It was the worst of times - the best didn't come into it and were almost forgotten.

Just like The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which Charles Dickens left unfinished due to the unfortunate and disadvantageous occurrence of his death, the tale of his Swiss Chalet must be taken up by lesser writers of subsequent eras.

One thing's almost certain, if Dickens was to finish the story of his chalet - the treasured writing hideout he set up among the trees near Gads Hill Place, Higham, from which he could spy passing boats on the Thames in the distance - he'd be unlikely to leave it to rot away, empty and lifeless in the shadow of Eastgate House in Rochester.

Up on the upper floor of Eastgate House - the Elizabethan townhouse that appeared in two of his novels - I found Dickens himself sitting with head bowed at his writing desk, looking thoroughly depressed about the state of affairs, in the week before his 210th birthday.

Historian, Geoff Ettridge talking about the Swiss chalet on KMTV

We can't be sure he's depressed about the chalet of course. It could be the fact that he was about to leave behind the spring-like days of the first decade of his third century; or it could have been the fact his namesake Prince Charles and wife Camilla had neglected to drop by while they visited Chatham Dockyard on the same day... Would a royal visit to Medway in the week before Dickens' birthday not have been the perfect occasion for Medway Council to open a renovated Swiss Chalet to the public? Maybe not.

Perhaps in the end, the sunken and drained demeanour of Dickens on the upper floor of Eastgate House was just down to the fact that he's a waxwork model - and as such finds it hard to move his head or change his facial expression.

Historian Geoff Ettridge is keen for the Chalet to be brought back into use

Either way, he didn't look too impressed with circumstances, and we can only conclude that it was down to a mix of all of the above.

In the absence of being able to ask the esteemed novelist for a direct quote on the subject, we can only turn to what he wrote about in life, in a letter to a friend.

"I have put five mirrors in the châlet where I write, and they reflect and refract, in all kinds of ways, the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river," Dickens enthuses. "My room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious."

The views and scents from the back of Rochester High Street these days don't compare too favourably, and there were no twittering birds the morning I visited.

Up in Eastgate's 16th and 17th Century rooms, the still silence was invaded by a woman's voice drifting up from the high street below - a harsh, mostly indecipherable cry that ended with word "lager".

It had only just gone half past 10 in the morning, but it's better not to be judgmental - perhaps the owner of the voice wanted to celebrate Charles and Camilla's arrival. And in a way, wasn't such a desperate gutteral cry for beer quite Dickensian in itself? Vaguely inspired, I almost booted the old waxwork out of his writing seat and started trying to pen a few words myself about the street life of Rochester.

But I thought better of it. The friendly gent who'd greeted me in the reception downstairs had been more enthusiastic and helpful than any visitor could wish - so I'd have felt terrible about interfering with his display - plus it seemed I was the one and only visitor that morning, so it would have been obvious I was the perpetrator of any vandalism. And of course I was here predominantly to admire the Dickens exhibition, not destroy it.

Downstairs I'd asked about the chalet, and been given an enthusiastic response... "They've removed the heras fencing just recently, so hopefully the restoration work is about to begin," said the man at reception. "We've been fundraising..."

Well that was good news, but it wasn't really new news. Fundraising has been going on for years in the hope the chalet can be restored.

Last year Medway historian Geoff Ettridge was the latest to add his weight to the cause, donating proceeds from the sale of his book Rochester: a Monument to Dickens? to the long-running campaign backed by The Rochester and Chatham Branch of the Dickens Fellowship and the City of Rochester Society, among others.

The retired Medway Council manager had suggested the old shack - made from soft wood and placed on damp ground - needed to be taken apart and moved to a new location. "It needs to be in a more prominent position, " he said... "perhaps the Castle grounds where people can appreciate it."

But would it be worth it? Would Dickens' hideaway be restored and moved, only to be abandoned to decay yet again, this time in a more publicly embarrassing position? If the chalet's left to rot for much longer, the only place worth relocating it to will be Cuxton tip.

