, and thence to Rochester by water. It consisted of 94 pieces, fitting like the points of a puzzle, and Mr. Couchman, a master-builder of Strood, was employed to re-erect it in the shrubbery, or that part of the Gad’s Hill

- garden on the other side of the Dover j i Road, and approached by the famous | ; tunnel. Fechter had sent a French r workman with it, but he knew little , about the business, and Mr. Couch- - man knew little French. So in his t perplexity he sought the aid of the - novelist's son, Harry (Sir Henry 1 Fielding Dickens), who did know 3 French, “and told me the names of 3 the different pieces, and I managed it without the Frenchman who stayed | the night and went away next day.” I Dickens was very proud of the t chalet. He made it a retreat which 3 no one was allowed to enter while he was there at work. His children were not even allowed to cross the lawn 3 lest their presence should distract him. He wrote to tell an American , friend how he had put in five mirrors, 5 “and they reflect and refract, in all kinds of ways, the leaves that are 1 quivering at the windows, and the

] great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. 1 “My room (it was 16 feet square i is up among the branches of the trees, and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious.” After the passing of the great novelist, Mr. Couchman look down the chalet and for a short period it was to be seen at the Crystal Palace. It was subsequently presented by several members of the Dickens family to the Earl of Darnley, who had been a good friend and neighbour to the novelist, Lord Darnley afterwards ordered it to be re-erected in his park at Cobham, where it remains unto : this day.