Dickens frequented it himself, and the room he occupied on those occasions is known as the Dickens room and is furnished with pieces of furniture from his residence at Gad’s Hill.  We know, too, that he conducted his friends over it, on those occasions when he made pilgrimages with them around the neighbourhood.

The house has been slightly altered since those days, but it practically remains the same as when Dickens deposited the Pickwickians in its courtyard that red-letter day in 1827.  Its outside is dull and sombre-looking, but its interior comfort and spaciousness soon dispel any misgivings which its exterior might have created.

The entrance hall is as spacious as it was when Dickens described it, in “The Great Winglebury Duel,” as ornamented with evergreen plants terminating in a perspective view of the bar, and a glass case, in which were displayed a choice variety of delicacies ready for dressing, to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters, and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch.  “Opposite doors,” he says, “lead to the ‘coffee’ and ‘commercial’ rooms; and a great wide rambling staircase—­three stairs and a landing—­four stairs and another landing—­one step and another landing—­and so on—­conducts to galleries of bedrooms and labyrinths of sitting-rooms, denominated ‘private,’ where you may enjoy yourself as privately as you can in any place where some bewildered being or other walks into your room every five minutes by mistake, and then walks out again, to open all the doors along the gallery till he finds his own.”

And so the visitor finds it to-day, although the interior of the coffee-room may have been denuded of its compartments which the interview between Pip and Bentley Drummie in Great Expectations suggests were there on that occasion.  It was in this room that the Pickwickians breakfasted and awaited the arrival of the chaise to take them to Dingley Dell; and it was over its blinds that Mr. Pickwick surveyed the passers-by in the street, and before which the vehicle made its appearance with the very amusing result known to all readers of the book.

The commercial room is across the yard, over which on one occasion Mr. Wopsle was reciting Collin’s ode to Pip in Great Expectations with such dramatic effect that the commercials objected and sent up their compliments with the remark that “it wasn’t the Tumbler’s Arms.”

From the hall runs the staircase upon which took place the famous scene between Dr. Slammer and Jingle, illustrated so spiritedly by Phiz.  Those who remember the incident—­and who does not?—­can visualize it all again as they mount the stairs to the bedrooms above, which the Pickwickians occupied.  They remain as Dickens described them, even in some cases to the very bedsteads and furniture, and are still shown to the interested visitor.

“Winkle’s bedroom is inside mine,” is how Mr. Tupman put it.  That is to say, the one led out of the other, and they are numbered 13 and 19; but which is which no one knows.  Number 18, by the way, is the room the Queen slept in on the occasion of her visit, eight months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.