The Sun Hotel was built in 1503 and, although the name has changed, the building still stands today.
The history of this famous stopping-in place is preserved with a small historic marker in the first floor, as follows:
"THE SUN HOTEL
Formerly known as The Little Inn
Made famous by Charles Dickens
In his travels thro’ Kent
Built 1503"
Dickens set a scene in his novel "David Copperfield" at this inn.
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"Canterbury
On the A2 London to Dover Road
This ancient city, famous throughout the world, known and loved by Dickens features largely in David Copperfield , ". . . the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light . . . the sight if its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers". Unfortunately a number of its old buildings including some associated with Dickens were lost in the blitz. Of those that remain, it is only possible to suggest likely candidates to match with his descriptions, but as with Broadstairs and Rochester, they are all within easy walking distance.
Dr. Strong's School
Adjacent to the Cathedral is The King's School. Although Dickens denied this to be the model for Dr. Strong's, where David Copperfield was so happy, the actual school must have been close by, for it was, "a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed well suited to stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerky bearing on the grass-plot".
The Sun Hotel
At the other end of the precinct, through and immediately to the left of the Christ Church Gate, is the Cathedral Gate Hotel. Formerly the Sun Hotel, this building now serves as the Cathedral Restaurant and is generally considered more likely to be the "little inn" where Mr. Micawber "put up" on his first visit to Canterbury, than the shop, further to your right in Sun Street, that claims that honour.
It was at the Sun that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber--notwithstanding their chronic impecuniosity--thus entertained David Copperfield:
"We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney end of a loin of veal roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge and a pudding. . . ."
The House of Agnes
Make your way to the High Street, turn right and follow this right through to St. Peter's Street and eventually out through Westgate. A little further up on the left of St. Dunstan's Street is the House of Agnes Hotel. This, or somewhere very similar is where David Copperfield found a haven with Mr. Wickfield, his daughter Agnes and encountered the scheming Uriah Heap.
"At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below"."