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MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.*
BY REV. GREVILE M. LIVETT.
PAET I.
CONCERNING THE SAXON CITY OR THE " CASTELLTTM
WHICH IS CALLED HROEESCESTER," AND THE
NORMAN " CASTELLHM " OR CASTLE.
MANY archaeologists have written upon the walls of Eochester,
and each one has added his quota of fresh information
and surmise. Once more the task must be essayed. Mr.
George Payne's startling identification of the original wall
of the rounded south-east angle of the Eoman walled town
has led to the recognition of other portions of the Eoman
walls, and has thrown fresh light upon the numerous walls
of later date^ Now that the exact boundaries of the Eoman
station are known, the elucidation of the problems presented
by the mediseval walls has become much simpler than it was
of yore.
Mr. Payne has undertaken the description of the Eoman
walls, and has relegated to the present writer the task of
describing the later walls. The accompanying Maps and
Drawings are intended to illustrate both Papers.
THE EOMAN STATION.
For the purpose of this Paper a very brief outline of the
Eoman walls will suffice.t Starting from the east-gate, the
site of which Hes in front of the new buildings of the Mathematical
School, the line of the wall runs southwards through
the front door of No. 116, and turns towards the west through
Miss Spong's garden. Thence it runs through the Deanery
garden, forms the southern boundary of the later-Norman
* Tho reader should constantly consult the Eolding Map. Reference to the
other illustrations will be found in the footnotes.
t See the Plate whioh accompanies Mr. Payne's Paper on " Boman Roohester."
VOX.. XXI, 0
18 MEDIiEVAL ROCHESTER.
cloister-garth (Canon Jelf's garden), crosses the Precinct's
road immediately south of the sunken gateway, runs on
under the north face of Mr. A. A. Arnold's house (Bishop's
Palace), crosses Boley Hill Street (the site of the south-gate)
through Nos. 7 and 8, runs under the south wall of the keep,
and roughly speaking parallel with the modern low retaining
wall on the south side of the ballium, cuts into the rounded
south-west angle of the castle-walls, and thence runs westwards
along the top of the cliff. Thence to the High Street
at the foot of the bridge its exact line is not known. Starting
again at the east-gate it runs along the city wall, seen from
Free School Lane, turns westward again with a rounded
angle, runs on to Pump Lane (the site of the north-gate),
through the yards at the back of the houses on the common,
and so on towards the river. The exact site of the northwest
angle and the line thence to the foot of the bridge are
uncertain, but it is thought that the west wall of St. Clement's
Church and, later, that of the club-house erected on the site
of the Church, were successively built on the Eoman line.
There is no Eoman brick in the remains of the walls, except
in the foundations (underground) near the north-west angle,
which was probably strengthened by " the Count of the Saxon
Shore " in the fourth century by the addition of a tower.*
THE SAXON CATHEDRAL.
I am glad to have this early opportunity of describing
the complete plan of iEthelbert's first cathedral Church,
built in 604 and partly discovered in 1889 (Arch. Cant.,
Vol. XYIII.). The north-east corner of the nave was disclosed
in the summer of 1894, when a trench was dug, for
the purpose of lowering the gas main, along the middle of
the road that runs by the west front. At the same time the
lines of the foundations of the nave walls were followed
westwards, in the burial-ground, by means of a probe. The
* There is no brick in the remains of the Roman walls at Hastings (Restenga
eeastre—Bayeux Tapestry). At Pevensey, a castrum of later date probably,
•where lines of tiles are used to bond the coursed face of the wall to the core, the
mortar of the facing stones and bonding tiles is pink, while that of the core
contains no pounded brick or tile.
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 19
nave seems to have measured, in round figures, 42 feet by
28 feet. The foundations of the west wall seemed to line
very nearly with the west side of the burial-ground. No
signs of aisles, quasi-transepts, or porch were revealed. If
a porch existed at the west end of the Church its foundations
must be under the road and could only be discovered by excavation.
If the Eoman cross-street be represented by lines
drawn from the site of the south-gate in Boley Hill Street to
the site of the north-gate in Pump Lane it will be found that
the west end of the Saxon Church lies upon it. This fact
may explain the curious deviation, from a straight Hue, of
the present road from Boley Hill Street to the High Street.
This road, which is now called King's Head Lane, was
anciently Doddingherne Lane.
THE SAXON CITY.
A word or two about the Saxon city. The chieftain Eoff
seems to be a mythical personage carved out of the name
Hrofescester. The venerable Bseda probably recorded a vulgar
tradition when he said that the English nation so named the
city "from one that was formerly chief man of it." Mr.
Eoach Smith broached a likelier and more scientific derivation
of the name from the Eoman name Dourobrivis and the
Saxon affix ceastre or Chester. Canon Isaac Taylor (Words
and Places, p. 173) has remarked the fact that the first
syllable of place-names " containing Chester, caster, or caer,
is usually Celtic." Dourobrivis is probably " a Latinization
of the enchorial name." " In Winchester the first syllable
is the Latin venta, a word which was constructed from the
Celtic gwent, a plain. Bmchester contains a portion of the
Latinized name Binovium. In Dorchester and Exeter we
have the Celtic words dwr and uisge, water; in Manchester
we have man, a district." It is said that Dwr-bryf means a
swift stream. The contraction of Dourobrivis-castra and its
modification to the common Saxon form of Hrofescester is not
more curious than that of many other compounds of castra.
In the Saxon charters Eochester appears as castrum or civitas
Hrobi as well as Hrofi, illustrating the interchange of b and/ .
c 2
20 MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.
In JEthelbert's charter the curious combination civitas Hrofi
brevi occurs. Surely this is a trace of the elided second part
of Dourobrivis. It seems to me to be also a mark of the
genuineness of the charter.*
Whatever may be the origin of the first syllable of
Hrofescester, the Saxon affix is sufficient to prove that Dourobrivis
was a walled station. It does more: it shews that we
need not look for a castle in Eochester in Saxon times in
order to explain why the city was often spoken of as a castrum
or castellum. There was no castle in Eochester before Norman
times. The city was the castellum. In the Saxon
charters relating to Eochester civitas, castrum, castellum are
synonymous terms; and the walls (muri and mrnnia) of the
city are constantly mentioned—intra castelli mcenia supra
nominati, id est, Hrofiscestri (Textus Roffensis, ed. Hearne,
p. 77)—intra moenia supradictse civitatis (p. 85)—in castro
quod nominatur Hrofesceaster (p. 80)—ad septentrionalem
murum prsefatse civitatis (p. 90). A castellum in mediseval
writers is not a keep or tower, but a place surrounded by
walls. This use of the word must be borne in mind when we
come to consider the Norman castle. The Saxon castellum
is the whole city; the Norman castellum is the walled enclosure
within the city.
There is a significant passage to which Mr. Hartshorne has
called attention in his valuable paper on Rochester Castle
(Arch. Journal, vol. xx,, 1863). It occurs in a charter granted
by Offa in 788, whereby the king conveys land at Trottesclib
to the church of St. Andrew the Apostle and to the episcopality
of the castellum called Hrofescester—ad ecclesiam beati
Andreas Apostoli, et ad episcopium Castelli quod nominatur
Hrofescester (T. R., p. 86). Bseda, too, in the seventh
century, speaks of Putta as the bishop of the castellum of
* The process of contraction is easily imagined, especially if one remembers
that in pronunciation the third syllable was probably short and the aocent laid
upon the second syllable : Dourobrivis-cester—D'robis-oester—Hrobiscester
Hrofescester. The Rev. A. J. Pearman has kindly sent me an extraot from.
Camden's Britannia (p. 235, ed. 1607), from whioh it would seem that Camden
ought to have the credit of the derivation advocated in the text. Camden
concludes his criticism thus : sed pristini illius nomjnis Duro-brouis aliquid in
se retinere mihi videtur,
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 21
West Kent called Eochester. " These expressions are intended
to convey the idea of the union of spiritual and
military authority in the city where the church of St. Andrew
had been founded." This union must have lasted
throughout the Saxon period. It may have been suspended
while Earl Godwin owned the city, and also when William the
Conqueror, as Domesday implies, granted the city to his
half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent. It
was certainly dissolved finally in 1126 when Henry I. made the
archbishop Constable of the Castle of Eochester and granted
him permission to build the keep.
THE EARLY-NORMAN CASTLE.
Mr. Hartshorne, whose laborious research seems to have
exhausted the literary materials for the history of the castle,
has absolutely dismissed Bishop Gundulf's claims to be considered
the builder of the existing keep. The historians of
the twelfth century and the style of the building combine in
pronouncing it to be the work of Archbishop William de
Corbeuil between 1126 and 1139. There is no evidence of
any kind to warrant the supposition that this keep took the
place of a smaller and earlier Norman keep. The supposition
is possible, but there is no reliable evidence. On the other
hand there is distinct evidence, both historical and mural,
that a castle (in the sense of an area enclosed by walls and
a ditch) existed before Archbishop William came on the
scene; and the same evidence proves that this castle was
formed in the early-Norman period.. It is quite possible
that Bishop Gundulf was the builder. The mural evidence
will be fully considered in this Paper. The historical evidence
is supplied by the Domesday record—Episoopus etiam
de Eouecestre, pro excambio terre in qua castellum sedet,
tantum de hac terra tenet quod 17s. 4d. valet. Mr. L. B.
Larking has translated the entry thus : " The Bishop of
Eochester also holds as much of this land as is worth seventeen
shillings and four pence, in exchange for the land on
which the castle stands." (The bishop held of the royal
manor of Aylesford. The land seems to have been situate
22 MEDIiEVAL ROCHESTER.
near Eochester.) Thus it is quite clear that the castle was
in existence at the time of the enrolment of the survey
record. The date can scarcely be fixed more definitely. It
is an interesting little problem. . Domesday implies that the
Conqueror intended to build a castle in Eochester, and made
an exchange of land for that purpose, and that such a castle
was in existence by the time that the survey records were
enrolled. The survey was taken in 1086. The king may
have begun the work before his death in 1087, but the
accounts of the rebellion of Odo, Earl of Kent, in favour of
Eobert of Normandy against William Eufus make no
mention of it. The Saxon Chronicle, under 1087, speaks of
the castel of Hrofe-ceastre, but refers probably to the whole
city. William of Malmesbury studiously avoids the use of
the words castellum and castrum, and describes the townsfolk
gathered on the walls of Eovecestra and the besiegers shouting
to them to open the gates—regii . . . . circa muros desiliunt,
clamantes oppidanis ut portas aperiant (G-esta Regum,
iv., 306). Probably the early-Norman castle, if begun, was
not completed till after Odo's disgrace. Mr. L. B. Larking
(The Domesday Booh of Kent, p. 185 et passim) shews
how the record was influenced here and there by the forfeiture
of Odo's estates. It is probable that the words "on
which the castle [now] stands " did not form part of the
Commissioners' notes, and that they were added at the
time of the enrolment. Upon these considerations, then, it
may fairly be assumed that the completion of the early-
Norman castle may be dated circa 1090.
It is possible that' in this early-Norman work we have
the grounds on which Gundulf's claims to be the builder of
the later-Norman keep were set up. Supposing it to have
been begun by Wilham I., the king would naturally commit
the work to the hands of the architect of the White Tower
of London; or supposing it to have been begun by William
Eufus, nothing could be more natural than a desire on the
part of the king to strengthen the defences of Eochester when
the city fell into his hands; or that he should seek the
assistance of the bishop whom he trusted, who was on the
spot, who had diplomatically negotiated the capitulation,
MEDI2EVAL ROCHESTER. 23
whom in the very next year he appointed to administer for a
lengthened period the see of Canterbury, who moreover
was distinguished far and wide for his architectural skill—
in opere csementarii plurimum sciens et efficax (T. R., p. 146).
