7 inches, 5 feet 10 inches, and 4 feet 1 inch, which open into the
gallery, and correspond to three windows in its outer side. In the
north wall are also three windows with recesses corresponding, each
of 5 feet 10 inches in width. In the east end is only one recess of 5
feet 9 inches opening. At this point the gallery is rather above 3 feet
wide, and the corresponding window has a recess, 5 feet by 4 feet. Most
of these expansions of the gallery opposite to the windows are groined,
as in the corresponding gallery in the Tower of London.
The arrangements of the south division are very similar. In the east
end is one recess of 5 feet, and in the west three of 3 feet 2 inches,
5 feet, and 3 feet 7 inches, the central being the largest. That
at the south end represents a short window, intended to conceal the
gallery, which here rises to the staircase. In the south wall are
three recesses, with windows corresponding. There is no chamber in the
south-east angle, the gallery merely turns at a right angle, but in the
north-west turret is a groined chamber, 6 feet square, with which the
gallery communicates, and which has windows in its two outer faces. The
north-east and south-west angles are occupied by the staircases. It
is evident from the character of the masonry that with the south-east
angle have been rebuilt the two adjacent windows in the south face and
of that in the east face. The new work is inferior to the older, and
there is no attempt at ornament. The arrangements of this grand floor,
like those of the corresponding rooms called the Council Chamber in
the Tower of London, must have been inconvenient in the extreme. The
rooms must have been very cold and very public, with windows, doors,
and garderobes on every side, and a gallery in which a whole household
might have listened, unseen, to what went on below. There is nothing
to distinguish between the uses to which these two noble chambers were
applied. Probably the northern, having the more ornate entrance, was
the hall, and the southern a room of a more private character.
From the gallery level twenty-three steps lead up 17 feet to the upper
floor, and on the way a small passage opens upon the battlements of
the forebuilding. This floor contains two very cheerful and handsome
rooms, 25 feet high, with larger windows than the floors below, and
a finer view. Here, also, the window recesses and fireplaces are
ornamented, and we may suppose this floor to contain the private
apartments. The roofs were open and low pitched, and seem to have been
supported by rafters placed near together, and without principals. The
arrangement of the mural galleries here is peculiar. They do not run
round the rooms, but are short, connecting two, or at most three window
recesses. Where the wall has been rebuilt they are altogether omitted.
They do not pass behind the fireplaces, the vents from which pass off
horizontally, and so block the way.
The north chamber is entered, like the rest, from the north-east angle,
and from the staircase passes a gallery which pierces the east wall for
20 feet, and traverses the recesses of two windows which light the east
end of the room. In the west end are also two windows, in like manner
pierced by a short gallery, entered only from the chamber. In the north
wall, besides the fireplace, are four windows, two on each side of it,
each pair connected by a short gallery, also entered from the chamber.
In the cross wall are two doorways, and near the centre the small door
of the well pipe.
The arrangements of the south chamber are somewhat different. In the
west end are three window recesses, having a mural gallery in common,
but not communicating with the staircase. In the east end is but
one window, the jambs of which are solid. In the south wall is the
door from the south-eastern staircase and also three windows, with
a fireplace. There are no galleries in this wall. This chamber has
suffered much from the destruction of the south-east angle, which it is
evident carried with it about 28 feet of the south and 15 feet of the
east wall. In the untouched part of the east wall remains embedded the
half pier, capital, and half the architrave of a large original late
Norman arch, of about two-thirds the span of the room, more or less
ornamented, and evidently the recess for a large east window. It is
just possible, as this was an archiepiscopal fortress, that this was
a chapel. In the south wall, close east of the fireplace, is the jamb
and half the arch of a window recess, also ornate, of which the other
part has been removed. The restoration has been effected in a very
hasty and slovenly manner. The masonry is of inferior quality, and the
new recesses are perfectly plain, although the older ones in the same
floor are rather highly ornate. Whatever, in designing this chamber,
may have been the intention of the builder, it is very certain that the
re-builder thought only of making the tower defensible in the cheapest
and quickest way.
