ose years, he would
talk of selling it; and on his last return from America, when he had
sent the last of his sons out into the world, he really might have sold
it if he could then have found a house in London suitable to him, and
such as he could purchase. But in this he failed; secretly to his own
satisfaction, as I believe; and thereupon, in that last autumn of his
life, he projected and carried out his most costly addition to Gadshill.
Already of course more money had been spent upon it than his first
intention in buying it would have justified. He had so enlarged the
accommodation, improved the grounds and offices, and added to the land,
that, taking also into account this final outlay, the reserved price
placed upon the whole after his death more than quadrupled what he had
given in 1856 for the house, shrubbery, and twenty years' lease of a
meadow field. It was then purchased, and is now inhabited, by his eldest
son.

Its position has been described, and one of the last-century-histories
of Rochester quaintly mentions the principal interest of the locality.
"Near the twenty-seventh stone from London is Gadshill, supposed to have
been the scene of the robbery mentioned by Shakespeare in his play of
Henry IV; there being reason to think also that it was Sir John
Falstaff, of truly comic memory, who under the name of Oldcastle
inhabited Cooling Castle of which the ruins are in the neighbourhood. A
small distance to the left appears on an eminence the Hermitage the seat
of the late Sir Francis Head, Bart;[220] and close to the road, on a
small ascent, is a neat building lately erected by Mr. Day. In
descending Strood-hill is a fine prospect of Strood, Rochester, and
Chatham, which three towns form a continued street extending above two
miles in length." It had been supposed[221] that "the neat building
lately erected by Mr. Day" was that which the great novelist made
famous; but Gadshill Place had no existence until eight years after the
date of the history. The good rector who so long lived in it told me, in
1859, that it had been built eighty years before by a then well-known
character in those parts, one Stevens, father-in-law of Henslow the
Cambridge professor of botany. Stevens, who could only with much
difficulty manage to write his name, had begun life as ostler at an inn;
had become husband to the landlord's widow; then a brewer; and finally,
as he subscribed himself on one occasion, "mare" of Rochester.
Aft