It was quite in keeping, too, with the character of the Eed
King that, when he made a grant of the manor of Hadenham
to the church of St. Andrew for the victualling of Gundulf's
monks, he should exact some return from the bishop, and that
it should take the form of a bargain that the bishop should
build the castellum for his royal master. It is natural, too,
that the monks, fifty years later, should attribute to Gundulf
all the glory of the great tower that overshadowed their
minster—quare Gundulfus episcopus Castrum Eofense lapideum
totum de suo proprio regi construxit (T. R., p. 144).
Sixty pounds, the sum named as the cost, would not go far
towards the raising of so great a pile, but with the free labour
which the bishop could command the sum might very well
suffice to make the enceinte of the castle, its ditch and
curtain wall.
THE EARLY-NORMAN CASTLE-WALL : WEST SIDE.
Quitting conjecture, let us turn our attention to the walls
themselves. Parts of the circuit have fallen or been removed
in modern times. Parts of what remains are manifestly of
later than early-Norman date. Still there are sufficient
remains of early-Norman date to prove that the early-
Norman circuit was once complete. In course of time the
early masonry would naturally require patching and repairing
and in parts thorough re-building. Nearly the whole of the
wall overlooking the river on the west side of the enceinte is
early-Norman. On the north side of the cathedral there is
a tower that goes by the name of Gundulf's Tower. It is
certainly a work of early-Norman date, in construction very
much like St. Leonard's Tower at Mailing. It was built
before Gundulf laid out his new cathedral, and may very
well be the genuine work of Gundulf. The masonry of
the west wall of the castle is so much like that of these
two towers that one can have no doubt that it is early-
Norman work. I would go further and say, that it seems
24 MEDIiEVAL ROCHESTER.
impossible to get away from the assumption that Gundulf
built the castle in which archbishop William afterwards
erected the keep. I believe that Mr. J. T. Irvine, who has
kindly allowed me the use of his valuable notes on Eochester,
was the first to recognize its early-Norman character and
date. His local knowledge is extensive and his authority
decisive on this point. The herringbone style of building is
the chief characteristic of early-Norman walling in this
neighbourhood. There are two distinct kinds. In one kind
the faces of a wall are built in courses, every course consisting
chiefly of rag-stones laid aslant in either direction, and
including also a few stones large enough to fill the course
when laid on their proper bed. The castle-wall is of this
kind; so also is Gundulf's tower and a part of the wall of the
north aisle of the cathedral. In the other kind the faces
are built up of similar courses of herringbone work alternating
with narrow bonding-courses of flat rag-stones: the
narrow courses often decrease in width and run into flat
bonding-courses, and vice versd the flat courses change to
larger courses of herringbone work. The walls of St.
Leonard's Tower at Mailing and a portion of the wall of
the south aisle of the nave of the cathedral are built in this
way. There is a bit of similar walling at the end of Mr. Eae
Martin's garden in the Precinct. Sketches of examples of
both kinds of early-Norman wall-facing are given in the
Illustrations.*
Mr. Irvine has called attention to a special peculiarity of
the castle-wall: at intervals it seems to be strengthened by
"internal buttresses built flush with the face of the wall."
These so-called buttresses consist simply of stones of unusually
large size inserted in the courses of herringbone work. There
is much irregularity in their disposition, and they seem to be
used wherever the line of the wall makes a slight angle.
This peculiarity may be seen in the wall overlooking the
river, f The thickness of the wall at its base is about 4£
feet, at the top 2 feet. Its outer face is plain, while the
* Plate I., Nos. 1 and 2, and Plate II.
t Plate I., No. 1. In this sketch, made from careful measurements, is
seen the method of strengthening the wall by the use of large stones.
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MEDL33VAL ROCHESTER. 33
material is fire-stone. The workmanship is very accurate and
the joints fine. The fire-stone, however, has suffered the
same fate as rendered necessary the restoration of the choir
of the Cathedral and the whole of the exterior of Westminster
Abbey, originally built with the same stone. It has worn
away to the extent of some inches; except in one spot where
I was able to identify the marks of the chisel on the original
face. This little bit of facing alone is satisfactory evidence
of thirteenth-century date.
In quitting this wall I should like to suggest that some of
the masses of ivy that cover it should be cut away. It bids
fair to do considerable damage to the whole of this precious
stretch of masonry. A finer example of combined Roman,
early-Norman, and thirteenth-century walling, wisely underpinned
in modern times, does not exist elsewhere in the
country.*
EDWARD III.'s REPAIRS: EAST WALL AND WALL-TOWERS.
As shewn by the junction of the two works, seen only on
the outer face, the east wall of the enceinte with its two walltowers
was built at a later date than the Early English
drum-tower at the south-east angle. The wall and towers are
doubtless part of the works carried out by John, Prior of
Rochester, in the forty-first and forty-second years of Edward
I I I . (1368), when more than £1200 was spent on the repairs of
the castle. The particulars of the account appear in a
valuable contribution to Arch. Cant., Vol. II. , entitled Fabric
Roll of Rochester Castle.
Masses of ivy cover the outer face of the wall between the
two towers, and various buildings have been erected against
it elsewhere. It is impossible, therefore, at the present time
to make an exhaustive study of the wall and its junctions
with the towers. Some of the junctions are curiously
intricate and difficult to trace. They would defy description
on paper apart from elaborate drawings. The mere fact of
the existence of the junctions seems to have led Mr. Clark
to think that the towers, which are allowed to be four-
* Plate IV.
VOL. XXI. D
34 MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.
teenth-century work, are insertions in a wall of earlier date—
in a late-Norman wall. This view I am convinced is wrong.
The foundations of the northern tower, which may be seen
in Trice and Trumper's stableyard, were certainly built after
the foundations of the wall—the former are built up against
the latter with a straight joint—but the mortar, which is
peculiar and easily recognized, is the same in both. Mr.
Trueman, who has examined the structural evidence at my
request, confirms my opinion. He thinks with me that the
foundations of the tower were built only shortly after those
of the wall and by the same workmen. Above the foundations
the junction is not so decisive as to the order of building.
The only explanation of the curious joints that I can offer—
and it seems a perfectly satisfactory answer—is that the wall
and towers above the foundations were built in sections and
contemporaneously by different sets of workmen. The
foundations of the wall were laid down first of all, regardless
of any design for the new (northern) tower, and'without
interfering with the foundations of the old (southern) tower.
There was good reason for this plan, for thereby the necessity
of drawing off the water of the moat was delayed until the
foundations of the wall were completed. Then the water was
drawn off and the foundations of the northern tower laid. The
water could then be let in again and the wall and towers
raised by gangs of workmen, each gang taking a section.
There is an entry in the minister's accounts of 1368 which is
worth quoting in this connection: " To John Emelyn and his
fellows, for pulling down seven perches of the old wall of the
said Castle, by task-work, at 3s. 4d. per perch—30s. 4d." (sic).
The entry does not prove that only seven perches of the wall
were pulled down and rebuilt at this time, but it does seem
to point to the work being done in sections. Entries giving
this kind of specific information are rare, for very little of
the work was done by the piece.
The northern tower contains a vaulted ceiling of the style
of the middle or latter part of the fourteenth century. The
southern tower has features which would assign it to the
same date. The lower parts of both are faced with rag-stone,
squared and well coursed. In the fourteenth century the
;
* '[/ 01 "O
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 35
use of this stone in place of the softer free-stones, Caenstone
and fire-stone, was becoming fashionable. It was cut
and moulded at the Boughton quarries. It was used for all
the quoins and openings of the towers. The same material,
in small blocks less carefully trimmed and coursed, was used
for the facing of the walls and towers. The difference in
the foundations of the two towers has been noticed. The
gravel foundation of the southern tower was probably the
foundation of an original early-Norman wall-tower which was
destroyed when the present tower was built. The foundations
of the northern tower consist of solid rubble masonry.
The foundations of Edward IH.'s wall are so remarkable
that they demand careful description.* The face is rough.
They were laid down in a ditch prepared to receive them:
probably the early-Norman ditch, cleared and made broader
and deeper. The outer bank of this foundation ditch sloped
sharply and formed the side of the great ditch of the moat.
The bank remains, held up by retaining walls here and there,
and almost covers the foundations between the Early English
drum-tower and the southern wall-tower. Between the
towers and along the wall north of the northern tower the
bank has fallen away (or been removed) and thus the foundations
are completely exposed to a depth of 13 feet below the
foot of the wall. The sloping line of the lost bank is seen on
the north side of the northern tower (in Trice and Trumper's
yard). Above the sloping line the foundations of the tower
are faced, as has been described; below the line they are
rough like the face of the foundations of the wall.
The remarkable feature of the foundations of the wall is
the series of " arches of construction " which it contains.
They have a span of 10 feet, and occur at intervals of 10 feet.
The springing line, not always on the same level, is about
2 feet above the present ground-level, and the arches measure
5 feet from this line to the crown or apex. The arches are
faced with two courses of thin rag-stones, and are exceedingly
* Plate V. is a rough sketch, from a photo specially taken by Mr. Charles
Bird, of the junction of the northern wall-tower and wall adjoining in Trice
and Trumper's yard. It shews the rough sloping line of the lost bank of the
moat on the side of the tower, and the arches of construction.
D 2
36 HEDIiEVAL ROCHESTER.
rough and irregular in construction. Some of them are
triangular-headed; in others the haunches are slightly curved.
They were not built upon wooden centrings, but upon masses
of gravel thrown into the ditch, rammed, and suitably
shaped. In many of the arches the gravel remains undisturbed.
Most of it has been cleared away from those in
Trice and Trumper's yard, but a coating of it still sticks
to the rough stones and mortar-joints. This gravel is like
the gravel which the early-Normans used for their foundations.
I doubt not that it is the early material re-used.
In some cases, not in all, the fourteenth-century builders
seemed to have screened it as they used it. Prom a structural
point of view this method of making foundations for the wall
was sound and economical. It saved material and labour, and
the result was as if the wall had been built upon strong piles
of masonry. I do not know whether similar arches of construction
exist elsewhere in mediseval work.
Accompanying Mr. Arnold's Paper on Mediceval Remains
at Rochester there are drawings and photographs of one of
these arches. It was discovered when the site of Castle
Hall was being cleared. But no adequate idea of the rudeness
and peculiar mode of their construction can be obtained
apart from actual inspection. Mr. Arnold's plates are
valuable, however, in that they shew also one of the two
arches through which the water of the moat used to flow
under the steep ascent that leads up to the castle-grounds.
I t is now lost to view. The last remains of the gateway that
stood at the top of the ascent, and which appears in the city
seal and in various old prints, were unfortunately removed
in 1870-72.
THE NORTH-WEST BASTION: EDWARD III.
The only portion of the castle-walls that has not been
described is the ruined bastion at the north-west angle,
through which an opening, for an entrance to the grounds
from the esplanade, was pierced circiter 1872. After a
careful examination of this ruin I feel convinced that it
belongs for the most part to the work of the reign of Edward
III. Very little of the facing is left, but what remains
MEDIiEVAAL ROCHESTER. 37
is exactly like the facing of the foundations of the rectangular
towers on the east wall of the curtain, and the lower
courses batter in the same way. A small bit of the curtainwall
(the broken west wall of the enceinte), which remains
attached to the south side of the bastion, was built at the
same time. At this point the relation of the wall to the
bank behind it may be studied. The bank is faced.with the
gravel which has elsewhere been identified as the foundation
of the early-Norman curtain-wall, and the bit of wall that
remains attached to the bastion is built up against and partly
overlaps this early-Norman foundation. This alone would
point to a post-Norman date for the bastion. The bank
behind the Norman foundation is evidently a made bank.