From this floor thirty steps ascend 25 feet to the battlements. On the
way a passage from the north-eastern staircase opens into a gallery
in the east wall, 16 feet long and 5 feet wide. It is traversed by
a window, the recess of which, 4 feet wide, opens on the gable of
the north room of the upper floor. The staircase passes up to the
base of the north-east turret, in which are two doorways opening on
the ramparts of the north and east walls. The rampart walk is 4 feet
broad, with a parapet of 2 feet and a rere-wall, now gone, of 3 feet.
The walk is carried through the north-west turret, which contains a
chamber 9 feet square, and through the south-eastern turret, which
also contains a chamber. From hence the passage is continued along
the south wall, but is stopped by the wall of the south-west turret,
the stair contained in which only opens on the west wall. The turret
chambers were about 8 feet high and had flat roofs, reached possibly
by wooden steps. Each turret had two entrances, one on each face. The
parapets of the curtains between the turrets were 8 feet high, and
contained five embrasures on each face. At this level the profile of
the double roof may be traced. It was composed of two ridges, one
over each chamber, with a central gutter resting upon the cross wall.
Both parts were low pitched, and the ridges did not rise above the
battlements: the northern portion sprung a little the lowest and had
rather the steeper pitch. The southern, springing higher, delivered
half its water from eaves 2 feet above the common gutter, whence it was
carried away by an enormous stone shoot, a sort of gurgoyle. Another
such, taking the contents of the north gutter, crosses the head of the
staircase and projects eastward. At the rampart level the walls and
turrets are pierced by a row of holes 9 inches or 10 inches square,
intended, evidently, for the horizontal beams of a brattice. There are
no corbels or cavities, as usual, below, to receive struts, the beams
being probably strong enough without them. These holes seem not to
be original, and being rough, were probably made in haste when the
south-east angle was rebuilt: they are of importance enough to be shown
in the tower which figures in the corporation seal. Besides these, in
the inner face of the north wall, above the gutter, are two rows of
pigeon-holes, probably original, and even now accommodating a few birds.
Affixed to the north front is the forebuilding, composed of a
gatehouse, staircase, drawbridge, and vestibule tower. These formed and
protected the entrance to the keep. The approach is thought to have
commenced on the west front, near the north-west angle, by a flight of
steps, which turned the angle, as at Dover, and were continued as a
broad staircase against the wall of the building. Upon this, flush with
the west front, was a small low tower, about 12 feet square, through
which the stairs passed. This portal had a barred door, but no grate,
and its roof was reached from Gundulf’s chamber in the first floor of
the keep. From this gate the steps rose to the bridge pit, a cavity 15
feet deep by 9 feet opening. This was crossed by a drawbridge, which
fell from the gate of the vestibule tower. The stairs were 8 feet
broad, and protected by an outer parapet 2 feet thick and 6 feet high,
and probably looped. The parapet crossed the bridge pit on an arch, so
that persons ascending the stairs or crossing the bridge were protected.
The vestibule tower is 19 feet broad by 36 feet long, and two-thirds
of the height of the main building, against the north face of which,
at the east end, it is built. Its walls are 6 feet thick; they have no
plinth or pilaster steps, and though probably of the age of the keep
the work is of an inferior character. There is a basement, first floor,
vestibule floor, and chapel. Each floor is entered from the keep. The
basement is 14 feet by 23 feet, vaulted and groined, and it has two
air-holes near the vault, ascending obliquely through the wall. The
floor is on the ground level, here low, and from it a passage, 2 feet 7
inches wide and 12 feet long, leads up nine stairs into the basement of
the keep. The present door from the exterior is evidently not original.
This chamber was a prison.
The first floor measures 13 feet by 23 feet; it also has two air-holes,
rather larger and less oblique than those below. A recess, perhaps
a doorway, perhaps a cupboard, has been opened in the east wall and
fitted with a Tudor door-case. This chamber had a flat timber ceiling,
forming the floor of the vestibule. It was entered by a passage, 2 feet
10 inches broad, slightly ascending to it from the basement of the
keep. This also was probably a prison, but of a less severe character.