With such gloomy thoughts, I trudged out into the garden of Eastgate House to have a close-up look at the building in question.

Originally given to the writer by the French actor Charles Fechter for Christmas 1864, the chalet had arrived at Higham station in 94 pieces packed into 58 boxes, which Dickens and his friends and family tried and failed to put together - before calling in some carpenters. Having picked his spot over the Gravesend Road, in a wooded area he dubbed "The Wilderness", the chalet was put up on a brick foundation, and Dickens had a tunnel dug so he could get to it from Gads Hill without crossing the muddy road.

After his death, it was passed on to his eldest son and in later years to Lord Darnley who erected it in the grounds of Cobham Park- where during the Second World War it was disguised in camouflage paint to protect it from German bombers - before it was moved to Eastgate House - then known as the Dickens Museum at Eastgate - in the early 1960s.

Which is where I found it still - propped up on steel poles, paint fading and peeling off its upper floor, and its window and door shutters closed to the outside world. It's far from a ruin - preservation work has taken place over the years and most recently the council has carried out essential work with a view to hopefully carrying out a more extensive restoration. But ultimately, the fact that it's shabby isn't the problem - it's the fact that it's closed.

This was Dickens' literary bolt hole or sanctuary - he sat inside it, not staring at the paint job outside - and the fascination surely lies in the magic cooked up within the building; so shouldn't we at least be able to glimpse behind the shutters?

How much and precisely what Dickens actually wrote in there is up for debate - because by the time it was built he had written most of his great works and had only six years left to live. Parts of Our Mutual Friend were probably written there - the novel being serialised monthly from May 1864 to November 1865 - and probably The Signal-Man, published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas Edition of All the Year Round; and he is said to have spent time in the chalet practising for his reading tours of America and Britain.

What's almost certain is that he had been writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the chalet the afternoon before his death - which means it was in this building that Britain's greatest ever novelist penned his final page.

"A brilliant morning shines on the old city," it begins. "Its antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with a lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air. Changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and fields - or, rather, from the one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its yielding time - penetrate into the Cathedral, subdue its earthy odour, and preach the Resurrection and the Life. The cold stone tombs of centuries ago grow warm; and flecks of brightness dart into the sternest marble corners of the building, fluttering there like wings."

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the description beginning that last page was inspired by Dickens' view that morning of Rochester, the city that inspired him throughout his life.

But of course The Mystery of Edwin Drood would remain unfinished. Dickens collapsed from a stroke later that evening, and died the next day.

As for the story of the Swiss Chalet, ultimately it will be the managers and councillors at Medway Council who will write its next chapter, so I approached the council to see if they'd come up with anything.

They explained they'd recently carried out some essential works to the chalet, such as ensuring that the roof is watertight, and that a survey had concluded roof dentils needed repairing, broken windows needed replacing and that the chalet needed redecorating.

Bob Dimond, Medway Council’s head of sport leisure, tourism and heritage, said: “The Dickens Chalet is an integral part of the story of one of Britain’s greatest authors and we are currently looking into detailed conservation options on how to best carry out the restoration works and are continuing to explore funding options.”

As far as final words and happy endings go, that last paragraph might need a bit of tweaking, but maybe it's a start.

Back upstairs in Eastgate House, the lonely model of Dickens remains slumped in resignation, while over his shoulder, through the window, the face of another Medway artist, Billy Childish, looms in from a mural on the wall across the street.

Will Mr Childish, or any other Medway artist, one day end up as a waxwork in a council-run museum in a hundred years time?

He probably doesn't care, it just depends how much the 22nd Century Medway Council cares about him.

Perhaps the final word should go to Dickens Society President, Sean Grass - and he explained how places and things such as Gad's Hill and Dickens' writing desk were vital touchstones offering a real connection to the story of Dickens.

"The Swiss chalet is another such place," he said, "a provocation to Dickens’s fertile imagination, a shimmering fairy palace on a Lilliput scale, and a place very much worth restoring and preserving. The story of Dickens’s last years—and his last day—cannot be told without it."