It has receded several feet where the wall has fallen away,
and from its mould bits of Roman brick may be extracted.
These little matters seem to be worth recording, as they help
to fix the date of the bank within the wall. It must be
remembered that the early-Norman wall overlooking the river
contains similar bits of Roman brick. The same fact may
be remarked concerning the bank inside the arches of construction
in the foundations of the east wall of the curtain.
Bits of Roman brick, the remains of Roman buildings, would
be abundantly scattered through the soil which the early
Normans dug and threw up on to the bank within when they
made the ditch.
The end of the bit of wall described in the last paragraph
is fairly clean-faced up to a certain height. Above that
height it was probably toothed into the older wall which it
adjoined. Little features which are difficult to describe tend
to the belief that this older wall was the original Norman
wall. At this point the Norman wall does not seem to have
followed exactly the line of its Roman predecessor, for had
it done so some signs of the latter would remain in evidence.
The exact line of the Roman wall hereabouts is lost and may
never be recovered.
Mr. Trueman reports that when the Corporation made
the entrance to the castle-grounds through the bastion they
destroyed a rectangular vaulted chamber which was situated
low down in the bastion. Mr. Trueman made drawings of
38 M E D I A E V A L ROCHESTER.
this chamber, but they have passed from his possession and
I have been unable to trace them. He thinks that the angle
shafts which supported the vault remain in situ on either side
of the present steps, and that the.inner face of the outer wall
of the chamber was about 11 feet from the outer face of the
present entrance. Some day, perhaps, search may be made
for these remains.
PART II.
EXTENSIONS OE THE CITY—INTRODUCTORY.
In the second part of this Paper I have to consider and
describe several successive extensions of the boundaries of
the city, made in the eleventh and following centuries. The
Norman bishops found themselves cramped for want of
building-room and soon overstepped the Roman wall. The
first extension, which may be called the early-Norman
extension, seems to have been made in connection with an
episcopal palace. A later-Norman extension was made to
afford space for new domestic buildings for the monks. In
the reign of Henry III. Boley Hill* seems to have been
included within the defences of the city, which were
strengthened at the same time by being surrounded by a
ditch. In the reign of Edward III. the monks built a new
wall whereby a slight addition was made to the area of the
city. There are also remains of one wall, perhaps of two, of
still later date. All these extensions affected the boundaries
of the city only on the south side. Before proceeding to
deal seriatim with these extensions and with various matters
connected with them, it will be well to recall a few wellknown
facts in the history of the cathedral and monastery.
* The name Boley Hill is applied throughout this paper to the high ground
on which Satis House and Boley Hill House stand, and not to the road commonly
called Boley Hill. Perhaps some day the Corporation may re-name the latter
Boley Hill Boad, and the row of houses on the west side Southgate Terrace, in
order to avoid the confusion that now exists. If it is not out of place here I
would also suggest that Black Boy Alley be re-named St. William's Passage.
St. Clement's Lane, Cheldegate Lane, and perhaps Crow Lane might be revived
with advantage.
MEDIiEVAL ROCHESTER. 39
The first or early-Norman cathedral was built in the early
years of the episcopate of GunduK (1077—1108). It was laid
out with its axis parallel to the Roman wall on the south side
of the city; the distance from the south wall of the nave to
the Roman wall being fifty yards. Bishop Gundulf also
built offices for the monks of the priory which he established
at Rochester—tempore ergo brevi elapso ecclesia nova . . . .
officinarum ambitus convenienter disponuntur. There
is reason to believe that these buildings occupied their
usual position on the south side of the nave. Bishop Ralph
(1108—1114), Gundulf's successor, is not known to have done
any building. Bishop Ernulf (1115—1124) built the eastern
and southern ranges of new offices for the monks on the
south side of the choir. Bishop John (1125—1137) practically
rebuilt the early-Norman cathedral in the more advanced
style of his period, at the same time as Archbishop William
was engaged in building the keep of the castle. (Mr. W. H.
St. John Hope, in his Notes on the Archceological History of
Rochester Cathedral Church, ascribes the greater part of the
later-Norman work to Ernulf. I have reasons for preferring
a slightly later date.) There is no record of any building
having been carried on during the middle portion of the
twelfth century. Bishop GUbert de Glanville (1185—1215)
rebuilt the episcopal palace at Rochester, and he completed
the monks' cloister which Ernulf had begun long before.
The cathedral was in part rebuilt in the pointed style during
the thirteenth century and the early part of the fourteenth
century, the work ceasing about 1343 when the central
tower had been raised.
Each period is marked by its characteristic building
materials. Por rough walling the local Kentish-rag was the
principal material used in all periods; chalk and flint were
often used with the rag. When a wall or other building
was destroyed previous to the erection of a new building
on or near the same site, as a rule the old materials were
re-used in the rough walling of the new building. If these
old materials consisted of cut or moulded stones, the kind of
stone affords evidence of the age of the destroyed buildings.
Por cut-stone Gundulf used tufa more than any other
40 MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.
material. He also used a certain amount of Barnack-rag
and of fire-stone. In his crypt Barnack-rag appears in the
bases, capitals, and monolithic shafts of the central alley,
and fire-stone in the imposts of the vaulting of the aisles.*
Ernulf appears to have been the first to use Caen-stone at
Rochester; he also used Barnack-rag and a stalagmitic
marble, the source of which is not known. Bishop John
used Caen-stone and the " Ernulfian marble."
In Bishop Gilbert's time both Caen-stone and fire-stone
were being used. Caen-stone is seen in the reputed remains
of Gilbert's cloister, the arches of which are embedded in
the wall of the south choir aisle, and certain fragments of
the same material and date are preserved in the crypt. The
use of fire-stone is proved by a capital, likewise preserved in
the crypt, which resembles the transition caps in Canterbury
Cathedral. It is supposed to be a remnant of the repairs
executed in the south transept after the fire of 1179. Prom
that time fire-stone was used more freely than any other
material until in its turn it was superseded in the fourteenth
century by the use of cut Kentish-rag. In short, at Rochester
tufa is indicative of the eleventh century, Caen-stone of the
twelfth, fire-stone of the thirteenth and early fourteenth,
cut Kentish-rag of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries.
EARLY-NORMAN EXTENSION: EPISCOPAL PRECINCT.
Before discussing the first extension, so-called in this
Paper, it is necessary to refer to a deed of quit-claim
executed by Gundulf and printed in Thorpe's Registrum
Roffense (p. 526). Volo vos omnes scire me jam quietum
esse adversus regem de ilia cambicione terre, quam ei promisi
post Werram Rofe, pro illis tribus acris quas Odo Baiocensis
episoopus dedit ecclesie Sancti Andree et monachis nostris,
ad faciendum ortum suum juxta murum de foris versus
* This early use of fire-stone, whioh was quarried from the upper greensand
of Eeigate and Merstham, is interesting. It also appears, in conjunction with
tufa, chalk, and Barnack-rag, in Edward the Confessor's work at Westminster
Abbey. At Boohester it does not appear to have been used at all during the
twelfth oontury, though it is occasionally found in work of that period in
neighbouring parish churohes.
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 4 1
Australem portem civitatis forinsecus, qui jam inclusi sunt
muro circumquaque. Prom this it would appear that the
monks acquired three acres of land on the south side of the
city, and enclosed the same with a wall about the year 1090.
I have not been able to identify the exact boundaries of this
land, nor have I found any signs of such a wall in the existing
walls. It is not likely, therefore, that the wall was very
substantial, and it is probable that it entirely disappeared
in the course of the various extensions of the city-wall in
later times. In any case this enclosure cannot be regarded
as an extension of the city-boundaries, which it left unaltered.
By the first extension of the city-walls a rectangular
piece of ground near the Roman south-gate was added to
the area of the city. The wall which formed the western
boundary of the addition ran southwards from the east side
of the Roman south-gate, and is now represented by the high
wall which separates Mr. Rae Martin's garden from Boley
Hill. Whether this wall is the original wall of the early-
Norman extension is doubtful; possibly the characteristic
signs of the masonry of the period have been obscured by
patching and refacing. The southern wall of the output
ran parallel with the Roman wall at a distance of 38 yards
from it. A small portion remains at the end of Mr. Rae
Martin's garden; it owes its preservation to the fact that to
it was attached the second or mediasval south-gate, of which
more anon. The face has been patched up at different times,
but it still retains enough of its original character to fix its
early-Norman date beyond doubt. It is exactly like the bit
of Gundulf's walling which is to be seen in the south aisle of
the nave of the cathedral. The angle formed by the junction
of these two walls, the western and southern walls of the
extension, was destroyed many years ago in order that the
turn in the road leading to St. Margaret's might be less
abrupt. The line of the southern wall, as it ran eastwards,
is marked in Mr. Arnold's garden by a ridge in the ground
where the foundations still remain. No part of the eastern
wall of the output remains above ground. It seems to have
joined the Roman wall at a distance of 47 yards from the
south-gate.
42 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
A competent authority has suggested that this early-
Norman extension may be accounted for by supposing it to
be the site of the second court of Gundulf's monastic
buildings. There was plenty of room, however, for the
second court to the east of the principal court or cloister
garth. Upon a careful consideration of all the available
evidence, I feel convinced that the extension was made for
the purpose of providing suitable space for an episcopal
domus, or, to use the later term, the bishop's palace.
There is indirect evidence that would lead us to assume
that the early-Norman bishops had a house at Rochester
apart from the buildings of the priory. In the early years
of Gundulf's episcopate, while King William I. was alive,
the bishop and the monks enjoyed separate estates—tempore
istius regis porciones episcopi et capituli separate fuerunt
(Reg. Roff., p. 2). Samuel Denne (in Pisher's History and
Antiquities of Rochester, p. 100) says: " That Gundulf . . . .
raised a mansion here for the bishop . . . . is most probable,
since he charged the manors settled by him on the monks
with an annual payment of several kinds of provisions to
himself and his successors, in order to enable them to keep
up hospitality when they were in residence." The particulars
of the bishop's Xenium are quoted in Pisher, p. 106, from
Cotton. Domitian, A x 9, fol. 98, which may be compared
with Reg. Roff., p. 6. Of course these quotations do not afford
absolute proof that Gundulf built an episcopal palace at
Rochester, but that such a palace existed in the twelfth
century is certain, for of Bishop Gilbert de Glanville it
is recorded that on his succession to the see he found his
palaces (edificiis) in a poor state of repair, and immediately
set himself to rebuild his cathedral residence which had been
destroyed by fire—primo domos cathedrales, que incendio
corruerant, erexit (Reg. Roff., p . 11).
The next definite notice of the palace occurs in an instrument
which Bishop Lowe dated "from his new palace at
Rochester" in 1459—dat. in palacio nostro novo Roff.
(Reg. Roff., p . 457). At this point there is a clear correspondence
between the record and part of the buildings which
now stand within the boundaries of the early-Norman enMEDIAEVAAL
ROCHESTER. 43
closure. The two houses which are now in the occupation
of Mr. George Payne and Mr. Rae Martin are formed within
a long rectangular building which is manifestly mediseval.
The north wall stands on the foundations of the Roman wall.