The second or vestibule floor is of the same dimensions. In its west
wall is the outer door of the keep, of 6 feet opening, round-headed,
and flanked inside and out with engaged columns, with plain caps, and
round the arch a band of chevron moulding. In the rubble work inside,
above its head, is seen a pointed arch of relief. The portal was closed
by a barred door only. On the right, on entering the vestibule, is the
door of the keep. The vestibule has five windows: a small one in the
west wall commands the staircase; in the north wall are three windows,
each formed of a pair, coupled; in the east wall is one. They are all
round-headed, with Norman ornaments: one-third of the east end of this
chamber is covered with a barrel vault.
The third or upper floor of the forebuilding is occupied by the Chapel,
the dimensions of which correspond nearly to the rooms below. It is
divided into two parts, a nave and chancel, separated by a plain,
bold, round-headed arch of 12 feet span. The nave is entered from the
main floor of the keep by a side door, close to which, in the wall,
is a recess, now inaccessible. The chancel has a stone floor, resting
on the vault below, and its roof is three sides of an octagon, also
vaulted, a sort of apse, but covering a rectangular space. There are
two east windows, and a large stone drain, which has led to the notion
that this room was the kitchen, and no doubt it would have made a very
good one. The nave had an open roof of low pitch, which was replaced
by one perfectly flat, but at the level of the original ridge. If the
large upper room in the keep was a chapel, a second would scarcely be
necessary. Probably both were not in use at the same time. A kitchen
is a very uncommon adjunct to a Norman keep, as the inmates seem to
have broiled their meat at an open fire, whereas a chapel is not
uncommon; and at Middleham, Dover, Newcastle, and probably at Corfe and
Kenilworth, it was in the forebuilding.
The material of the keep is chiefly the rag-stone of the country,
with ashlar coigns and dressings of Caen stone. The ashlar is rather
sparingly used, but is of sound quality and close jointed. The rubble
is poor, imperfectly coursed, and held together by the excellence of
the mortar, or rather of the lime, for the mortar is carelessly mixed
and is full of sea shells, which have been brought with the sand and
left uncrushed. It is clear from appearances, both inside and outside
the building, that the south-east angle has, at some period soon
after its construction, fallen down, and been rebuilt soon afterwards
clumsily and in haste. No mere battering by a ram, no strokes from the
missiles of a catapult, however ponderous, would have brought down both
turret and wall. Such ruin must have been produced by a mine, and this
is the more probable since the south-east is the most exposed angle
for such an attack, the scarp of the ditch being here steep, the soil
soft chalk rock, and the keep but a few feet from the ditch. A mine
opened in the scarp, just outside the angle of the curtain, and driven
40 feet in the chalk, would reach the foundations of the turret, and
thus undermined, its fall would bring down more or less of the adjacent
walls, and falling outwards, would crush the angle of the curtain. This
would account for the large mass of the angle which has fallen, and for
the circular bastion tower, evidently an insertion, at the angle of
the curtain. Supposing the keep, built in 1126, to have been mined and
breached in the memorable siege of 1215, and the damage soon after made
good, this would account for present appearances. It is true that the
bastion tower is decidedly early English, while the restoration of the
keep is Norman, but it is of a period when round and pointed arches
were both in use, and when the character of the older part of the keep
would naturally lead to the employment of the former; so that the
restoration might have been effected as late as 1225, ten years after
its probable destruction, and when an entry in the Pipe rolls shows
that the sheriff of Kent repaired the tower.
There is a good deal in the character of the forebuilding that looks
as though it was an addition to the keep; and yet this cannot be,
seeing that the difference in its masonry includes that of the adjacent
staircase turret, which could scarcely be an addition. Also the remains
of the lower gatehouse, on the north face of the keep, are clearly as
old as the keep, of which they are part.
