Dickens World alleyways were true to the period. Dickens World was based around the life of author Charles Dickens, briefly a resident of Chatham as a child and who, as an adult, lived at Gad's Hill Place in nearby Higham. Many of the locations and characters in his novels are based on buildings, places and people of the Medway Towns. Holcombe Manor was the inspiration for Dingley Dell, the house in Pickwick Papers, and some of Edwin Drood takes place in Rochester Cathedral. Dickens World is an indoor attraction, centred on a courtyard with facades of buildings related to Dickens, like Warren's
Manor Farm, West Challow Ascot. On his death in 1828 the manor passed to his relative Daniel Ferard, who died in 1837, leaving it to his eldest son Charles Cotton Ferard. Charles owned the manor for about 50 years, during which time he let it to various tenants. One group who rented the house for many years was the Hunt family. Uriah Hunt (1817–1870) took a lease on Manor Farm about 1860. He had previously been on a smaller farm (about 130 acres) in West Challow with his wife Harriet and six children, but by 1861 he had moved to the Manor House and