A good sketch of the south-west aspect of the building,
made by Mr. Herbert Baker in 1886, was published in the
seventeenth volume of the Arch. Cant, to illustrate a Paper on
the palace written by Mr. W. Rye. The small window in
the west gable and the similar window high up in the south
wall towards the east, which from a distance look like Norman
windows, are in the style of the fifteenth century, their
heads being four-centred. The square-shaped window-label
near to the second of the windows just described, lower down
in the wall, is moulded in fifteenth-century fashion. The
ceiled roof which covers the whole building is four-centred
in form. These features combine to indicate work of Bishop
Lowe's date. But they do not prove that the building is
entirely the work of that bishop. Its north face is plastered
and rough-cast and affords no evidence. Not so the west
and south faces. These faces shew masonry of a composite
character. It contains stones of all kinds and of all dates.
Some of them must have come from buildings of earlier date
than that of Bishop Lowe. One of the quoins of the excrescence
at the south-east corner is made up of tufa, fire-stone,
chalk, Caen-stone, and Kentish-rag, with modern brick
towards the top. The amount of Caen-stone is small, while
tufa is distinctly abundant. There are several arch-voussoirs
of this material built into the face of the wall. They must
have come from an early-Norman building which existed
on or near the spot where Bishop Lowe built.
It is probable, then, that Bishop Lowe did not erect an
entirely new building, but merely remodelled the structure
of his predecessors. Purther, it is probable that Bishop
Gilbert, 170 years earlier, only repaired (with Caen-stone) a
building that had been partly destroyed by fire—for the
record that he rebuilt the palace, like many similar records,
must be taken in a modified sense. And lastly, it is by no
means improbable that the rectangular building that still
exists is the framework of an early-Norman structure of
44 MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.
Bishop Gundulf's time, or at.latest of Bishop Ralph's, erected
while tufa was easily obtained and commonly used, and
repaired successively by Gilbert and Lowe. The simple plan
of the building and the thickness of the walls (3 feet) are
what we might expect to see in an early-Norman building.
I t is incredible that 400 years after the demolition of the
Roman wall Lowe could have raised a new building having
its wall exactly on the line of the Roman foundations;
almost incredible that Gilbert should have done so after only
100 years. Here, then, I am content to leave this part
of the case, believing that a part or the whole of an early-
Norman palace has been identified, and that the walls of the
early-Norman extension were built to enclose it.
A survey of the cellars under the houses of this block
points to the probability that Bishop Lowe made additions
to the earlier building on its east side, using the site of the
house now occupied by Mr. Arnold. The eastern part of
that house is quite modern. The western part was probably
rebuilt when the palace buildings were converted into
separate dwelling-houses in the middle of the seventeenth
century. The Report of the Commissioners of 1647, quoted
in Pisher (p. 103), mentions "The scite of the palace, containing
one great messuage, called the Palace, where the
bishop's court is held, estimated twelve pchs.;" also "Pour
rooms in the tenure of Bathe," and " A gallery divided into
2 rooms & 4 chambers." It is possible that the site of some
of these buildings lies along the west wall of our enclosure,
for that wall contains corbels shewing the existence of buildings
there at some time. It may be of interest to add that
the Report also mentions " The ward, a prison, wash-house,
kitchen, three rooms;" and in Pisher we read that Bishop
Pearce, in the year 1760, erected an office for the use of his
Register nearly on the same spot where the prison stood.
After the notes of this section of the Paper had been
jotted down Mr. Arnold kindly gave me some valuable information
respecting the recent history of the episcopal
property. It confirms the views herein set forth with regard
to the original boundaries of the bishop's precinct, and
throws some fresh light upon the subject. In Mr. Arnold's
Plate III N? 2.
EPISCOPAL PRECINCT
REDUCED COPYOF PLAN ON
CONVEYANCE.
rail.
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HP?' 'S^ ^°°yW
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MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 45
copy of Arch. Cant. (Vol. XVII., pp. 72, 73), and in his handwriting,
the following notes appear:—"In the old Leases
granted by the Bishop of Rochester for lives—the last dated
9th December 1826—the new houses are described as ' All
those 4 tenements now and for many years past made into
and used as 3 tenements situate in the Bailiwick or Precinct
of the Palace Court of the Bishop of Rochester . . . . which
were erected and built in the place where the Palace of the
Bishop of Rochester stood till the same was demolished in
the Great Rebellion.'" " The late Edward Twopenny and
his mother Susanna Twopenny were the Lessees for lives of
the houses formerly the Palace, College Green, and the
office near, under the Lease of 1826. On the 3rd Pebruary
1827 the Bishop, Walter King, sold the reversion to the said
Susanna Twopenny and Edward Twopenny for £1270 13s. Od.
In 1836 Edw. Twopenny purchased his mother's share, and
in April 1870 he sold the whole to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
for £3500—it formed part of the new endowment
to the Dean and Chapter."
The expression " the whole " in the second of these two
notes included, in addition to the episcopal property, certain
contiguous properties which the Dean and Chapter had conveyed
to Mr. Edward Twopenny in the years 1836 and 1837,
namely, the site of the Grammar School and the site of the
old Parsonage House of St. Margaret's. This further information
comes from notes endorsed on Mr. Arnold's copy of
a tinted plan that appears on the conveyance. The endorsement
runs as follows :—
" Copy of plan on the Conveyance of April 1870 from
Mr. Edward Twopenny to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners:
" (1) The Pink portion—the houses on the site of the
Bishop's Palace, College Green, and the office adjoining the
Bishop's Registry.
" (2) Green—the part wh. by a Lease dated 2 Sepr. 1837
was demised to the sa Edward Twopenny by the Dean and
Chapter containing 3192 superficial feet.
" (3) Blue—the site of the old Parsonage House of St.
Margaret's, demised by the Dean and Chapter to the sd Edwa
Twopenny by Lease dated 9lh July 1836, namely that house
46 MEDIiGVAL ROCHESTER.
then taken down & was then being rebuilt in a more convenient
situation."
I t is necessary to remember that the Plan was made in
1870.* It was based partly upon the 10-foot Ordnance Survey
Map and partly upon private knowledge of old boundaries
long before swept away. In one or two unimportant particulars
these boundaries seem to be incorrectly represented;
but they are sufficiently correct to afford valuable information
for the present inquiry. The northern face of the old
parsonage house roughly shews the line of the original south
wall of the bishop's precinct; and the western face of the
grammar school similarly shews the line of the east wall.
This east wall would naturally form the boundary line between
the episcopal and the capitular property in olden times.
When I had seen the Plan I looked carefully for signs of the
wall in Mr. .Arnold's house, and was rewarded by finding the
rough core of a 3-foot wall in the wall of the staircase
leading down to the cellars. Its position exactly suits the
requirements of the case, and fixes with a fair degree of
certainty a point on the line of the wall.
I t is natural to imagine that shortly after the grammar
school was established, the dean and chapter made use of a
spare strip of land along the east wall of the episcopal precinct
by building the necessary school-buildings upon it.
They were abandoned during the headmastership of the Rev.
Daniel P. Warner (1825—1842), and the site, having passed
to Mr. Edward Twopenny, was merged into the contiguous
episcopal property which Mr. Twopenny acquired about the
same time. The early-Norman wall was demolished with
the school-buildings. The wall which now bounds Mr.
Arnold's gardens on the east side must be the lower part of
the outer wall of the sixteenth-century buildings. It contains
an Elizabethan ;fire-place, situate some 32 or 33 feet
from the face of Prior's Gate. It can be seen only on the
garden side of the wall. Both the sixteenth-century wall and
* Plate III., No. 2. Mr. Arnold has kindly sent a copy of the Plan for
reproduction and publication with this Paper. The words Pinh, Qreen, and Blue
have been inserted to denote the tints of the original. The names of the present
occupiers will be found on the Folding Map.
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 47
the early-Norman are clearly marked in the Plan published
in Pisher's History and Antiquities of Rochester.
It is evident that the true line of division between the
episcopal precinct (called " Cathedral Precincts " in the Plan
on the conveyance) and St. Margaret's Parish was lost when
the ordnance surveyors made their notes. Itoughttofollowthe
line of the destroyed south wall of the precinct. The tongue
of ground lying between the west face of the old parsonage
house and the roadway, originally lying beyond the boundary
of the precinct, must have been added to the precinct some
time before it came into Mr. Twopenny's possession. This,
however, is a matter for later notice. The parsonage house,
too, will be of use in a later enquiry.
Before quitting the Bishop's Precinct a word or two must
be added in reference to that part of it which lies between
the old palace and the road which now runs from the west
front towards Prior's Gate and Minor Canon Row, and falls
within the limits of the Roman city. It comprises the front
gardens of Messrs. Arnold, Payne, and Rae Martin, and the
bit of ground now called College Green, on which stands the
Bishop's Registry.
Bishop Gundulf's cloister and domestic buildings on the
south side of the nave must have crossed the present line of
the road and occupied the green and gardens aforementioned.*
Bishop Ernulf's cloister was laid out on the south side of
the choir: the chapter-house and dormitory forming the
eastern range, and the refectory forming the southern—fecit
etiam dormitorium, capitulum, refectorium (Reg. Roff.). The
western range of the new buildings does not seem to have
been built until Bishop Gilbert de Glanville completed the
stone cloister—fecit claustrum nostrum perfici lapideum
(Reg. Roff., p. 633). In the interval it is likely that Gundulf's
eastern range served as the western range of Ernulf's cloister;
and it may be that Gilbert's work marks the time of the
final demolition of Gundulf's buildings and of the acquisition,
by the bishop, of part of their site. The rest of the site,
near the cathedral, remained in the hands of the monks, who
* The lines of .Gundulf's cloister have been conjecturally plotted on the Map.
48 MEDI2EVAL ROCHESTER.
used it as a means of approach to the principal entrance to
the cloisters. In the fifteenth century a new entrance,
guarded by a porch, was made. The half-buried arch, seen
in Canon Jelf's garden-wall, was the open entrance into the
porch. Its foundation and those of the gateway within the
porch were exposed in 1892, when the drains were being
overhauled. One of the large blocks of cut Kentish-rag
which formed the jamb of the gateway was (of necessity) taken
up and deposited above ground hard by. A few voussoirs of
Caen-stone, which were found at the same time and deposited
with it, are no doubt the remains of the arch of the original
Norman entrance. Pour feet under the present surface of
the road hereabouts there is the surface of a cobbled roadway,
which was exposed in 1894 and traced for some yards in the
direction of Prior's Gate. This was the level of the fifteenth
century.
LATER-NORMAN EXTENSION : SECOND NORMAN CLOISTER.
I t is not within the scope of this Paper to attempt a
detailed description of the monastic buildings. I believe
Mr. W. H. St. John Hope will contribute a Paper upon them
to this Journal. I am concerned with them only so far as
they influenced the extension of the area of the city from
time to time. Bishop Ernulf could not find the space
necessary for the later-Norman domestic buildings without
overstepping the Roman wall, just as his predecessor had
overstepped it to find a suitable site for the palace. Ernulf
placed the whole of his southern range beyond the wall, and
in such a position that the wall formed its northern face.
It is only the identification of the remains of the Roman wall
that explains the great thickness of the north wall of the
refectory. It is 7 or 8 feet thick, while all the other walls
are from 2£ to 3 feet thick. The discrepancy had been
noticed previously, and if anyone had thought of explaining
it the Roman walls might have been discovered years ago.
It was not until Mr. Payne had recognized Roman masonry
in the outer face of the wall of Miss Spong's garden that our
excavations proved that the Roman wall at that point turned
MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER. 49
westwards in a line with the thick frater-wall. Then the
thickness of the frater-wall at once became significant.
