Eastgate House is one of the best-preserved Elizabethan townhouses in the southeast of England, a tall timber-framed building that has stood on the High Street since the 1590s. Its distinctive gabled facade is immediately recognisable, and it has appeared in the work of Charles Dickens on more than one occasion — most notably as Westgate House in The Pickwick Papers and as the Nun's House in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
The house has served various functions over the centuries, including as a school and a museum. The garden behind it is where Dickens's Swiss chalet once stood — the timber summerhouse where he wrote, which was originally at his Gad's Hill home and has been re-erected here. The chalet itself is worth a look, offering a tangible connection to the novelist in a town that trades heavily on his memory.