Rochester Castle in the time of Odo and Gundulf, 1067-1088

Archaeologist Alan Ward discusses what we know - or what little we know - about Rochester Castle in the time of Bishops Odo and Gundulf (1067-1088).

When he asked me to produce something about Gundulf’s castle at Rochester, Jacob was under the impression I had written about this theme previously. Other than some very brief notes I hadn't, but with the production of Chris Monk's study of the Haddenham manor document and its relevance to the castle I thought (perhaps foolishly) that I could write a short essay

As so often when I write an article I start by asking myself questions.

Question: What can we say about Rochester Castle in the time of Gundulf?

Sometimes the answers are long and complex, but for this theme it was easy and very short.

Answer: Not agreat deal. In fact hardly anything.

However, let's play around with what we actually know or what we can deduce.

‘The Stage’

We need to go even further back in time than the late eleventh century. Rochester had a stone wall built around the Roman town sometime in the third century, usually regarded as being early in that century, but the dating evidence is not secure and it may be that it was constructed in a more piecemeal fashion with at least one tower added, perhaps in the fourth. We can say that it was still capable of being used in a successful defensive manner in 885 when a large Viking army could not break into the town. There was no attempt (as far as we know) by the citizens to defend the town in 1066 against the Norman gangsters of William Duke of Normandy (Duke 1035 to 1087 and King of England 1066 to 1087). Whether this failure was due to the walls being in a dilapidated condition or a lack of will on the part of the bishop, Siward (Bishop of Rochester 1058 to c. 1075), and the citizens we just do not know.

The south-west quadrant of the town is, with one exception, archaeologically a blank prior to the building of the castle. That one exception is due to the small excavation undertaken in 1976 by Arthur Harrison and Colin Flight in the area of what is now the Boley Hil car park between the east wall of the castle and the castle ditch. Here they found a Roman building, most of which had been cut away by the digging of the ditch (Flight and Harrison 1978).

They get into a terrible muddle when attempting to understand the stratigraphy of this structure (Drury 2009 and independently Ward 2013), but they did show that part of this building must be present on the west side of the east wall, in other words within the castle grounds. That building will be at least 3m below the present internal ground surface.

From that we can deduce, the landscape that we see today within the castle walls must have been completely different from that of Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. There would have been a narrower chalk ridge extending from south to north with a steep slope on the west down to the river and a gentler slope starting within the castle area down to the Roman structure found in 1976. To the north, the ridge would have ended in the vicinity of Castle Hil road, just as it does today, now largely disguised by a superb early twentieth century terrace, and then dipped steeply downwards.

From an early charter we can deduce that there was a lane within the castle area (Ward 1949; Campbell 1973) which presumably followed the line of the Roman wall up to the High Street. The lane may have started at the Roman and later South Gate (Payne 1895, 6; Ward 2005). The South Gate was situated in what became known as Doddingherne Lane (now for some obscure reason, known only to town planners, as Boley Hill; but see Flight (2018a) for an alternative position for the gate).

Doddingherne Lane continued northwards to the High Street and has been regarded by nearly all archaeologists as the line of the south-to-north Roman road. It is, but it did not veer to the right (east) of the King's Head Inn as it does now, but to the left (west). How do we know this? Three reasons. First, buildings are shown on the Bridge Wardens map of 1717 across the line of the existing road between College Gate and the inn.

Secondly there is the cellar of one of these buildings in the middle of the road with sixteenth century bricks within its wall and thirdly there is a Roman building below that cellar (Ward 2011 and in prep. a and b). In other words, at the very least, there was no road here in the Roman period, or in the sixteenth century, or in 1717. Logic would then dictate that there was no road here at any date until sometime between 1717 and 1772 when the next useful map of Rochester was produced.

I like to think that the medieval and earlier Doddingherne Lane passed immediately to the west of the King's Head and its forerunners as shown on the 1717 map, but it may (unlikely) have been even further to the west. If the latter is correct then all sorts of problems ensue.. for another essay at a later date (Ward, in prep. b).

