Gad’s Hill Place was built in 1780 for a former Mayor of Rochester, and became the country home of Charles Dickens in March 1856. Dickens first saw the house when he was nine years old in 1821. He was later to write: ‘I used to look at it as a wonderful Mansion (which God knows it is not) when I was a very odd little child with the first faint shadows of all my books in my head – I suppose’. He bought it for £1,790, together with 26 acres of land. The house remained Dickens’ country home until his death in 1870. This object was displayed at the Charles Dickens Reception at Buckingham Palace, 2012.