6 The Lamb House Three writers in turn were won over by this strategically placed, red-brick, early 18th-century corner house at the top of one of Rye’s most photogenic streets. Admission: adults £5, children £3, family ticket (two adults and up to four children) £14. Admission: adults £2.50, up to two children under 12 free with an adult, otherwise £1.50, families (two adults, two children) £6.50. The Charles Dickens Museum, 46 Doughty Street, London WC1N (020 7405 2127; ). Open Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm, Tuesday 10am-7pm, Sunday 11am-5pm.
Open daily, 10am-5.30pm, April to October, and 10am-5pm on Dickens’s birthday, 7 February. Charles was born in 1812, and in 1815 his father, who worked in the Navy Pay Office, was relocated to London Restlessness was to be a hallmark of the writer’s life. He moved frequently, decamped for the summer with his own family to Broadstairs, and, on the proceeds of Pickwick Papers, settled briefly in gated Doughty Street, where there is extensive memorabilia, writing Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby here before flitting off to Regent’s Park.Getting there: Charles Dickens’s Birthplace, 393 Commercial Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire (023-9282 7261; ). 5 Dickens’s birthplace and London house At the age of three Charles Dickens was uprooted from his native Portsmouth and transplanted to London. He returned to his home town three times – once to research theatre life for Nicholas Nickleby and twice for public readings. Tucked away behind a main road into the city, the birthplace is hard to locate – the adult Dickens couldn’t find it – but has been completely restored to recreate the look that the young married couple John and Elizabeth Dickens would have aspired to when they took the house in 1809.
Open: Wednesday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays, 1pm-5pm, until 31 October. Admission: adults £4.70, children age 5-16 £2.30, family ticket (two adults and up to three children) £12. With his wife, Mary Anne, he extended and augmented the original house, bought in 1848, emphasising the fashionable Gothic ornamentation of the day, and dying here in 1881 It is stuffed with Victoriana and Disraeliana. Much of it is under low light for conservation, so pick a sunny day.Getting there: Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire (01494 755573; .uk). He clambered to high office and led Queen Victoria’s government from 1874-1880. 4 Disraeli’s Hughenden Manor With his novels Coningsby and Sybil already on the bestsellers’ list, Disraeli’s credentials as a social reformer were established, albeit the sort who lives in a stonking great house himself. Open daily 11am-4pm, March to November, 27 December to 1 January, and weekends December to February Closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day Admission: adults £4, children age 8-18 50p.