In order to make good the circuit of the city-walls where
he had overstepped or broken through the ancient line, Bishop
Ernulf built what may be called the wall of the later-Norman
extension of the city. It ran from the south-east angle of
the Roman city to the south-east angle of the Bishop's Precinct.
Near the latter point it is probable that Ernulf made
a gate, for Prior's Gate is mentioned as existing on the site
before the gate that now goes by that name could have been
built. No part of the wall stands above the present surface
of the ground, but its foundations and a part of the wall
itself have been tapped and laid bare at various points along
the line. It was first uncovered by excavation in the Deanery
grounds close to the angle of Miss Spong's garden. (Mr. W.
H. St. John Hope uncovered it at this point some years
ago.) Here we were able to take measurements sufficient
to plot it accurately and to gauge the line of its direction.
Following the line of the wall with the probe we again laid
it bare in the middle of the Dean's garden, but found it
difficult to take accurate measurements. It was then probed
for and excavated in the midst of the clump of trees and
bushes at the east end of Minor Canon Row, immediately
opposite the prebendal house in which Canon Pollock now
lives. It seemed to run in a fairly straight line from point
to point, and I have therefore plotted it as such. The line
thus laid down runs on under the houses of Minor Canon
Row towards Prior's Gate. It is not improbable that the
foundations of the wall are responsible for the fissure in the
east wall of Mr. Hopkins' house.
The wall is 3 feet thick. Its foundations are more
substantial in character than the early-Norman foundations
recently discovered under the west front of the cathedral and
described in the eighteenth volume of Arch. Cant. They
differ in depth in different places, probably to suit the varying
nature of the ground in which they were placed. They
consist of small flints and rag-stones of various sizes laid in
a fairly good mortar of light colour. They are rounded at
the bottom to fit the rounded shape of the ditch in which
vox,. XXI. E
50 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
they were laid. All the rag-stones are laid on their proper
bed, except a single course at the very bottom in which the
stones are all laid uniformly aslant. This peculiar feature,
which was observed in both the excavations which we carried
down to the bottom of the foundations, seems to have been
a survival of the early-Norman method, already described in
reference to that part of the castle-wall which stands on the
solid chalk. Sections of the foundations and sketches of the
face are given in the illustrations.* It will be noticed that
in the Deanery garden near the east end the foundations are
barely 3 feet deep, and that the lowest course of the wall,
consisting of large rag-stones, rests upon them in such a
position as to leave a slight set-off. Near Minor Canon Row
the foundations are 7 feet deep; in the upper 3 feet they
batter to the extent of a foot and there is no set-off. In
each case the surface of the ground has risen about 1^ feet;
but in the excavation in the Deanery garden at a depth of
2\ feet we went through a rough plaster flooring or something
of the kind, which, judging from the debris of building
which had fallen upon it, seems to have belonged to some
seventeenth-century shanty that had been erected against
the wall.
At its eastern end the wall probably turned at right
angles, or nearly so, a few feet distant from its junction
with the Roman south-east angle. This angle may be called
the Norman south-east angle. The return wall, between the
two angles, has been refaced in comparatively modern times.
Ernulf's later-Norman wall served as the southern
boundary of the city until the wall of 1344 rendered it unnecessary.
In the next section of the Paper we shall see
that it was surrounded by a ditch in the reign of Henry IIL
CITY-DITCH. EAST-GATE AND SOUTH-GATE. BOLEY HILL.
Temp. HENRY III.
In the first part of this Paper reference was made to the
events of 1215, when the castle was besieged and taken by
King John, and to the repairs subsequently made by
* Plate I., Nos, 8 and 9,
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.' 51
Henry III. The Close Rolls, transcribed and printed by
Mr. Duffus Hardy, contain numerous entries relating to
works executed between 1221 and 1227. The first entry
records an allowance from the exchequer to the sheriff of the
county for the repairs of the walls and for making a chapel
and chamber in the castle. There are many entries which
do not specify the particular work for which the allowances
are made. As these entries have not been printed in extenso,
a few examples are subjoined.
Under 8 Henry III. (1223) there is a precept which has
the nature of a general order to the sheriff that he should
cause the breaks in the castle-wall, which had recently
fallen, to be repaired, and should charge the account duly
attested to the exchequer—Rex Vice-comiti Kancise salutem.
Preecipimus tibi quod breccas muri castri nostri de Roffa,
qui nuper cecidit, reparari facias, et custum quod ad hoc
posueris per visum et testimonium legalium hominum computabitur
ad scaccarium.
Under 10 Henry III. (1225) there is an entry which mentions
the machines of war made for the defence of the castle
and city, and records the construction of a bretashe and
drawbridge on the south side of the castle—(Computus de
operacione Roffe.) Rex Baronibus suis de Scacario salutem.
Computate Vice-comiti nostro Kancie xxx libras et novem
solidos quos posuit per preceptum nostrum anno regni nostri
nono in carpentariis qui fecerunt mangonellos et petrarias in
castro nostro Roff et in rogis faciendis ad operacionem
castri praedicti et ville nostre Roff. Computate eciam eidem
Vice-comiti iiij libras septem solidos et decem denarios et
obolum quos posuit per preceptum nostrum anno praedicto
in j bruteschia et j ponte turnecc'o faciendis versus austrum
ejusdem castri.
There is abundant evidence that the defences of the city
as well as those of the castle were strengthened at this time—
Computate Vice-comiti Kancise quatuor xx et decem libras
quas posuit per praeceptum nostrum in fio mancione ville
Roff. One of the entries under 1225 has a peculiar importance
; it is an order for the payment of workmen who were
engaged in making the city-ditch—Rex . . . . Precipimus tibi
E 2
52 MEDIEVAL ROCHESTER.
quod per visum et testimonium Willelmi Potin et duorum
aliorum proborum et legalium hominum de villa Roff pacari
facias operatoribus fossati civitatis Roff stipendia sua singulis
septem. Elsewhere William Potyn, Thurstan de Strode, and
John Anglicus are described as custodes operacionis Ville
Roffensis.
Numerous entries of a general character shew that we
must not expect to find all the details, nor even some important
details, of the work of Henry III. entered upon the
Rolls. There is no record of work done at the gates of the
city, the east-gate or the south-gate, and yet, in view of
the fact (about which there can be little doubt) that the city
was now for the first time surrounded by a ditch, there must
have been some work of the kind. It would be necessary,
for instance, to construct a drawbridge at the east-gate.
The foundations of a tower, or rather of two successive
towers, at the east-gate were laid open in 1893, when the
Mathematical School was being rebuilt. I saw what there
was to be seen, but thinking that the foundations were to be
left open permanently I did not examine them closely. A
short time afterwards they were covered up, or nearly so.*
This being the case I can only hazard a conjecture that the
lower foundations belonged to the Roman gate, and that the
later foundations were those of one of the drum-towers
constructed in the time of Henry III. in connection with the
drawbridge over the new ditch. Mr. Samuel Denne, who
gives some further information about the east-gate in The
Kentish Traveller's Companion (p. 176), remarks (in another
passage) that the gate existed almost entire in Leland's time.
The drawbridge is mentioned in the title-deeds of Miss
Spong's property, dated at the end of the seventeenth
century. The gate and bridge must have been completely
swept away a little later, for the Mathematical School was
built partly on their site in the early years of the eighteenth
century. I have a strong suspicion that the foundations of
the towers on the south side of the gate underlie Mr.
* Plate IIL, No. 1. Plan and section of foundations at east-gate adapted
from official Plans, Drawn for reproduction by Mr. R, E. Cole.
Plate 111 N? 1.
REMAINS AT EASTGATE
( FROM OFFICIAL PLM>1S BY G-M.L. AND R.E.CoLE.)
WLrrr™, —n ' Sunk Are
•m^mm^mmsm rrrt!fili\
SECTION
HORIZONTAL. SECTIONLEVEL
OF PAVEMENT
WZ--
w « r ^/^
earlier i'owcf
VERTICAL SECTION .
MEDL2EV.AL ROCHESTER. 53
Leonard's cellars, and that their exact position might be discovered
by slight excavation.
Por the most part Henry ITL's city-ditch has been filled
up and its site used for buildings. It remains in its original
proportions along the Roman wall running from the site of
the east-gate southwards. Walls and ditch may be seen at
the back of the new Baptist Chapel in Low Lane. Originally
the ditch must have run on round the Norman southeast
angle of the city towards Prior's Gate—the predecessor
of the present gate so-called—and thence along the south
wall of the episcopal precinct. In 1344 the south-east angle
of the city was thrown further southwards, and the line of
the ditch altered accordingly.
If the reader, with his eye on the map, have followed the
ditch thus far, and will now try to imagine how it could be
carried on from Prior's Gate to the river, having regard to
the castle-ditch and the south-gate of the city—the Roman
south-gate,—he will be confronted with the problem which
King Henry's master of the works had to solve. The first
glance shews that whether the ditch were made to join the
castle-ditch or whether it were carried round Boley Hill, it
must of necessity enclose the old south-gate and render it
useless.
This consideration in a very practical manner fixes the
date of the abandonment of the original south-gate and the
erection of the second south-gate (circ. 1225). Por many
years previous to the recent discoveries this second southgate
was regarded as the original and only south-gate of the
city. In Tlie Hist, and Antiq. of Rochester (published in 1772)
we read: " South-gate was near Boley Hill on the road to
St. Margaret's; the hooks on which the gates hung are still
in the wall at the north-east corner of Mr. Gordon's [Mr.
Rae Martin's] garden; the gate is about 9 feet wide; the
arch was taken down in the year 1770." This passage
refers to the second south-gate. The site and the exact
" lie " or direction of the gateway, east and west, are clearly
shewn on the Bridgewardens' Map of 1717. Studying the
ground with these faots in one's rnind, the only possible conclusion
is that the ditch ran westwards nearly to the gate,
54 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
and then turned at right angles, or nearly so, to enclose
Boley Hill; and so on to the river. If Boley Hill had previously
been surrounded by a ditch, as is probable, this
solution is the more likely. In fact, it seems to be the only
possible solution. The only difficulty that it involves is to
decide how and where the ditch was bridged in order to give
convenient crossing in connection with both Prior's Gate
and the new south-gate. But with this question is concerned
a later wall, which is now destroyed, but which
originally ran down beside St. Margaret's Street to join the
wall of the episcopal precinct between the two gates; and
here, for the present at least, it must be left.
Boley Hill—not the street that is now so called, but the
long-shaped artificial mound on which stand Boley Hill
House and the summer-house in the grounds of Satis
House—is the subject of an interesting Paper contributed
by Mr. Gomme to Arch. Cant., Vol. XII. It is now
a part of the parish of St. Nicholas, but the fact that up to
the early part of this century its inhabitants enjoyed an
independent jurisdiction of immemorial origin carries thought
back to the time when it lay wholly without the city. The
Danes seem to have made use of it in their attack upon the
city in 885. The compiler of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
and other historians speak of their having " wrought another
fastness " (aliud propugnaculum—arcem—aliam firmitatem—
ante portas) before the gates of the city. There can be
little doubt that the expressions cited refer to Boley Hill,
near the Roman south-gate. The Danes were easily ousted
on this occasion, but if the Danish origin of the name Boley,
advanced by Mr. Gomme, be correct, it would point to their
return and settlement, and this would account for the separate
jurisdiction of later days.