In 1066 there were presumably timber buildings within this south-west quadrant, but of these we know nothing and all would have been destroyed when the castle was first built. The castle was built before 1086, for within Domesday Book (Morgan 1983) in regard the 'Land of the King' at Aylesford we have the statement,

‘The Bishop of Rochester also holds as much of this land (in the manor of Aylesford) as is valued at 17s 4d in exchange for the land on which the castle is situated'

As we know that the Bishop of Rochester had held the south-west quadrant within the town wall, and as we know that after the Norman Conquest the south-west quadrant was in the hands of the king, and as that is where the castle is situated, it is a reasonable deduction that it is Rochester Castle which is being mentioned in this brief statement.

That it was built very soon after the Norman invasion seems likely. In 1067 the men of Sandwich rose in rebellion, but as in 1066 the citizens of Rochester and Canterbury proved spineless. (Why does Kent have the word 'Invicta' as part of its White Horse emblem?). It seems a reasonable deduction that both towns had castles built in that year, for it is recorded that Odo, Early of Kent (1067 to 1082 and Bishop of Bayeux 1049 to 1097) when left as the new king's agent, 'built castles far and wide throughout the country, and distressed the wretched folk ...' (Whitelock 1965, 145). There is documentary evidence for castles having been constructed in urban centres in 1066 and 1067 and by the end of 1071 nineteen are known to have been in existence and with one exception all were in towns (Colvin 1963, 21-23). Of these, three were constructed in London and two in York.

‘The first act': Odo's castle

Although, with the exception of the ditch, we can see nothing of Odo's castle it seems probable we can make more deductions in relation to that structure than Gundulf’s work. The castle was almost certainly constructed by the Earl of Kent in 1067 and we can safely say it had been constructed by 1086. Odo as earl may well have had Rochester as his seat of local government for the county until the castle (and all of his manors) was taken into direct control by the king in 1082 after he fell from power.

1. Any Anglo-Saxon buildings within the area of the new castle would have been swept away. These buildings, if any, would have been of timber. Large post-holes for the verticals may survive on the level areas of the ridge at a depth of about 1.25m below modern ground level, but the probability is that unless they were dug well into chalk bedrock they will have been destroyed by later disturbances. If the buildings were built on earth-fast horizontal beams the only remnant that might be found would be the outline of their clay floors.

2. The way the present writer understands Figures 6, 8, 15, 20 and 2 of Paul Drury's 2009 conservation report they all show the ditch on the north side of the castle being below the line of the modern road called Castle Hill. In other words the bailey was slightly smaller than is usually accepted. If AW's understanding of these drawings is correct (unlike many other individuals within Kentish archaeology AW has been know to be wrong) he finds this interpretation very hard to believe and suspects that Paul Drury's alignment of the rampart and ditch are just wrong. Figure 26 does show a different alignment, but in AW's view is still incorrect for the walling, outside the English Heritage fencing, directly west of the main gate. The present writer regards the top of the ridge slope as always having represented the edge of the castle with a defensive ditch, if any, at its base.

3. Any ditch at the base of this slope could have been as wide as that which can still be seen on the east side of the castle and this would still allow enough space for timber buildings along the main west to east route through the town (Watling Street, the present High Street). However, only very small rear plots would exist between buildings and the outer edge of the ditch, no more than c.15m in length. The present writer would prefer a narrower ditch and longer tenement plots, but this can only be tested by digging some holes, probably c.2.50m deep. Whether the ditch would then be 6m deep (see 4 below) is perhaps doubtful. Indeed with the presence of the ridge slope such a depth may not have been needed. At the south end of Two Post Alley the Ordnance Survey Datum Level is approximately 8.90m. Conjecturally if we allow for c.1m of modern soil and junk before the medieval ground level is reached and then a ditch of say 4m in depth we end up with an Ordnance Survey level of c.3.90m for the base of the ditch.

