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Dedication: St. Andrew. Formerly the Church of a Benedictine Monastery.

Special features: Door of Chapter-House; West doorway; Crypt.

After landing in 567, St. Augustine preached in Rochester, where Ethelbert soon founded the church of St. Andrew for secular canons. In 604, a bishop was appointed,—St. Augustine’s companion, Justus. Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury in 624, and was succeeded in Rochester by Paulinus; and he, in his turn, by the first English bishop, St. Ythamar (644-655). Rochester’s three chief saints in early days were, therefore, Justus, Paulinus and Ythamar.

Gundulf, a monk of Bec in Normandy, was appointed to Rochester in 1076. He immediately turned it into a Benedictine monastery and built a church for his monks. Gundulf was one of the greatest architects of his day: he also built the great Keep of Rochester Castle, portions of the Tower of London and the Castle of Dover. The Saxon Cathedral had suffered from the ravages of the Danes and upon the ruins, Gundulf, with assistance from Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, completed a larger cathedral between 1080 and 1089. The plan was peculiar: it was neither English nor Norman.

“All this work of Gundulf’s is now gone except portions of the crypt, the keep and the nave. Of Gundulf’s nave there remain on the south side five arches, together with the lower parts of the walls of both aisles. It is very doubtful whether he built any part of the triforium or clerestory. At present his work can only be seen in its original condition from the side of the aisles. The pierarches had originally two square orders, which remain unaltered on the side of the aisle (cf. Winchester transept). Gundulf’s masonry was in rough tufa.”—(F. B.)

Gundulf placed the relics of St. Paulinus in a silver shrine at the eastern end of his new cathedral.

Ernulf, Prior of Canterbury, began the second Norman church about 1120. This was continued by his successor, John of Canterbury.

“Subsequently the choir was re-arranged and the nave partly rebuilt, partly re-faced, added to, and finished with the west front, which, to a great extent, still remains. This later Norman work was carried out from east to west during the episcopate of Ernulf (1115-24) and John of Canterbury (1125-37). The upper part of the west front and some of the carving may not have been completed within even that period. What seems certain is, that we are indebted to later Norman builders for the re-casing of the piers of the nave arcade, the greater richness of their capitals, the outer decorated order of the arches, the triforium with its richly diapered tympana, and the west front. Assigning most of these works to the time of Bishop John, as seems best, we can point to others that testify to Ernulf’s architectural skill. He is recorded to have built the refectory, dormitory and chapter-house. Portions of these still remain, and one feature, in the ornamentation of the chapter-house, especially, marks it as his work. This is a peculiar lattice-like diaper, which occurs elsewhere at Rochester—in fragments that belonged probably to a beginning by him of the renovation of the choir—but has only been noticed at one other place: by the entrance to the crypt at Canterbury, where also it is due to him.”—(G. H. P.)

The Cathedral was dedicated in 1130; but while King Henry I., the Archbishop of Canterbury and many of the nobility were still in the city a fire broke out “without any regard to the majesty of the King, grandeur of the church or solemnity of the occasion,” as an old chronicle quaintly observes, and greatly damaged the new church.

Two other fires occurred in the same century, and in 1179 the monks set to work to rebuild the whole cathedral.

“As usual they arranged their building operations so as to avoid interfering with the services in the choir as long as possible. First they rebuilt the north aisle of the choir, but not so high as it is at present. The aisle remained narrow because Gundulf’s tower was in the way. But the south aisle of the choir they doubled in width. Next they set to work at the east end, planning it, as at Hereford, as an eastern transept with an eastern aisle and projecting eastward an oblong sanctuary (cf. Southwell). The new transept was lofty and broad; and it is quite possible that it was built over the top of Gundulf’s east end without disturbing daily services within it. Then when all was finished Gundulf’s east end was pulled down. Unlike the Worcester monks they preserved the level of the Eleventh Century choir, and consequently had to continue Gundulf’s crypt eastward. In the new presbytery is seen the same curious mixture of quadripartite and sexpartite vaulting as in St. Hugh’s eastern transept at Lincoln. All this work was finished in 1227.”—(G. H. P.)

The monks were enabled to undertake rebuilding on this large scale because in 1201 they acquired a new saint. A baker of Perth, named William, famed for his piety, started to the Holy Land. He got as far as the road to Canterbury, where his servant killed him for his money. The monks found the body and buried it in the choir of St. Andrew’s. St. William soon began to work miracles and attracted many of the pilgrims on their way to the Shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. The choir, rebuilt by means of the offerings, was first used for service in 1227.

“The choir and transepts of Rochester Cathedral are a very beautiful and remarkable example of Early English. The architect was William de Hoo, first sacristan, then prior, and there is some reason to believe that he is the same person as William the young Englishman, who assisted William of Sens after his fall from the scaffold at Canterbury, and completed the work there. A young man at Canterbury in 1185, able to carry on and complete such a work, may very well have become the architect on his own account of the daughter church of Rochester in 1201-1227, and there is great resemblance in style between Rochester and the later work at Canterbury.”—(J. H. P.)

