After all, Dingley Dell is no doubt a type of an English yeoman's hospitable home. There are numbers of such in Kent, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Devonshire, and other counties, and the one in question may have been seen by Dickens almost anywhere. There is, at any rate, one objection to Muggleton being Town Malling--the latter is not, as mentioned in the text, "a corporate town." The neighbouring corporate towns which might be taken for it are Faversham, Tunbridge Wells, and Seven Oaks; but, as Mr. Rimmer, in his _About England with Dickens_, points out--"These have no feature in common with the enterprising borough which had so distinguished itself in the matter of petitions." On the other hand, there is _one_ very strong reason in favour of Town Malling, and that is its devotion to the noble old English game of cricket. So far as we could make out, no town in Kent has done better service in this respect. But more of this presently. * * * * * [Illustration: Cob Tree Hall] So many friends recommended us to see Cobtree Hall that, after the foregoing was written, we determined to follow their advice, and on a subsequent occasion we take the train to Aylesford and walk over, the distance being a pleasant stroll of about a mile. We were well repaid. The mansion, formerly called Coptray Friars, belonging to the Aylesford Friary, is an Elizabethan structure of red brick with stone facings prettily covered with creeping plants, standing on an elevated position in a beautifully wooded and undulating country overlooking the Medway and surrounded by cherry orchards and hop gardens. Major Trousdell was so courteous as to show us over the building, which has been altered and much enlarged during the last half century. Internally there is something to favour the hypothesis of its being the type of Manor Farm, Dingley Dell. Such portions of the old building remaining, as the kitchen, are highly suggestive of the gathering described in that good-humoured Christmas chapter of _Pickwick_ (xxviii.), and there is a veritable beam to correspond with Phiz's plate of "Christmas Eve at Mr. Wardle's." "The best sitting-room, [described as] a good long, dark-panelled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all," may still be discerned in the handsome modern dining-room, with carved marble mantel-piece of massive size formerly supplied with old-fashioned "dogs." The views from the bay-window are very extensive and picturesque. The mansion divides the two parishes of Boxley and Allington, the initials of which are carved on the beam in the kitchen. Externally, there is much more to commend it to our acceptance. Remains of a triangular piece of ground, with a few elm-trees, still survive as "the rookery," where Mr. Tupman met with his mishap, and to our delight there is "the pond," not indeed covered with ice, as on Mr. Pickwick's