Opposite the west end of Castle Hill the Esplanade stands at an approximate O.S. level of 5.50m. At Rochester Bridge just 50m to the north (modern) low tide is c. 1.60m above O.S. sea level (Wikipedia) the mud up against the Esplanade wall will give us a higher Ordnance Survey height. For the sake of argument let's say the mud is 2m thick this gives us an O.S height of c.3.60m. If there was a northern castle ditch coming through at this point the mud would not be there, so the picture we have now is an illusion, it wil be the low tide water mark which provides the more correct O.S. height which is relevant to this essay. Based on the work of the great John Evans, the way that AW understands what he is writing, because today same marshes in the Medway Estuary are flooded as in the twelfth century the tidal levels have not altered all that much (Evans, 1954). Allowing for a c.3.50m range between low and high tides we have c.5.10m for the latter (1.60 +3.50). If that is correct and if there was an open end to the castle north ditch and if the c.3.90m height above O.S. datum level for the base of the ditch adjacent to Two Post Alley is correct, than the castle north ditch had a depth of c. 1.20m of water at base for at least part of any one day. BUT note all imponderables.

We move onto the ditch on the east side of the castle.

4. On the east it was a different matter. Colin Flight has suggested that the eastern ditch was of two phases (Flight 2018b). Dug first in 1067 and then deepened 'only slightly later and Doddingherne Lane was then constructed following the line of the ditch (Flight 2018a). The latter suggestion is certainly wrong, the relationship is the other way around and whilst a deepening of the ditch may be correct, there is no actual evidence to support such a view. In AW's opinion the ditch would be dug to its known depth, some 20ft (c.6m) below the base as we see it today (Payne 1911), from the outset, this would create enough material to level off the ridge slope. Odo and his knights didn't have to dig it, that was done by the citizens of the town and the local peasantry (imagine the moaning). At the point where the depth was identified, near the south-east corner tower (Tower 1), the O.S. level is 11.90m. If we take off 6m we have an approximate Ordnance Survey level of 5.90m above sea level. So we may have the base of the ditch gradually rising from north to south (3.90m to 5.90m).

We then remind ourselves of the modern low and high tides adjacent to the Esplanade.High tides is c.5.10 above O.S. datum level giving us that c. 1.20m depth of water at Two Post Alley for the northern ditch and being c. 1m lower than the base of the ditch on the east.

This is what asking questions about your theme is all about. You look for answers. Here we have the potential for the ditch actually having been a wet moat at least up as far as the bridge giving access into the main gate at the north-east comer of the castle enclosure and now mainly under the Castle Hill/Epaul Lane junction.

We turn to the keep, where water has been seen.

5. Within the keep there is a deep well emptied of all its rubbish and drawn for us by George Payne in 1905. We can work out the levels (approximately).

On the outside of the castle we have an O.S. level of c. 15.80m adjacent to the forebuilding on the north-east side of the keep. By using the great R. Allen Brown's elevation drawings (Allen Brown: 1974) of the keep within the old blue guide book (oldest and still the best 'Ministry' guide books) we can work out that the top of the well at ground floor level is at an O.S. height of approximately 19.20m above sea level. From that we can then take George Payne's informative section drawing of the well (Payne 1905) which he tells us was 63ft (c. 19.75m) deep from the same starting point (Figure 2). The upper c.9.75m of the well is stone lined. Why? Answer: it cuts through relatively loose solifluction deposits (material moved around during times of permafrost) of gravel, clay, sand and flints and the levelling deposit of 1067. Below that depth there is no stone lining for the simple reason it cuts through solid chalk bedrock which is situated at an O.S. level of (approximately) 9.45m. At this point the chalk is allowing pure, clear, fresh water to trickle into the well.

I hear voices raised, 'It is dug into chalk, chalk drains water away.' True, but what so many individuals don't understand, including many individuals within Kentish archaeology, is the way water behaves in chalk. Chalk has cracks within, vertical cracks down which rainwater can percolate and create a water table. A water table at a higher level within the chalk in the medieval period than it is today. Why is the water table now lower? Because we have sucked too much water out of the ground, due to there being pressure on the water reserves for industry, agriculture and having a bath (the latter basically unknown in the medieval period; Elizabeth I had a bath every three months, whether she needed it of not). But not only are there vertical cracks there are horizontal fissures along which the water can also run.