Notwithstanding the fact that Boley Hill mound dominated
the castle, it does not seem to have been included in
the defences of the city until after the siege of 1215. The
details of the siege are minutely recorded by the historians
(e.g. Rogeri de Wendover Flores Hist., ii., 147-150, Rolls Series).
Roger tells us how King John placed his catapults around
the castrum ov castle, how at length his sappers and miners
MEDL3GVA!L ROCHESTER. 55
threw down a great part of the wall, and admitted the
soldiers within the castle, and lastly how by similar tactics
he gained entrance into the tower (turrim). Thus it is
evident that the king was able without opposition to make
use of Boley Hill as a vantage-point at the outset of the
siege. Therefore its enclosure within the defences of the
city naturally suggested itself to the engineers of Henry IH.
Perhaps the bretashe and drawbridge mentioned in the Close
Rolls were intended to form means of communication between
the castle and this newly-enclosed area on the south. How
far Henry IIL strengthened the hill by new walls it is impossible
now to say. There is a line of half-buried masonry
in the grounds of Satis House which looks like the remains
of an enclosing wall on the river-side. The terraces of the
mound are retained by walls composed of old material of
various kinds. There is a large amount of it, and it is not
likely that it was brought from any great distance to serve
its present purpose.
The evidence seems to point decisively to the conclusion
that Boley Hill was added to the city by Henry III . Matthew
of Westminster probably refers to this area in his description
of the siege of the castle by the Earl of Leicester in 1264,
wherein he tells us that the Earl fired the bridge, and took
the outer ballium of the castle—cum exteriori ballio castri
(see The Kentish Traveller's Companion, p. 149).
EXTENSION OF 1344. PRIOR'S GATE. OTHER WORKS.
Temp. EDWARD III.
There are several well-marked building-eras in the history
of Rochester. Pirst, there is the Roman era, when the
castrum which in Saxon times became a city was formed.
In the early-Norman era the castle had its beginning, and
Gundulf's tower and the first Norman cathedral and monastery
were built. The same era probably witnessed the erection
of the first bishop's palace outside the limits of the
Roman ai*ea. In the later-Norman era these limits were
again extended on the south, the monastery was rebuilt,
the cathedral entirely remodelled, and the grand keep of the
56 MEDIAEVA\JD ROCHESTER.
castle raised. Then came the Early English or thirteenth-century
era, during which the cathedral was enlarged towards the
east and rebuilt gradually towards the west; the defences of
the city and castle were improved, and Boley Hill was
included therein; the east and south gates of the city were
rebuilt; and the whole city was surrounded by a moat.
We have now to consider the works that were carried out
during the reign of Edward III. It forms, in the history
of the city, an era the importance of which seems to have
been overlooked. During the middle and the latter part of
the fourteenth century both the crown and the priory were
busy in strengthening their position in the city. The future
historian of the city will discover whether the citizens took
any share in this activity. A large sum of money was spent
by the king upon the castle and keep in works that were
supervised by John the Prior; a new bridge was built over
the river, and the walls of the city were thoroughly repaired
and on the south side strengthened by a slight alteration in
their lines. The king's work may be seen in the face and
crenellation of the wall running northwards from the site
of the east-gate, and in the bastion added to the north-east
angle of the city-wall. The new wall on the south was
built by the monks.
The monks seem to have been very active at this time in
seconding the king's efforts to make good the defences of
the city. They were active also on their own account. They
built a new wall along the north side of the priory, where
their property adjoined High Street, and in other directions
they completely isolated themselves from the rest of the city.
I t would seem that they thought it advisable to guard themselves
against the possibility of attack or plunder from within
the city. Even within the Cathedral the same spirit manifests
itself, for the screens and strong doors which guard the
approaches to the monks' choir are all of this date. It
is possible, in view of some ill-feeling that existed between
the monks and citizens in the fourteenth century in reference
to the parish altar of St. Nicholas, that the monks
were suspicious of the citizens themselves. It is more probable
that the bands of pilgrims that constantly passed
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 57
through the city on their way to Canterbury were responsible
for the feeling of insecurity which led the monks to
strengthen the defences of the priory, and that this was
done merely for police purposes. Precentor Yenables tells
us that the canons of Lincoln in 1285 addressed a moving
petition to King Edward, telling him that it was impossible
for the clergy to go to their midnight services for fear of being
robbed, maltreated, or even murdered by evil-doers, who
made the precincts of the cathedral their haunt. The close
at Lincoln was in consequence surrounded by a wall with
strong double gates in the reign of Edward II. In the same
reign the close at Salisbury was surrounded by a wall; and
at Wells early in the fifteenth century Bishop Beckington
guarded the approaches to the close and palace by building
several new gates. One and the same sense of insecurity
may have prompted similar precautions at Rochester and
elsewhere. Whatever the cause, it is clear that when Edward
III. began to strengthen the defences of the city the monks,
having completed the central tower in 1343, suddenly ceased
from their task of finishing' the rebuilding of their cathedral,
and turned their attentiou to making the defences of
tbe priory independent of those of the city. On all sides the
strengthening of old walls and gates and the building of
new ones was being carried on with unusual vigour. Thus
a fresh light is turned upon this particular page of the history
of city, castle, and priory. In this Paper some of the
chief points only can be touched upon.
The year 1344 was signalized by the projection of two
new walls, both built by the monks under the supervision
probably of Prior John de Sheppey. One of these may be
called the priory-wall of 1344, and the other the city-wall of
1344, or more simply the 1344 wall.
The discovery of the foundations of the priory-wall, which
ran along the south side of High Street, was made in 1887,
and the fact was recorded by Mr. Arnold in his paper on
Mediceval Remains at Rochester (Arch. Cant., Vol. XVIIL,
p. 201). The foundations were uncovered once more in 1894
when the new buildings of the post-office were being erected.
Some day no doubt the exact line of the wall nearer the east58
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
gate will be recovered in a similar way. The king's licence
" to make and crenellate a wall, of stone and chalk, from the
east-gate of the city to the gate of St. William, between the
city and the garden of the prior and convent," is printed in
Thorpe's Registrum Roffense, p . 552.
The new city-wall of 1344, though built entirely upon
the property of the monks, once more extended the boundaries
of the city towards the south. The work is that to which
the authors of Pisher's History and Antiquities of Rochester
(p. 3) and the writers who have followed them assign the
date 1290. Mr. W. H. St. John Hope called the writer's
attention to this mistake when he visited Rochester for the
purpose of going round the walls with Mr. Payne—a perambulation
during which several points were cleared up
which before were obscure or had escaped notice. The
mistake in Pisher's History is easily explained by a clerical
error in substituting 18 Edward I. for 18 Edward III.
The king's charter, granting to the monks the city-ditch
between East-gate and Prior's Gate, and empowering them
to build a new city-wall, is printed in Registrum Roffense
(p. 551). It is worth reprinting in extenso :—
CARTA EDWARBI REGIS QUA CONCEDIT PRIORI ET CONVENTTJI
ROTTEN. POSSATTJM EXTRA MT/ROS CIVITATIS ROFEEN.
Edwardus, Dei gratia rex Anglie & Prancie, et dominus Hibernie,
omnibus ad quos presentes litere pervenerint, salutem. Quia accessimus
per inquisicionem quam per dilectum et fidelem nostrum
Johannem de Cobham, constabularium nostrum castri Roffen. fieri
f ecimus, quod non est ad dampnum vel prejudicium nostrum, seu
alicujus alterius, si concedamus dilectis nobis in Christo priori et
conventui Roffen. fossatum nostrum extra murum civitatis Roffen.
qui se extendifc a porta Orientali ejusdem civitatis versus Cantuariam,
usque portam dicti prioris versus Austrum, habendum et
tenendum sibi et successoribus suis in liber-am, puram, et perpetuam
elemosinam imperpetuum. Ita quod iidem prior et conventus
fossatum illud fimis et terra implere, et commodum suum inde facere
possint imperpetuum, et quod loco ejusdem muri unum novum
murum de petra sufficienter kernelatum, altitudinis sexdecim
pedum extra dictum fossatum, et unum novum fossatum extra
eundem murum, sic de novo faciendum in solo ipsorum prioris et
MEDIAEVAIL ROCHESTER. 59
conventus ibidem, in longitudine et latitudine competens, faciant
suis sumptibus, perpetuis temporibus manutenendum et sustentandum,
quodque dictum fossatum sic implendum, continet in se quinquaginta
et quatuor particatas, et quatuordecim pedes terre et
dimidiam in longitudine, et quinque pedes terre in latitudine. Nos
volentes eisdem priori et conventui graciam in hac parte facere
specialem, dedimus et concessimus, pro nobis et heredibus nostris,
quantum in nobis est, eisdem priori et conventui, dictum fossatum
inter port&s predictas, habendum et tenendum sibi et successoribus
suis in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam, pro commodo suo
inde faciend. imperpetuum. Ita quod iidem prior et conventus
unum novum murum de petra altitudinis predicte sufficienter kernelatum
extra dictum fossatum sic inxplendum, ac quoddam fossatum,
longitudinis et latitudinis predictarum, extra eundem murum ibidem
de novo faciendum in solo ipsorum prioris et conventus, sumptibus
suis manuteneri, et sustentari faciant imperpetuum, sicut predictum
est. In cujus rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus
patentes. Teste meipso apud Westmonasterium vicesimo tercio die
Aprilis, anno regni nostri Anglie. xviij0 regni vero nostri Prancie
quinto.—Sub Finem antiq. Cod. MS. Membran- in Fol. penes Dec.
et Cap. Roffen. cui Titulus a recentiori Manu, Manerium de Bochester.
There is evidently some confusion of description in this
charter, but Archdeacon Cheetham, to whom I have submitted
it, agrees with me that there can be little doubt in
respect of its purport. The monks are allowed to fill up
part of the ditch on the east and south sides of the city, and
to build a new wall and make a new ditch. The new work,
measured from East-gate to Prior's Gate, is to be 54 perches
14 feet (or 300! yards) in length. The wall is to be 16 feet
in height, built of stone and strongly crenellated. The part
of the ditch to be filled up is to be 5 rod 5 feet (or 29£ yards)
in breadth. Such appear to be the data which have to be
considered in identifying the wall, or the line of the wall, of
1344. The confusion of description lies in the fact that in
the former part of the charter the measurement of 54 perches
14 feet is applied to the ditch which was to be rilled up, and
in the latter part to the ditch that was to be made afresh
outside the new wall and on the ground of the prior and
convent, this ground being doubtless part of the three acres
which their predecessors acquired in Gundulf's time. The
60 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
measurements are very exact and must be relied upon. It is
evident that the monks did not fill up any part of the ditch
along the east wall of the city nor alter the position of the
east wall. It is equally evident that they must have begun
their new wall at the south-east angle of the city, that is to
say at the Norman angle.* Prom that angle there is a post-
Norman wall running southwards for a considerable distance.
This wall or part of it must be the eastern wall of the extension
of 1344. Now, if a distance of 29 yards be measured from
the Norman angle it falls in the midst of a breach in the
wall. Beyond the breach the wall assumes a different
character, which suggests that it is of later date than the
portion between the Norman angle and the breach. It is
natural therefore to assume that the wall of 1344 turned
westwards in its course towards Prior's Gate at the 29 yards
point. That a wall did actually exist at one time along this
line was suggested long ago by Mr. Beale Poste, and recently
we have been able to trace its foundations at various points.
Now, if the distance from the south side of the east-gate to
the 29 yards point, and thence to Prior's Gate, be measured
on the ten-foot Ordnance Survey Map, it will be found to be
as nearly as possible 300 yards. So exactly does this measurement
tally with the conditions laid down in the king's
charter to the monks that there can be little hesitation in
affirming that the lines of the wall of 1344 have thus been
recovered.
