252 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



escape, and after a week's detention was probably allowed 

 to do so. He embarked on board a tender in the river 

 from a house which is still standing, and was landed in 

 due course at Ambleteuse. 



But the most interesting events connected with royal 

 visits to Rochester surround the stay of Charles the 

 Second at Restoration House, in the course of his 

 triumphant procession to London. The present owner of 

 this house, which was built about 1587, Mr. S. J. Aveling, 

 has kindly obliged me with some details about this royal 

 and memorable visit which are full of interest and have 

 been most religiously preserved. 



The king arrived at Rochester on the Monday follow- 

 ing his landing at Dover. The first thing he did was to 

 refresh himself ; the second to go and see the Royal 

 Sovereign, then lying at Chatham. After which he 

 returned to Restoration House, and was immediately 

 presented with a most dutiful and loyal address from 

 Colonel Gibbons, then in temporary possession of the 

 place ; and also from the regiment of Colonel Gibbons 

 stationed at that time in Rochester. John Marloe, the 

 mayor of the city, now had his opportunity for display- 

 ing loyalty, and went to the length of a "faire piece of plate, 

 value one hundred pounds," being a basin and ewer gilt. 

 The king must have been tired that night, and no doubt 

 he slept well. He should have done so, at all events, for 

 he slept in a delightful room which I have had the 

 pleasure of seeing, containing amongst other curiosities 

 a secret panel which opens into passages communicat- 

 ing with the garden and with the roof. 



The first half of the Dover Road — that part of it as far 

 as Rochester at all events — is so closely associated with 

 the memory of Dickens, that another reminiscence of him 

 may fittingly round its story. There is a passage then 

 in Great Expectations referring to this very Restoration 

 House, a place which always took his fancy, and well it 

 mi"ht. 



" I had stopped," thus the passage runs, " to look at 