Within this well we have (assuming all of AW's arithmetic is correct. I was a dunce at math when I was at school):

‘high water mark spring tide' at c.5.50m above sea level.

‘water level at high tide' at c. 3.50m above sea level.

‘standing water' at c.0.50m above sea level.

At a glance we can see that the high tide level is above the conjectured ditch base (3.90m) on the north side of the castle and only c.0.40m below the conjectured level of the base of the eastern ditch. This high tide within the well level represents the tide level as it was in 1900 it does not necessarily (although I suspect it is not far out) represent the tide level as it was in 1150. More importantly, it does not represent the actual level of the fresh water in the well. That fresh water has trickled through a depth of over 30ft of chalk bedrock and along the horizontal fissures within that chalk. We do not know the point at which the chalk was saturated, that would be the level of the fresh water, water-table. That level would be that which was effected by the tides, the fresh water level would go up and down. Possibly a geologist or an hydrographer might be able to recognise the clues as to where the medieval water level within the chalk actually was situated, but there is no point in asking an archaeologist.

When I have written before that the water level within the alluvial clay on the north side of the town wall varies by about 3m between low and high tides people never believe me (Ward 1997), but here we have George Payne actually illustrating the same point.

As if that were not enough, on the Ordnance Survey 1:500 map of 1871 at the base of the Esplanade what do we have marked? 'SPRINGS’; fresh water was still issuing out of the bedrock in the late nineteenth century. That at a O.S. level of c.1.60m or, more likely, at a higher level on top of the mud, but again that is only the level at which it was seen. It may have issued out of the bedrock, in 1871 and more especially in the medieval period at an even higher level along those horizontal cracks. It may even have created a permanent water table within the depth of the ditch. The appearance of the water in the side of a chalk hill slope, any slope, depends on the height of the water table and the saturation point within the chalk at that moment in time not as it is now.

Today the water is being sucked out of the ground by 280,000 people in the Medway Towns compared to no more than 5000 in and around Rochester in the early twelfth century and hence we can safely say there was much more surface water around in the medieval period than there is now (Ward in prep. c) and hence we should ask ourselves was the ditch on the north and east of Rochester Castle a wet moat? Questions and answers. Alan Ward has been doing this a long time and is not so silly as to say there was a wet moat in the late eleventh century and even if there was I am quite sure it didn't continue in such a condition for very long, but the possibility for there having been a wet moat on the north and perhaps the east at the time of Odo and Gundulf would appear to exist.

We (finally) move on. The material dug out from the area of the east ditch, of which the upper 3m at the very least would be solifluction deposits, would then have been dumped on the east facing slope of the ridge burying the demolished remains of any Anglo-Saxon structures and ruined Roman buildings. We would then end up with a levelled interior perhaps just 0.50m lower than today. When such material is removed it is not possible to create sheer cliff-like sides to a ditch so they must have sloped down to base.

6 .That a ditch existed on the south separating the castle enclosure from Boley Hil, which at a later date (if not from the outset) became an outer bailey, we know nothing other than the fact that it existed. One is tempted to say that it would have been as deep and as wide as the eastern ditch, but of this we cannot be sure.

7. There was of course no ditch on the riverside of the enclosure, but the slope, whilst steep, may not have been cliff-like as is implied by the stone encasing constructed in the early twentieth century.

8. On the river side the Roman wall remained in place at the top of the cliff, but elsewhere around the perimeter of the levelled-off enclosure there would have been a rampart of earth, gravel and chalk rubble. Only the latter certainly survives in the south-west corner where it butts up to and covers the Roman town wall. By 1067 that the town wall was ruinous may well have been likely, but that its remains or line could not be seen this writer finds hard to accept. Consequently AW is at a loss to think of a reason why the new rampart wasn't constructed behind the ruined wall rather than in front. It is reasonable to assume that timber palisades would be erected on top of the new rampart.