About this time the monks resolved to have a central tower and to rebuild the nave. While all this work was going on, the church was desecrated by the troops of Simon de Montfort. A chronicler relates that

“They entered the church of St. Andrew on the day on which the Lord hung on the cross for sinners. Armed knights on their horses, coursing around the altars, dragged away with impious hands some who fled for refuge thither, the gold and silver and other precious things being with violence carried off thence. The buildings were turned into horses’ stables, and everywhere filled with the dung of animals and the defilement of dead bodies.”

In 1343 the central tower was completed by Bishop Hamo de Hythe, who hung in its wooden spire four bells, named Dunstan, Paulinus, Ythamar and Lanfranc. Bishop Hamo is said to have reconstructed in alabaster and marble the shrines of Paulinus and Ythamar. To the middle of the Fourteenth Century belongs also the beautiful doorway leading into the Chapter-House and Library.

In the Fifteenth Century, the clerestory and vaulting of the north-choir-aisle were finished and Perpendicular windows were placed in the nave aisles. The great west window was inserted about 1470, and the whole of the Norman clerestory was taken off and a new clerestory and a new wooden roof were put up. The northern pinnacle of the west gable was also rebuilt. About 1490, the Lady-Chapel was erected in the corner between the south transept and the nave.

In 1540 the Cathedral surrendered to the King; and became known as the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1558 the body of Cardinal Pole rested here one night on its way to Canterbury. An eyewitness speaks of

“the funeral pompe which trulie was great and answerable both to his birth and calling, with store of burning torches and mourning weedes. At what time his coffin, being brought into the church, was covered with a cloth of black velvet, with a great cross of white satten over all the length and bredth of the same, in the midst of which cross his Cardinal’s hat was placed.”

The church suffered from the Puritans in 1642.

Samuel Pepys speaks of repairs in 1661. More were made in 1742-43. In 1749, the steeple was rebuilt. A new organ was acquired in 1791; and at the close of the Eighteenth Century the upper part of Gundulf’s tower was taken down.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century repairs and restorations were constantly made. The glass chiefly consists of memorials to heroes of the wars of the Nineteenth Century.

The best approach is from the High Street through the College Gate, which marks the entrance to the Precincts, or Green Church Haw. This is also known as Chertseys, or Cemetery Gate, which lovers of Dickens remember as Jasper’s Gateway; for Cloisterham of Edwin Drood is Rochester. The Deanery Gate dating from the reign of Edward III. was formerly the Sacristy Gate. The Priors’ Gate dates from the Fourteenth Century.

The north side of the nave shows two-lighted Perpendicular windows with irregular quatrefoils in their heads; the north transept (Early English) a high gable with three circular windows and pinnacles. And on the north side of the choir Gundulf’s Tower to which there are two entrances,—one through an opening in the north wall, the other through a doorway in the south-west corner. In the angle between the south aisle and transept we note the Lady-Chapel (Perpendicular) with three-lighted windows three bays long from east to west and well-buttressed; the south side of the choir contains three lancet windows and a fine doorway that used to open into the cloisters. The south transept (Early Decorated) is well buttressed and its gable adorned with pinnacles and gargoyles. The lowest row of windows belongs to the crypt.

The West Front has been restored. The great central window, and the flat gable above, are Perpendicular (restored), but all the rest is either original Norman work, or as accurate a reproduction of this as possible.

The great West Doorway (late Norman) dates from the first half of the Twelfth Century.

“It is formed by five receding arches and every stone of each of these is carved with varying ornamental designs. Between the second and third of them runs a line of cable moulding, an ornament which occurs also inside the door. Each arch has its own shaft and the groups of five on each side are elaborately banded. The shafts have richly sculptured capitals, and in those on the south side, as well as in the tympanum, the signs of the Evangelists appear. The shafts second from the door on either side are carved with statues, two of the oldest in England. These are much mutilated, but they were thought worthy of great praise by Flaxman. That on the spectator’s left is said to represent King Henry I. and the other his wife, the ‘good Queen Maud.’ This attribution is probably correct, as these sovereigns were both great benefactors to the Cathedral and were living when the front was being built. The figure of the Queen has suffered the more; it is recorded to have been especially ill-used by the Parliamentarians in the days of the great Civil War. The tympanum contains a figure of Our Lord, seated in Glory, within an aureole supported by two angels. His right hand is raised in benediction and his left hand holds a book. Outside the aureole are the symbols of the four Evangelists: the Angel of St. Matthew and the Eagle of St. John, one on each side above the Winged Lion of St. Mark and the Ox of St. Luke similarly placed below. A straight band of masonry crosses beneath the lunette, and has carved on it twelve figures, now much mutilated, but supposed to have represented the twelve Apostles. All the sculptured work of the portal has suffered greatly from age and exposure and from the hand of man. In the recent restoration the coping has been renewed, the shafts have been given separate bases once more and many of the most worn stones have been replaced by new ones carved in facsimile.”—(G. H. P.)