It was long the custom to attribute this keep to Gundulph, making it
contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the Tower of London, which it
resembles in some of its arrangements, especially its mural gallery and
fireplace. Attention to its other details shows, however, that this
cannot be so, and that its more probable builder was Archbishop Walter
Corboil, about 1126. Those who desire to see examples of Gundulph’s
work, and to compare his masonry with that of Rochester keep, should
examine St. Leonard’s Tower at Malling, some parts of the nave and
transept of Malling Abbey Church, and the north tower of Rochester
Cathedral. The White Tower in London has been so often repaired and
refaced that it is difficult to be sure of its original masonry. Part
of the curtain of the _enceinte_ of Rochester Castle may also be
Gundulph’s work. The north wall looks very early, as does the east
wall, which is of excellent though rudely coursed rubble, the stones
being large and the joints broad, though there are no layers of flat
stones as at St. Leonard’s.
Rochester much resembles Hedingham, a very pure and very perfect
Norman keep, with three floors, the remains of a forebuilding, and the
upper gallery in the main floor. In each ornamentation is effectively
employed, and great use made of the chevron moulding. The two buildings
are, probably, of about the same date.
* * * * *
The history of the castle of Rochester, in the proper sense, begins
with the Norman Conquest, but there is something to be said of the
preceding earthwork, subsequent to the Roman period. The bishopric, of
which the city is the metropolis, was founded in A.D. 600, and Justus,
its first bishop, was consecrated in 604. The church, dedicated to St.
Andrew, was founded by Æthelbyrht, King of Kent, and his charter of 604
mentions certain land as extending from the west gate and the wall of
the city, one boundary being “fram Suthgaete west, and langes wealles.”
Also, other land granted is said to be, “extra murum civitatis versus
aquilonem.” In 673 a synod was held here, says Bede, attended by
Putta, “Episcopus castelli Cantuariorum quod dicitur Hrofescæstir;” so
that it was then a strong place, and the bishop’s residence, and this
whether “castellum” relates to the city, or, which is at least equally
probable, to the adjacent fortress.
In 765, Ecgberht, King of Kent, granted by charter to Eardulf of
Rochester, his faithful minister and bishop, “terram intra castelli
mœnia supranominati, id est Hrofiscestri;” and in 781, Æthelberht, King
of the West Saxons, says, “Concedo Hrofensis ecclesiæ ... aliquantulum
terræ juris mei intra mœnia supradictæ civitatis in parte aquiloni”;
and in 788, Offa, King of the Mercians, granted “terram ... sex
aratrorum” at Trotescliff, “ad ecclesiam beati Andræ apostoli et ad
episcopium castelli quod nominatur Hrofescester.” Also, in 789, King
Offa, in another charter to the same Bishop Weremund, mentions the wall
(murus) of the city, and says, “Ecclesia quæ sita est in castro quod
nominatur Hrofesceaster.” Further, in 850, Æthelwulf, King of the West
Saxons, mentions “murum civitatis Hroffi;” and in 855 he granted land
“Dunne ministro meo ... in meridie castelli Hroffi.”
In 839 and in 885, the city was attacked by the Danes. On the former
occasion they took and sacked it, on the latter it was relieved by
Alfred. In 986, the city was attacked, but unsuccessfully, by Æthelred,
and in 998 with more success by the Danes, who came up the Medway.
Boley Hill is said to have been thrown up by the Danes in 884, but the
greater part of the hill is natural, though, no doubt, with a very
considerable addition; but even the addition would have required more
time than was allowed them by Alfred, and a work of such a character
would be far more useful for defence than for attack. The towers used
in an attack were generally of timber, and so constructed as to admit
of being pushed up to the walls. It is more probable that the mount was
thrown up as a strong residence for the bishop, to give such personal
security as was found necessary at Sherborne.
It is not known in whose hands the fortress of Rochester rested in the
times preceding the Conquest, but Earl Godwin had certainly encroached
upon the episcopal property; and what more probable than that he should
have laid his hands upon a place which, with Dover, would give him the
command of the great road from the South to London? We read in Domesday
of the episcopal manor of Estockes or Stoke. “Hoc manerium fuit et est
de Episcopatu Rofensi, sed Godwinus comes T. R. E. emit illud de duobus
hominibus qui eum tenebant de Episcopo et eo ignorante facta est hæc
venditio.” So when the term of the tenancy expired the bishop would
find that instead of two nameless men ready to give up possession,
he would have to deal with a powerful noble claiming the freehold.