9. At various times, by various authors (including this one; Linklater and Ward 1997) the presence of a motte (mound) within this large enclosure (or bailey) has been put forward. The position of this motte being at the highest part of the area enclosed by the still-standing stone walls, the south-east corner. However, with the advantage of hindsight (a wonderful word) it just doesn't work. Doesn't work for two reasons. First, the circumference of the raised area would need to have continued beyond the confines of the later outer walls, into the area of the corner drum tower (Tower 1) and the ditches to east and south. There is no reason to believe that such occurred. Secondly, if a motte existed at this point, when the keep was built it would have to be dug away. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of soil. Obviously such could be done, but why would anyone bother? The then lord of the castle in c.1130 (William de Corbeil, Archbishop of Canterbury 1123 to 1136) wouldn't be doing the donkey work himself, again it would be the towns-men and local peasants. Admittedly the soil could just be dumped straight into the river, but someone would point out there is the whole of the rest of the enclosure in which to build a keep, so why not have a great tower and a motte or, perhaps better still, build a tower on the motte, as at Norwich or Nottingham? The obvious deduction has to be that there was no motte. The castle in 1067 and down to c. 1130 was what is known as a 'ringwork'. It was a large enclosure defended by ditch, earthen/rubble ramparts, a timber palisade, perhaps timber towers and from 1088/9 a stone wall.

Of Odo's castle that is, I think, all we can say. That there would have been buildings of timber or, less likely, stone constructed within the interior either whilst Odo was Earlof Kent, or by the king after 1082, seems certain. We can safely say one would have been a large hall and another a chapel, but beyond that, and where they were placed, we are totally in the dark. With his release from prison in 1087 Odo once again occupied the castle at Rochester and when he rebelled against his nephew William Rufus (King 1087 to 1101) it was this earthwork and timber castle which the king besieged in May 1088.

'Enter stage right': Gundulf and his stone castle

This is a bit of an anti-climax. For the stone castle built by Gundulf the archaeological evidence is totally lacking. All we have is the Haddenham document and we now have an easily accessible complete translation. For those of us who are only manual labourers on archaeological sites it would be pointless searching out medieval documents written in Latin or Old English, or even Middle English for that matter. Large numbers of archaeologists dealing with the past never look at any documents and it has to be said the historical knowledge of many, perhaps even most, archaeologists is pretty abysmal. But, as so often, I digress.

The Haddenham document hints that archbishop Lanfranc's gift of Haddenham to Rochester was, to say the least, suspect and to make matters right with the new king, William Rufus (William I 1087-1101), Gundulf with some reluctance, agreed to 'build a stone castle for him (the king) in Rochester.’

The building in stone implies there was a timber castle previously, a structure which had been damaged in the siege of 1088. William wanted repairs undertaken and we were now entering a stage when stone castles were slowly becoming more common.

In 1976 Arthur Harrison and Colin Flight had put forward a date of between November 1097 to May 1089 for the building of this structure (1978,29, endnote 4). By 1998 the latter had, due to the presence of Prince Henry later Henry I, King of England 1101 to 1135) in the witness list narrowed the date down to the summer of 1088. Presumably the movements of the prince are well-enough known to allow this precision. Also, as we are dealing with events early in the reign of William I immediately after the defeat of his uncle Odo in May 1088, and as Lanfranc the archbishop dies in 1089 a date in the last half of 1088 can be suggested on those grounds alone.

Can we identify any of Gundulf's wall? From documents? 'No'.

From archaeology? 'No'.

From architectural detail? 'No'

By a process of deduction? 'Maybe'.

Certain parts of the outer wall can be eliminated and hence we may be allowed to suggest the parts of that wall that date from the time of Gundulf.

1. In 2009 Paul Drury put forward the view (2009, 18) that a substantial length of the west wall standing above the Esplanade was attributable to the time of Gundulf.