But there is another consideration which confirms and
seems to establish this view beyond doubt. Prior's Gate is
on this line, and, to judge from its architectural features,
must have been built about the middle of the fourteenth
century—it cannot be earlier. It must have been built in
connection with the wall of 1344, and doubtless it replaced
the earlier Prior's Gate mentioned in the charter and existing
therefore when the charter was granted. The walls of a
* To avoid confusion in the mind of any reader who is acquainted with the
views of earlier writers, I may here say that I am constrained to reject the theory
that Henry III. either built or rebuilt a new wall along the south side of the
city. There is no documentary evidence of such work having been done, though,
it must he admitted, the absence of suoh evidence does not in itself afford sufficient
ground for rejecting it.
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 6 1
still later extension of the city, which will be described
below, enclosed this gate, and must have rendered it useless
from the time that that later extension was made. Hitherto
that later extension of the city has been regarded as the
work of 1344; but the authorities who have adopted that
view (which was first promulgated in Pisher's History), regardless
of the want of agreement with the measurements
given in the charter, have overlooked or been ignorant of the
fact that it is manifestly absurd to fix 1344 as the date of the
walls which enclosed and rendered useless the existing
Prior's Gate, since the architectural features of the gate
point to 1344 as the earliest possible date for its erection.
This consideration alone is sufficient to compel us to give a
post-ISM date to the later extension, and to assign 1344 as
the date of the wall that lines with, and was manifestly
connected with, the existing Prior's Gate.
The wall herein assigned to 1344 has been destroyed
throughout its whole length from east to west; only the gate
remains. On the east side of the gate the marks of the wall
are still visible. They prove that the wall was 5J feet thick
and about 16 feet high, and that it was crenellated. Above
the vault of the gate there is a guard-room, and from the
room a narrow door formerly led on to the ramparts. The
doorway is blocked.
The demolition of the wall must have been completed in
1725, the year in which Petty Canon Row was built. Sometime
before that date a house stood against the wall near its
junction with the gate. One of the buttresses of the northwest
corner of the house was discovered in 1894 underlying
the roadway. The quoins were of brick, and portions of
shafts of Ernulfian marble were embedded in the masonry.
The house was that which, at the time of the establishment
of the post-Reformation Dean and Chapter, had been assigned
to the holder of the sixth prebendal stall. It must have
been formed in some monastic building which before the
dissolution was closely connected with the kitchen. It was
in a ruinous state in 1661, when Archdeacon Lee moved
from it into the house which Archdeacon Cheetham now
occupies.
62 MEDIAEVAIL ROCHESTER.
The foundations of the wall have been traced throughout
most of its course from Prior's Gate to the south-east angle.
In the course of our investigations the foundations were
struck with the probe in many of the gardens of Minor
Canon Row. In the shrubbery on the east side of the gardens,
opposite Canon Pollock's house, Mr. Payne dug a trench
across the line. The solid foundations had been removed,
but the foundation-ditch full of building-refuse was clearly
marked in the trench. Following the line further eastwards
its exact position was recovered in Canon Pollock's garden,
where it was defined by a difference in the colour and quality
of the grass, easily distinguished when the grass first grew
after being sewn afresh at the time when a cinder tenniscourt
was converted into lawn. Passing through the quickset
hedge that separates the Canon's garden from the Deanery
garden the foundations of the wall were traced once more
with the probe. They lie under the path, the borders of
which are so gaily decked with Dean Hole's flowers. Their
presence in the ground accounts not only for the peculiar
position of this path in the garden, but also for the fact that
the path forms a ridge, the ground falling from it on both
sides. The ridge runs on as far as the old sundial, which is
marked in the Ordnance Map, and there it suddenly ceases
and the probe fails to strike the foundations. It is likely
therefore that from this point up to the east wall, a distance
of some 15 yards, the foundations were extracted for the
sake of the material by the builders of a post-1344 wall.
The line, if carried on, strikes that of the east wall just
where the break in it occurs. This has already been mentioned.
It is probable that a bastion stood at this corner,
like the bastion of the same period which Edward III. built
at the north-east angle of the city. This conjecture is confirmed
by the peculiar direction of the return wall towards
the Norman angle. Por this eastern bit of the wall does
not line with the earlier east wall of the city. In fact
the 1344 angle juts out into the line of the ditch. This
device would enable the defenders of the wall to enfilade the
approach to the east-gate from a bastion situated at the
angle.
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 63
The eastern portion of the 1344 wall seems to have cut
through the Norman south-east angle, and to have run on to
its junction with the Roman angle in such a way as to leave the
outer face of the small bit of Norman return-wall standing
intact against it. If, as I believe, this is the true solution
of the peculiarities of line which are seen just here, the
Norman face must have been rebuilt at some time, for the
present face is clearly modern. The actual line of the inner
face of the 1344 wall near the Roman angle and its junction
with that angle, both underground, were first of all traced
accurately with the probe—an illustration of the value of
that means of enquiry—and afterwards confirmed by digging,
carried out by Mr. Payne and the writer, in Miss Spong's
garden. The results, carefully measured and sketched, are
shewn sufficiently clearly in the map. The Normans seem
to have left the foundations of the Roman wall in the raised
ground inside their new line. The builders of 1344 built up
to these foundations, and then rounded them off by digging
out what remained to the west of the point of junction.
The 1344 wall is composed of materials similar to those of
the Edwardian portions of the castle-wall. The core is
chiefly chalk, the face Kentish-rag with a small amount of
flints. The mortar, however, is not so good; it is more sandy,
having a much smaller proportion of lime. There is also a
decided difference in the character of the facing: the ragstones
are thinner and longer. The excavation in Miss
Spong's garden revealed a foundation of blocks of chalk. It
is quite possible that the monks built this wall in a less expensive
manner than was adopted in the king's work at the
castle. But this remark does not apply to the Prior's Gate,
which is strongly built and is very much like the work of the
towers on the castle-wall. The architectural details of
Prior's Gate are slightly earlier in character than those in the
wall-tower. The vaulting ribs are four-centred, and meet in
a boss that is adorned with a voided circle in the centre.
The lower order of the great arches is four-centred, the
upper order and label are segmental. The massive square
jambs are chamfered with a slight hollow and dagger-stop.
The window is a wide opening with two-centred head.
64 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
The line of the 1344 wall is that which Mr. Beale Poste
in his Paper on Roman Rochester (Arch. Cant., Vol. II.)
assumed to be the line of the original Roman wall. He
imagined that that Roman wall was rebuilt by Henry III. A
reference to his plan shews the awkwardness of the assumptions
which through lack of adequate evidence he was compelled to
make. The Romans could never have built their east wall
with such extraordinary irregularities of line, nor could they
have built their south-gate so much askew without apparent
reason. No explanation of these peculiarities was hazarded.
Apart from this the Paper cited is valuable and vivid in its
description of the Roman castrum.
POST-1344 EXTENSION OE CITY.
At some unknown date the monks built a new wall to
enclose a portion of their land which lay beyond the 1344
wall. This work has been referred to above as a " later extension"
of the city. It is not likely that the monks in
building this new wall were consciously extending the
boundaries of the city, but, as it resulted in the abandonment
and destruction of part of the 1344 wall, the post-1344
wall ultimately came to be regarded as the city boundary.
In the eighteenth century the post-1344 enclosure was known
as the grange yard of the priory. Its eastern wall and part
of its southern wall are still standing. The eastern wall is
a continuation of the older walls along the east side of the
city. It crosses the ditch of 1344 (the old waterway being
spanned by a rude two-centred arch which is now blocked),
and runs on to a ruined bastion at the south-east angle of
its enclosure. Thence it turns westward, and forms the
boundary-line between the Deanery grounds and the Vines.
The western boundary of the extension has been swept
away altogether and of late years lost sight of. It is
marked hy a dotted line in the plan of the city published in
the earlier editions of Pisher's History and Antiquities. This
plan proves that it ran down on the east side of St. Margaret's
Street to a point a little to the west of Prior's Gate,
where it must have abutted upon the wall of the episcopal
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 65
precinct, which previous to the extension under consideration
formed part of the southern boundary of the city. The
relative positions, however, of Prior's Gate with its adjoining
buildings and the buildings on Boley Hill are slightly misrepresented
in Pisher's plan: the angle formed by the
junction of the two dotted lines at " e " (" the Grammar
School") is too obtuse ; it should be nearly a right angle.
The line of division between the capitular property and
the episcopal property, as marked in the plan attached to
Mr. Twopenny's conveyance, accurately fixes the point where
the post-1344 wall joined the older city-wall, and roughly
indicates the line on which it ran southwards from that
point. When the conveyance was made a little bit of ground
on each side of the wall near the junction had recently been
added to the episcopal property. That on the east side is
marked as the site of the Parsonage and formerly was
capitular property. Possibly the house was occupied by the
Vicar of St. Margaret's for a time during the latter part of
the eighteenth century, for when Pisher's History was compiled
the old vicarage, near the Ohurch, being irreparable,
had lately been taken down and provision was being made for
a new vicarage. The peculiar plan of the house suggests
that it had been built to fill an odd bit of ground lying
between the post-1344 wall and Prior's Gate. Before the wall
was built the site of the house may have formed the approach
from Prior's Gate to the bridge; and the bit of ground
on the east side of the line of wall may have formed the
approach from the south gate. The bridge would thus lie
halfway between the two gates. One can imagine the
capitular property running up to the east side of the bridge,
and the boundary wall being built alongside the bridge.
The building of the wall would necessitate the filling up of
the ditch at this spot, and probably marks the date of the
substitution of a level road for the bridge.
The wall is plainly depicted in Dr. Harris's sketch of
Rochester, published in his History of Kent (17 20). The sketch
is taken from Boley Hill, looking east. The wall appears
running at right angle to the line of sight. The sharp rightangled
turn which existed in the road from Boley Hill to St.
VOL. XXI. E
66 M E D I A E V A L ROCHESTER.
Margaret's is apparent. The wall is crenellated, and behind
it the tower of Prior's Gate rises into view.
The wall was demolished early in the present century.
Its destruction was involved in the changes that attended
the abandoning of the old Grammar School and the Parsonage
House, the apportioning of a fresh site for the buildings
and play-ground of the new Grammar School, the diversion
of the line of road whereby the sharp turn near the site of
south-gate was eased and the discarded bit of the roadway
added to the episcopal property, the addition of the site of
the old Grammar School and Parsonage to the episcopal
property, and the building of stables by Mr. Twopenny at
the south end of the property thus enlarged.
The wall was certainly standing at the end of the
eighteenth century, for not only is it indicated in Pisher's
map, it is also mentioned by Mr. Samuel Denne in Tlie
Kentish Traveller's Companion (p. 151). "Returning down
St. Margaret's Street," wrote Mr. Denne in 1779, "and
turning on the right through a breach in the wall, we enter
the precincts of the priory through the gateway, anciently
styled the Prior's Gate—an ancient stone wall which bounded
the grange yard of the priory to the west." Although the
general direction of the wall has thus been recovered, it cannot
be laid down on the map with absolute certainty. It is
impossible to say whether it ran up the east side of St.
Margaret's in a straight line or with a slight curve, or
whether the modern wall which bounds the King's School
play-ground rests on the old foundations or not.