This doorway resembles those on the Continent and shows the influence of the East. Freeman says: “The superb western portal at Rochester Cathedral is by far the finest example of this kind, if not the finest of all Norman doorways.”

The Mayor and Corporation of Rochester still have the right of entry in their robes by this door, through which we now pass. Immediately we descend four steps into the Nave:

“The nave, 150 feet long to the cross of the lantern, is Norman, as far as the last two bays eastward. If, as is most probable, it is a part of Gundulf’s work, it was, no doubt, a copy of the Norman nave at Canterbury; and we are thus enabled to judge fairly what the appearance of the metropolitan cathedral was in this part of it. Its architecture is plainer than that of the contemporary examples in France, though owing to its having been always destined for a wooden roof, the piers and the design generally are lighter than where preparation was made for a stone vault. The triforium is richly ornamented; and the arches open to the space above the side-aisles as well as to the nave, a peculiarity which both Rochester and Canterbury may have received from the church of St. Stephen’s at Caen, where the same arrangement may still be seen. Lanfranc, the builder of the Norman church at Canterbury, had been Abbot of St. Stephen’s. The clerestory windows above, like those of the aisles, are Perpendicular; and the roof seems to have been raised at the time of their insertion. This is of timber and quite plain.

“In passing beyond the Norman portion of the nave to the Early English, of which nearly all the rest of the Cathedral consists, the strong influence of Canterbury is at once apparent. The double transepts, the numberless shafts of Petworth marble, and perhaps the flights of stairs ascending from either side of the crypt, recall immediately the works of the two Williams in the metropolitan church, which always maintained the closest connection with Rochester, her earliest daughter.”—(R. J. K.)

At the end of the northern aisle we note the early Fourteenth Century doorway for the use of the parishioners of St. Nicholas’s altar. The lower end of the southern aisle terminates in a blind arcade of three arches. Each aisle end has also a round-headed Norman window. The great West Window is divided into eight lights separated into

Rochester: Nave, east

Rochester: Choir, west

two rows by a horizontal mullion. The glass commemorates the officers and men of the Royal Engineers who fell in the South African and Afghan campaigns. The subjects are Biblical scenes and heroes.

In the south-west corner of the Nave, a charming little Norman doorway opens into the tower. A fine embattled moulding runs round the arch.

The crossing is noticeable for the finely clustered shafts of the tower-piers.

The North Transept (Early English) dates from about 1235. The South Transept (Early Decorated) is later. The north transept is the richer of the two. The corbels of monastic heads of great excellence deserve notice.

In the east wall, opposite the entrance to the Perpendicular Lady-Chapel, two bays were included under one arch to form a recess for the altar of the Virgin Mary, about 1320.

The south transept underwent some alteration when the Lady-Chapel was built. On the wall under the central window a monument to Richard Watts was erected in 1736. Watts, a member of Queen Elizabeth’s second Parliament, entertained her at “Satis House” in 1573. He also left provisions in his will for the poor and founded in 1579 the “House of the Six Poor Travellers,” where nightly six poor wayfarers are provided with supper, bed and breakfast and presented with fourpence when they leave.

Near the Watts monument a brass tablet to Charles Dickens, who made the House of the Six Poor Travellers famous, connects “his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and latest years were passed and with the associations of Rochester Cathedral and its neighbourhood, which extended over all his life.”

The Choir, reached by a flight of ten steps, is higher than the nave. It is entered through iron gates in the central doorway of the screen, which represent St. Andrew, King Ethelbert, St. Justus, St. Paulinus, Bishop Gundulf, William de Hoo, Bishop Walter de Merton and Cardinal John Fisher, designed by Mr. John Pearson.

The organ is on the screen beneath the choir-arch. The Choir, remodelled in 1825-1830,

“is entered by a flight of steps rendered necessary, as at Canterbury, by the height of the crypt below. It was completed sufficiently for use in 1127. It is thoroughly developed Early English, although much has evidently been borrowed, even in detail, from the Canterbury transition work. It is narrow and somewhat heavy; defects not lightened by the woodwork of the stalls, which is indifferent, or by the use of colour,—a single line of which, however, is carried along the ribs of the vaulting with very good effect.

“The brackets of Early English foliage, from which the blind wall-arches spring, should be noticed. Two large ones especially, at the angles of the eastern transept, are excellent specimens of this period, before the naturalism of the Decorated had begun to develop itself. A fragment of mural painting, apparently of the same date as the choir itself, remains on the wall, close above the pulpit. The painting, when entire, is said to have represented a subject not uncommon in early churches—the Wheel of Fortune with various figures—king, priest, husbandman and others—climbing it.”—(R. J. K.)

