when did charles buy gad's hill place
Gads Hill Place Charles Dickens first saw the mansion when he was 9 years old in 1821, when his father John Dickens told Charles that if he worked hard enough, one day he would own it or just such a house.[1] As a boy, Charles Dickens would often walk from Chatham to Gads Hill Place as he wished to see it again and again as an image of his possible future.[2] Dickens 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."[2] Thirty-five years later, after Dickens had risen to fame and wealth, he discovered that the house was for sale and bought it for Â£1790 in March 1856[1] from fellow writer Eliza Lynn (later known as novelist Mrs. Eliza Lynn Linton). Initially Dickens bought the house as an investment, intending to let it,[3] but changed his mind and used it instead as a country retreat, moving into the house in June 1857.