About 100 yards from Prior's Gate, a little above the
turning into Love Lane on the opposite side of the street,
the modern low wall ends and a much higher one runs on
in continuation of it. Just where the high wall begins it
is built up against the end of a substantial old wall which
runs eastwards from it and separates the ground of the
King's School from the Archdeacon's garden. This wall
is undoubtedly the south wall of the post-1344 extension.
At a distance of some 30 yards from the street the wall
diverges slightly from its straight line towards the east
and suddenly becomes thinner. If the wall at the south.
MEDIJSVAL ROCHESTER. 67
west angle of the enclosure were still standing, it would
probably explain these peculiarities. There may have been
a good purpose in making the wall thicker and stronger
near the angle.
Following the line of the thinner wall from the Archdeacon's
garden eastwards it disappears from view in the
Archdeacon's house and is recovered in Canon Cheyne's
garden, where it is plainly marked by a ridge in the lawn.
The Archdeacon's house was situated in the Vines On the
south side of the wall. Canon Cheyne's house was built
on the north side of the wall. Both these houses are old;
the one was demised to the Archdeacon in 1661 and has
since been enlarged; the other was demised to the Provost
of Oriel early in this century. The wall with which they
were originally connected lines exactly with the wall which
separates the Deanery garden from the Vines. On the
Deanery side the wall has been robbed of much of its face
and the core is exposed. Like most of the later walls of
the city and castle the core is composed chiefly of chalk,
while the face is made up of Kentish-rag and flint. There
is a blocked gateway in the wall. Its jambs consist of
re-used materials such as tufa, Caen-stone, and the like.
Probably the wall was crenellated at one time. The southeast
bastion is in a ruinous condition, the whole of its facing
on the inside having been stripped off, while the outer face
has been renewed. The openings, three in number, blocked
externally and much knocked about on the inside, are lined
with chalk ashlar and have slightly pointed heads. No
attempt was made to surround the post-1344 wall with a
ditch.
BOUNDARIES OE PRECINCTS. GATES. PREBENDAL HOUSES.
One wonders, indeed, whether the walls of the post-1344
extension are worthy of the name of city-walls. Prom the
earliest historical times the land on the south of the city
belonged to the cathedral Church, and these walls seem
merely to express a desire on the part of the monks to bring
more of their land into close connection with the priory.
The area of the priory was restricted and the monks would
E 2
68 M E D I A E V A L ROCHESTER.
feel keenly the want of space for their varied needs. The
boundaries of the parish of St. Margaret were certainly not
altered by the later additions which lie wholly within that
parish. These boundaries, however, are curiously irregular
and undefined, and in this we see the result of traditions of
the earlier extensions; for, when the time arrived for the
boundaries to be marked, the traditional influence of the
extensions remained in force though the exact lines of the
walls had been lost. The oi'dnance surveyors doubtless
gathered what information they could and made the best
of it. In the light of recent discoveries one can account for
some of the variations and irregularities, but others remain
insoluble. As laid down in the ten-foot Ordnance Map the
division between the cathedral precincts and St. Margaret's
parish starts at the site of the second south-gate and runs
" undefined" to a point a few feet south of Prior's Gate.
Here we see the influence of the old wall between southgate
and Prior's Gate, along the site of which the boundary
line manifestly ought to run. Thence probably it ought to
encircle Prior's Gate and go straight through the gardens of
Minor Canon Row, following the old line of the 1344 wall.
This is the traditional line, but the surveyors mapped the
line as enclosing the whole of the gardens and running
round them down to the north-east corner of Minor Canon
Row. Thence the boundary line, disregarding in an unaccountable
manner both the line of the 1344 wall and that
of the Norman wall, crosses the road and runs down the
Deanery stable-yard to touch the original Roman line.
Prom this point it is marked as " undefined " and runs right
through the stables and across the Deanery garden to the
old sun-dial therein, and thence again to the south-east
bastion, returning northwards along the east wall of the
city. In fact in olden times neither the monks nor the
parishioners had to consider boundaries for rating purposes,
and their exact definition did not trouble them. The present
definition is clearly irrational. A more sensible one would
be to run the line from the site of the later south-gate up
the left side of St. Margaret's Street, along the left side of
Vines Lane, down the west side and along the north side of
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 69
the Vines. This would do away with a confusing anomaly
by including the houses of the Archdeacon, Professor Cheyne,
and Canon Pollock in the Cathedral precincts.
On the west, north, and east the cathedral precincts are
contiguous with the parish of St. Nicholas. Originally the
boundary on the north ran in a straight line from College
gate to the south side of the east-gate. In course of time
the Dean and Chapter alienated much of their property on
the boundary, which formed the south side of High Street,
and when St. Nicholas parish began to collect rates for
various purposes the officials claimed from the holders of
the alienated property. In one case at least the holder
resisted the claim, and others may have done the same; but
at length they gave way and by their submission practically
included their property in the parish of St. Nicholas. This
seems to have been the process by which the boundary was
altered. The houses from College gate to the east end of
No. 74 are in St. Nicholas; thence to the alley beyond No.
84 the boundary runs along the side of High Street; and
thence, again, it runs behind the houses and along the wall
of the Deanery garden.
On the west side the division between the precincts and
the parish runs from College gate along the west side of the
burial-ground in front of the cathedral and so up to the site
of the later south-gate. Prom the south-gate the boundary
of the parishes of St. Margaret and St. Nicholas runs round
Boley Hill to the river. Thus the whole of Boley Hill and
the castle area is in St. Nicholas. Formerly they were part
of St. Clement's parish, which extended across the High
Street and included the north-west quarter of the city.
Before Boley Hill was included in the city it must have
formed part of St. Margaret's parish. A thorough elucidation
of the history of the shifting parish boundaries would form
an interesting chapter in the history of the city.
The gates of the precincts and the prebendal houses
demand some further notice. St. William's gate, mentioned
in the licence to crenellate granted to the monks in 1344^
formerly stood nearly at the bottom of the passage which
leads from High Street to the door in the north transept of
the Cathedral. It must have been built for the convenience
70 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
of pilgrims to St. William's shrine in the early years of the
thirteenth century. " When the north transept of the nave
was building " (dr. 1250), writes Mr. Samuel Denne (K. T. C,
p. 167), " i t was termed the new work towards St. William's
gate." Nothing is known of its size and plan.
Deanery gate, formerly known as sextry or sacristry gate,
guarded the approach to the priory on the north, and probably
gave access to the prior's lodging as well as to the sacrist's
apartments and garden. In the inner arch the segmental
and four-centred forms are combined. The outer arch is
four-centred, and its jambs consist of two hollow chamfers
which rise from the sides of a single large dagger-stop.
The gate was evidently built in the reign of Edward III.,
at a slightly later date than Prior's Gate. Adjoining the
gate is the house which was assigned to the third prebendal
stall, the holder of which obtained special licence in 1832
to live in the fifth prebendal house. On the suspension of
the fourth prebendal stall on the death of Dr. Irving in
1857, the third prebendary moved into his house, which is
that now occupied by Canon Jelf, the vice-dean. The first
of the prebendal stalls—originally there were six, two of
which were suspended by the Cathedrals Act of 1840—was
suspended in the year in which the Act was passed. The
houses of the first and second stalls ranged along the' High
Street in the space that is now open. They were pulled
down in 1841, in which year Dr. Griffith, the holder of the
second stall, moved into the house in which his successor,
Canon Pollock, now lives, and which was then rebuilt.
College gate, sometimes called Chertsey's gate and more
appropriately Cemetery gate, was built in the fourteenth
century. It seems to be slightly later in date than Deaneiy
gate. The arches are four-centred; the inferior order in
each case is corbelled; and the slightly chamfered edges of
the outer order seem to have risen from dagger-stops, which,
however, have been worn away. It gave the parishioners of
St. Nicholas access to their cemetery and to the west door of
the cathedral. After the removal of their altar from the
nave of the Cathedral to their new church, consecrated in
1423, the mayor and corporation retained and still retain
the right to enter the Cathedral. by the west door. The
MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER. 71
publicity resulting from the use by the parishioners and
pilgrims of the Cemetery gate and St. William's gate, giving
them access to the west and north sides of the church,
rendered another gate a necessity. It guarded the western
approach to the priory. Mr. Denne writes (p. 153): " The
almonry of the convent was at the south-west extremity of
the church. It is now the house of the fifth Prebendary.
. . . . There was, within memory, a gate adjoining to the
gable end of this house which enclosed this part of the
precinct, now called College Green." Early in the present
century the Provost of Oriel, who held the fifth stall, moved
into the house near the Vines which is now occupied by Professor
Cheyne. The old gate-house appears in Coney's drawing
of the west front, published in 1814. Both the almonry
and gate-house disappeared long ago. Some posts which
crossed the road between the registry and the corner of the
burial-ground and barred the way to carriages approaching
from King's Head Lane (Doddingherne Lane) were removed
in 1887 with the consent of the Dean and Chapter. When
the roadway was opened up by the Gas Company in 1894
the foundations of various walls were cut through. The
most interesting of these was a three-foot wall running
south from and making right angles with the south wall of
the Saxon church. This must be a wall of pre-Norman
date. Another line of foundations indicated a wall that
seems to have run beside the road from the almonry gateway
towards the fifteenth-century "bishop's gate" or entrance
into the cloisters. Two narrow walls, the remains of which
contained a large voussoir of moulded Caen-stone, of post-
Norman date, seemed to cross the wall just described not
far from the small door which leads to Canon Jelf's house.
The foundations of the buttress of the destroyed house of
the sixth prebendal stall have already been mentioned.
One of the most interesting of the post-Reformation
walls in the precincts is that which seems to have been built
immediately after the dissolution to separate the Deanery
garden from the rest of the precincts. It emerges into view
from behind the Deanery stables and runs in front of Canon
Pollock's house towards the last city-wall. Towards the
72 MEDIAEVAL ROCHESTER.
west end it has been rebuilt; and the east end must have
been pulled down when Professor Cheyne's house was built.
The intermediate part contains many remnants of the
monastic buildings which supplied the necessary material,
quantities of faced Caen-stone, two pieces of worked Ernulfian
marble, a long slab of Purbeck marble, and other interesting
•stones.
Another wall that is worth preservation at all hazards
seems to be the remains of the east wall of the refectory.
Together with another and more modern wall, built parallel
with it, it forms a slype or passage of communication
between the cloister garth (Canon Jelf's garden) and the
south part of the precincts.
In conclusion I have to thank many people who cannot
be severally mentioned by name for the help they have
given in the course of the investigations necessary for the
preparation of this Paper. Householders have often welcomed
an invasion of their premises, their gardens and cellars. The
Dean and Miss Spong have been long-suffering in allowing
excavations to be made in their grounds. Mr. George Payne
found means for the excavations and co-operated in the
elucidation of the later-Norman wall and of the wall of 1344,
as well as of the Roman wall in which he is more especially
interested. I think I ought to say, however, that I hold
myself alone responsible for the views advanced in this Paper.
Por the Map I have invoked the willing aid of Mr. R. E. Oole,
surveyor, whose means of access to the official plans of recent
buildings and trained skill in draughtsmanship have enabled
him to make a Map which is a valuable contribution to local
topography. I have myself measured and plotted all the
important portions of the walls, and Mr. Cole has carefully
transferred them to his Map. Mr. J. C. Trueman's special
knowledge of the works executed in the castle-grounds
twenty years ago has been very useful, and Mr. Smith, the
caretaker, has been ever ready to lend a helping hand with
his ladders. Finally I may say I do not imagine the subject
of the city and castle walls is exhausted: it may be that
some of the conclusions herein set forth may have to be
abandoned at a future date.
