UPDATE: What the Dickens is author's connection with mid Cheshire? (From Winsford Guardian)

UPDATE: What the Dickens is author's connection with mid Cheshire?

3:00pm Thursday 9th February 2012 in News By Gina Bebbington

DOUBT has been cast on the tale of Miss Havisham’s Cheshire origins by Mark Bevan, an author and publisher of mid Chehsire history.

But Mark, also a former Northwich Guardian editor, does think that other Dickensian classics have their roots in the county.

He said: “There may have been a Miss Havisham-type at Stanthorne Hall in as much as she had been jilted.

“Locals just drew a connection with Great Expectations.

“I think it's generally accepted that the original for Miss Havisham’s house is in Rochester, in Kent, where Dickens himself lived.

“Dickens certainly visited Cheshire and especially Chester.

“There is also a strong link with Crewe.

“The 1st Baron Crewe (John Crewe 1742-1829) employed as his butler William Dickens and his wife, Elizabeth Dickens, as housekeeper.

“William and Elizabeth, through their son John, were the grandparents of Charlie Dickens.

“John, ‘a jovial opportunist with no money sense’, was supposedly the model for Mr Micawber.”

One of Dickens’ Christmas books, The Cricket on the Hearth, is also thought to have been inspired in either Hartford or Winsford.

Mark investigated the writings of a Mr JH Siddons who wrote an article for the magazine Figaro in the late 1870s.

This described a trip to Northwich and a stay in an inn near either Hartford or Winsford railway station, where Mr Siddons recognised the family at the inn as the characters from the story, though with different names.

This was later confirmed by one of the men who gave Mr Siddons a lift with his pony and trap and who is reported to have said: “Mr Dickens do come down sometimes and he’s been and put me and all my family into a Christmas story.”