He gives three reasons:

a. That the wall is built in so called 'herringbone style' courses. This is a style where one course of stone is laid at a slant in one direction and the course immediately above is lain at a slant in the opposite direction, hence shaped as a herringbone

b. That this part of the outer wall is narrower than any other part.

c. That there was no wall walk. A ledge to support one end of horizontal timbers survives and the walkway itself and supports would be of timber. That a walkway did exist can be seen by the survival of crenels and merlons (the indented and upraised bits of battlements) fossilised within the heightened wall, the latter dating to the time of Henry I (King of England 1216 to 1272; not the 18th century' as stated in the report) (Plates 2 and 3).

None of these arguments are conclusive.

First, the supposed herringbone coursing isn't actually herringbone. It is what is called 'at-a-slant' coursing where there is just one (or more) courses laid in the same direction not opposite directions. This confusion in regard style is a common mistake. However, just as herringbone style can be of Roman, Late Anglo-Saxon or Norman date (down to about 1150), so to can 'at-a-slant' style. It wouldn't surprise me if the latter continues into the thirteenth century, but admittedly I have no datable example that I can quote to you. Both styles do however, make a reappearance in brickwork datable to the fifteenth century.

Secondly, in relation to the wall being narrower, that may merely represent constraints in time and money at any time in the twelfth century. For instance we know there were repairs to the castle in the reigns of Henry II (King of England 1155 to 1189) and Richard I (King of England 1189 to 1199 about which we know next to nothing. A similar argument could be made for there being no stone wall walk.

AW merely puts these puts these points forward so that the reader can see that we should ask questions and not take anything for granted. Do I think that Paul Drury puts forward a convincing case for this length of wall, still in places standing almost to full height, being of the time of Gundulf? Answer: 'Yep'.

2. Paul Drury points out that the length of wall in the south-west corner of the bailey which has been attributed to Gundulf in the past is considerably later in date.

3. It has long been suggested that the remnant of wall core on the north side of Castle Hill, outside of the Ministry of Works monument, is part of Gundulf’s defensive circuit.

We can, within a margin of error, and taking into consideration the arguments for 1 above, date the other sections of wall. The northern part of the east wall, along with Tower 3 and perhaps Tower 2, is dated by documents to 1361 or thereabouts (Ward 1995a, 1995b) and the southern part along with the south wall and Tower 1 to the reign of Henry I (but see below). We are left with the north wall remnant, for which there is neither a documentary or archaeological date. As the rest of the outer wall is reasonably well dated it may be that this is indeed part of Gundulf's wall.

Within the rear garden / yard area of number 40 High Street at the east end of this length of wall part of the main gate into the castle also survives (Ward 1998). Two structural phases can be recognised. The date of neither is known but it is possible that the earliest phase could be that of Gundulf. There is no note of him having built towers, but there must have been at least one gate and squared gate towers were beginning to appear. If it could be shown that this gate and the north wall joined as one at foundation level it would show they were contemporary, but admittedly still without a definitive date.

But for the Haddenham document we would not even know that Gundulf had contributed to the development of the castle and any early outer walls identified would probably be dated to the time the keep was built, c.1130 or later

4. Above I mention the southern part of the east wall as being of the time of Henry III. However, at both the south and north ends of this wall what is obviously earlier walling lain in a different manner is present.

Admittedly it is also completely different to that on the west side of the bailey area and hence whether it is part of Gundulf's wall is an unknown quantity. All we can say for sure is that it is earlier in date than c. 1225 and was presumably the outer wall present during the siege of 1215. Tower 2, as we see it today is of the same style as the 1360s Tower 3, but it is on the site of an earlier tower (Andy Linklater and myself have see an earlier (now buried) west wall). This earlier tower would also probably pre-date the siege of 1215, but whether it was as early as the time of Gundulf we again just do not know.

Inside the enclosure a stone hall and chapel may have been under construction, but if so these were not part of Gundulf's remit he was merely contracted to build the outer defensive wall, any internal buildings, whether of timber or stone, were the king's responsibility

The curtain comes down

Question: Will we ever see any of the early castle structures? Answer: 'No'. For two reasons.

First, many years ago Paul Ritson the then Conservation Officer with Medway Council asked me how much to excavate each grassed guadrant within the enclosed area. The answer I gave was half a million pounds for each quadrant. That, then, was probably an overestimate, but now it wouldn't be.