Stoke passed with Godwin’s Earldom of Kent at the Conquest to Bishop
Odo of Bayeux, and was recovered by the archbishop, as Domesday goes
on to relate, “Postmodum vero regnante W. Rege diratiocinavit illud
Lanfrancus Archiepiscopus contra Baiocensem Episcopum et inde est modo
saisita Rofensis Ecclesia.”
It is probable that in some such way Odo received the city with the
earldom, and with it the fortress, which the Bishop of Rochester,
however, may have recovered possession of in the way shown, and which
he certainly afterwards exchanged with the king for land in Aylesford.
“Episcopus etiam de Rouecestria pro excambio terræ in qua castellum
sedet tantum de hac terra tenet quod xvii solidos et iiij denarios
valet.” There never was a castle at Aylesford. The bishop gave up the
site of Rochester Castle, receiving for it as much land as was worth
17s. 4d.
Gundulf, the follower and friend of Lanfranc, and consecrated Bishop of
Rochester in 1077, was a great architect, and a very remarkable man,
well deserving the panegyric bestowed upon him upon his promotion,
“Eratque Gundulfus religione plenus, literarum non nescius, in rebus
forensibus acerrime elimatus et qui putatus sit divina potissimum
electione hunc honorem meruisse.” As to his architectural skill, and
his work at Rochester Castle, it is said, “Gundulfus, quia in opere
cœmentarii plurimum sciens et efficax erat, castrum sibi, Hrofense
lapideum de suo construxit.... Igitur, hoc pacto coram rege inito,
fecit castrum Gundulfus Episcopus de suo ex integro totum costamine,
ut reor, LX librarum.” This transaction between the bishop and the
king occurred about 1076. The king was to restore to the see the manor
of Hedenham, in Bucks, and the bishop to employ his skill and spend
£60 in building a castle, that is, a tower of some sort. What Gundulf
certainly built is the tower which still bears his name, and which
seems originally to have been upon the city wall. On the death of
William the castle was a very strong place, and was seized upon and
held by Odo for Duke Robert. Odo (Judas Iscariot, as he was called by
the friends of Rufus), associated himself with Eustace of Boulogne and
Roger de Belesme, and garrisoned the castle, storing there the spoil
drawn from the adjacent country. Rufus, whose activity was a strong
contrast to the indolence of his brother, attacked Rochester, while
Odo retired to Pevensey to await succour from Normandy, which never
came. Rufus took Tunbridge and Pevensey, and forced Odo to demand the
surrender of Rochester by his allies. The garrison understood the
sincerity of the demand, sallied out, captured their royal escort and
their bishop, and installed him, nothing loth, in the government of
the castle. Rufus converted the siege into a blockade of both castle
and city, and finally, under the pressure of a pestilence, both were
surrendered, and Odo was finally banished. Gundulf died in 1108. This
first siege of Rochester is one of the great military events of a very
stirring period, and one deserving far more notice than has hitherto
been bestowed upon it.
The castle, thus taken in 1088, seems to have remained in the
Crown for thirty-eight years, when, in 1126, Henry II. granted “to
Archbishop William de Corboil and his successors the perpetual charge
and constableship of the castle of Rochester,” thus leaving it in
the Church, but detaching it finally from the see of Rochester. The
archbishop, we are told, built, in consequence, a handsome tower,
“egregiam turrim,” which is, no doubt, the existing keep. William died
in 1139, between which date and 1126 the keep was, therefore, built.
Henry II., also alludes to the castle in his confirmation charter to
the church of Rochester, “volo etiam et ipsi et homines sui sint
liberi et absoluti ab omni opere castelli, et expeditione archisve
constructione;” so that, probably, the arx, or citadel, was then in
contemplation or in progress. It may be that Gundulph’s Tower was
removed to make way for the new keep, but in this case its materials
would have been made use of, and some trace of them would be almost
certain to be detected. But there is no such trace, so that, probably,
the new keep did not supersede the older tower.