Restoration House

Restoration House. The Vines. , The imposing red brick Elizabethan mansion behind you is Restoration House; it is a unique city mansion house, an amalgamation of two medieval buildings., A recently discovered document shows that in the 1580s the owner of Restoration House leased The Vines from the dean and chapter of Rochester Cathedral. The lease describes The Vines as 'that piece of ground which was formerly the vineyard of the monastery'., Following the death of Oliver Cromwell and the collapse of the Protectorate, Parliament declared Charles II (pictured left) as rightful King of England. He was invited to return from his exile in Holland to England. In May 1660, Charles stayed overnight in Restoration House amid wild rejoicing, before his triumphal return into London on his 30th birthday the next day., The garden appears to include The Vines and to be mostly lawns and trees. It is quite possible that The Vines was the cherry garden that Samuel Peyps visited in June 1667 when he described Restoration House in his diary as a ‘pretty seat’. Charles Dickens (pictured right) knew The Vines as a meadow bounded on one side by the priory wall. The Vines was dominated by a copse of huge elm trees known as the Seven Sisters. He used The Vines in a number of his books. Most famously in Great Expectations he renamed Restoration House, Satis House the home of the jilted bride, Miss Havisham. Dickens describes Pip returning to the house by walking behind the High Street through: "The nooks of ruin, where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens'., In June 1870, Dickens was seen in The Vines looking at Restoration House three days before he died. He was still writing his unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The chalet, in which Dickens used to write, can be seen in Eastgate House garden. It was doubtless with The Vines in mind that Dickens wrote his last description of Rochester: "A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with lust ivy gleaming in the sun and the rich trees waving in the balmy air."