This painting (5 feet 10 inches high and 2 feet 2 inches wide) dates from the Thirteenth Century. Fortune dressed as a queen, and in yellow, moves the wheel with her right hand.

Passing into the North-choir-transept, still Early English and a part of William de Hoo’s work, the first point of interest is St. William’s Tomb, at the north-east corner, of Purbeck marble, with a floriated cross.

Towards the centre of the transept is a flat stone marked with six crosses, upon which St. William’s Shrine is said to have rested. The steps which descend into the north aisle of the Choir are, as at Canterbury, deeply worn by the constant ascent of pilgrims.

West of the Saint’s tomb lies Walter de Merton, founder of Merton College, Oxford, and Bishop of Rochester from 1274 to 1277. His tomb is a very beautiful example of Early Decorated.

The present arrangement of the east end is the work of Sir G. Scott. The Choir-stalls were designed by Sir G. Scott, who incorporated as much of the old work as possible.

Just behind the Altar, above which is a picture of The Angels appearing to the Shepherds, by Benjamin West (placed there in 1788), is a fine Piscina. Opposite three stone Sedilia (late Perpendicular) deserve notice.

In the railed-off transept aisle, known as St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, or Warner Chapel, because of the monuments to members of the Warner family (“Palladian” in style, 1666-1698), there is an old weather-worn statue which tradition says is a portrait of Gundulf.

In the eastern aisle of the north-east transept is the Tomb of Bishop John De Sheppy (1353-1360). It is

“probably the most perfect specimen of ancient colour-work now existing in England. It had been bricked up within the arch where it still remains, and was discovered during the repairs in 1825. The colours and monuments deserve the most careful attention, as well for their own beauty as for their great value as authorities. In the maniple held over the left arm, some of the crystals with which it was studded still remain. Remark the couchant dogs at the feet. About their necks are scarlet collars, hung with bells. An inscription with the Bishop’s name surrounds the effigy.”—(R. J. K.)

The short sacrarium, or chancel, east of the transepts, probably formed part of William de Hoo’s work. The beautiful windows at the east end are Decorated. In the south side of the sacrarium, next the altar, a tomb of plain marble is thought to be that of Gundulf.

In the east wall of the south-choir-transept we come to one of the finest pieces of English Decorated in existence,—the Chapter-House Doorway. It dates from the middle of the Fourteenth Century.

“The full-length figures, one on each side of the door, symbolising the Church and the Synagogue, were both headless when Mr. Cottingham restored the doorway, between 1825 and 1830. Much fault has been found with him for turning the first, which is thought to have been like the other, a female figure, into a mitred, bearded bishop holding a cross in his right hand and the model of a church in his left. The blindfolded ‘Synagogue,’ by her broken staff and the tables of the law held reversed in her right hand, typifies the overthrow of the Mosaic dispensation. Above are figures, two on each side, seated at book-desks under canopies. These are supposed to be the four great Doctors of the Church: Saints Augustine, Gregory, Jerome and Ambrose. Quite at the head of the arch, under a lofty pyramidal canopy, we see a tiny nude figure which represents, probably, a pure soul just released from Purgatory. If this is so, it would account for the flames from which the angels, on each side, bearing scrolls, seem to be rising. It has been suggested likewise that the distorted heads, which alternate with squares of foliage in the wider inside moulding of the doorway, typify the sufferings of the soul in its passage. The outside moulding is also interesting, being a wide hollow in the bottom of which circular holes are cut at intervals. Through these can be seen the broad stem from which spring the leaves that ornament the intervening spaces. The arch-head is ogee-shaped outside, with large external and smaller, but not less rich, internal crockets. The square back to it, and the spaces beneath the corbels, on which the Church and Synagogue figures stand, are filled with noteworthy diapers. The first is divided diagonally into sunken squares, each containing a flower; and the others have lion masks in quatrefoils, with five-petalled roses in the alternate spaces.”—(G. H. P.)

A steep flight of stairs leads from this Transept to St. Edmund’s Chapel, south of the Choir. From this we enter the Crypt,

“which extends under the whole of the choir and is one of the best specimens of its class to be found in England. The west and east parts are evidently of a much earlier date than the central, which is Early English, and of the same period as the choir above. In building this, the ancient crypt was probably broken through, and in part reconstructed. The earlier portions are distinguished by very massive piers and circular arches. Between the piers are small pillars, with plain broad capitals. It is not impossible that this part of the crypt may date from before the Conquest. At all events, it is the earliest portion of the existing cathedral, and cannot be later than the work of Bishop Gundulf.”—(R. J. K.)