Bleak House Broadstairs (from the Jetty)

Bleak House is a large house on the cliff overlooking the North Foreland and Viking Bay in Broadstairs, Kent. It was built around 1801 and then substantially extended, doubling in size, in 1901. The house was the site of the North Cliff Battery and was used as a coastal station for observing maritime activity. Bleak House was originally called Fort House and was the residence of a captain of one of the two coastal forts guarding Broadstairs. Charles Dickens spent summer holidays at Fort House in the 1850s and 1860s and it was there in that "airy nest" above the harbour that he wrote perhaps his most meritous work, David Copperfield.

Fort House was dubbed Bleak House in the early part of the 20th Century. Somebody asserted that it was the Bleak House referred to in Dickens' 1853 novel and the name stuck. There has been much dispute over the truth of the claim. Some people believe that the house from which Dickens took his inspiration is far distant from Broadstairs. What can be certain is that the house held a special attraction for Dickens, and was the residence he "most desired" in his most favourite of watering places, Broadstairs.

The white wooden building is over 300 years old is the old lifeboat house and is now a museum and as can be seen in this picture is leaning seaward! even the phone box is pretty old! The Tartar Frigate inn is flint built and was a haunt of smugglers and it is now a restaurant. and it was a grey mizzly day when I took this picture!

And an early HFF!!


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