Secondly, the sheer amount of archaeology present is unbelievable. I am one of the few people who has seen it. In places medieval archaeology is just a foot down. In one area, in a trench measuring no more that 4m x 3m, over 200 sherds of late twelfth and early thirteenth century pottery was picked up from the surface of a clay floor (Cotter 1997). There were no archaeological deposits of a later date at a higher level (or at least none survived). This was more medieval pottery that I have ever seen from any area of similar size and more from any rubbish pit. That pottery may have been broken in the siege of 1215. Isuspect there is much, much more. But the more you find the greater the bill, and that is in one small area just 30cm down. What the total depth of archaeology is in that one area we have no way of knowing, but we do know that in some areas it is over 3m in depth (that's 10ft+ in English), it would take an age and the longer it takes the bigger the bill.

I hear some of you say, ‘Well what about geophysical surveys?'

'Yeah', well what about them? Three such surveys have been undertaken (Idrogeo 1997a, 1997b; Gaffney 2009; Adcock 2013). Even if common sense were to fail us, we know from both the small number of trenches dug within the enclosure and from documentary evidence that 'something' will be present. All of the geophysical surveys showed 'something'. But are we any the wiser? Answer: 'No'. What those 'something's' were we have no idea. We know there will be something there, but when dealing with a site such as Rochester Castle we want such surveys to tell us what that 'something' actually is. If they don't there is just no point in undertaking such a survey to begin with! Perhaps if the castle surveys had dated those 'somethings' they would have been worthwhile. Did they do that? Answer: 'No'. So what was the point? In my view they were a waste of time and money (taxpayers and ratepayers money; my money) and in one large area where I know there is ragstone walling present they showed absolutely nothing.

Whilst being in pessimistic mode let's return to the Esplanade and the ditch in that area. Okay, remembering we are dealing there with a whole series of approximates (a series of guesses if you like) in regard ground and water levels, let's really 'throw a spanner in the works'. AW is very doubtful whether there was actually ever a castle ditch leading into the river at this point. When the castle was first built the Roman wall may well have (and probably was) still standing north to south across this area. So why bother with a ditch? Then from the late fourteenth century All Souls Chapel (The Bridge Chapel) was constructed and would have been on the norther edge of, if not within an infilled ditch. AW finds the latter scenario very difficult to accept. My guess is (another guess) the ditch stopped short of the river and there was a quay present at this point. There is only one way to find out. Dig some very deep holes.

The best that can be hoped for in regard further archaeological study of the castle would be limited excavation in specific areas to answer specific questions. Such trenches would tell us little, if anything, about Odo's castle and in regard Gundulf’s castle zero, absolute zilch. I know the areas I would go for, but it's not going to happen. Come to that even with the excavation of much larger areas we would be lucky to see anything of the late eleventh century castle, there has just been too much thirteenth century and later disturbance in the interior.

The curtain falls

A second essay would of course be looking at the building of the keep, the siege of 1215 and the Idrogeo geophysical survey, but .... it all takes time.

Copyright: Alan Ward and The Rochester and District Archaeological Society.

Rainham

November 2022

References

Adcock. J. A. 2013. GPR Survey of the grounds of Rochester Castle (unpublished archive report).

Allen Brown, R. 1974. Rochester Castle (third edition, 1st edition 1969).

Cotter, J. 1997. An Archaeological Watching Brief at Rochester Castle: Notes on the pottery (unpublished archive report by Linklater and Ward).

Campbell. A. (ed). 1973. Anglo-Saxon Charters of Rochester.

Colvin, H. M. (ed). 1963. The History of the King's Works, Volume 1: The Middle Ages.

Drury, P. 2009. Rochester Castle Conservation Plan Parts 1 and 2 (unpublished archive report).

Evans, J. 1954. Archaeological Horizons in the North Kent Marshes, Archaeologia Cantiana, Volume LXVI, 103 to 146.

Flight,C. 2018a. Anglo-Saxon Rochester: Gordon Ward on the topography of the city. (durobrivis.net).

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