Account of a journey to Paris via Dieppe and Rouen by Henry Shiffner in 1815.

Account of a journey to Paris via Dieppe and Rouen by Henry Shiffner in 1815.

Henry Shiffner (1789-1759) was a captain in the Royal Navy and succeeded to the family estates based at Coombe Place, East Sussex, in 1842. On 10 August he embarked on a packet boat from Brighton bound for Dieppe, which he found to be “small but tolerably comfortable, her main Cabin fitted for Passengers”.  On arriving at Dieppe he and his companions found lodgings at the Hotel de Londres, which had been recommended to him, but which was “miserably bad and dirty” and he “experienced much difficulty in getting any thing for Breakfast”.  This first impression seems to have coloured his judgement of the town as a whole, which he describes as “miserably poor, houses dirty and irregular with a great number of beggars”. He seems to have been relieved to have hired a diligence (stagecoach) and as he travelled onwards his mood and his view of his surroundings improved.