Rochester Cathedral: Mother Church of the Diocese of Rochester
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Anglo-Saxon, English, Norman, Roman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page25 sections
History
Rochester Cathedral is the historic cathedral church of the Diocese of Rochester in Rochester, United Kingdom. The Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary was built by the English church established in Kent, with its principal medieval fabric constructed between about 1079 and 1238 in Romanesque and Gothic forms. The diocese is the second-oldest bishopric in England after Canterbury, and the cathedral remains the seat of its bishop.
The foundation of the diocese
The first church at Rochester was established in the early seventh century by Justus, a Roman missionary associated with Augustine of Canterbury. King Æthelberht of Kent permitted Justus to found a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle on the site of the present cathedral. The church was probably built chiefly through Æthelberht’s patronage. Its clergy were secular priests rather than monks, and the church received land near Rochester known as Priestfields.
The bishop was also expected to establish schools for training priests and choristers. This educational tradition developed into the institution represented by the King’s School, Rochester, whose musical training was praised by Bede. After Æthelberht died in 617, his successor Eadbald was not a Christian, and Justus withdrew to Francia for about a year before returning to Rochester. In 644, Ithamar became the first locally born bishop consecrated there. On 26 March 655, he consecrated Deusdedit as the first Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury.
Early damage and recovery
King Æthelred of Mercia ravaged Kent in 676, severely damaging the church and contributing to the poverty of the diocese. Bishop Putta abandoned the see, and his successor Cwichelm later resigned because its impoverished condition made the office difficult to sustain. The church and its lands began to recover during the eighth century. In 762, the local ruler Sigerd granted land to the bishop, followed by a further grant from his successor Egbert. Offa of Mercia, then overlord of the local kingdom, confirmed the relevant charter.
The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought another crisis. William the Conqueror granted Rochester Cathedral and its estates to his half-brother Odo of Bayeux, who misappropriated their resources. By the episcopate of Siward, which lasted from 1058 to 1075, only four or five impoverished canons served in a decaying building. After Odo lost the legal proceedings at Penenden Heath, Gundulf became the first Norman Bishop of Rochester in 1077. The cathedral’s lands and buildings were restored to him, allowing him to reorganise the church, obtain royal grants, and support the city.
The Norman cathedral and monastic priory
Gundulf began a new cathedral around 1080, replacing the Anglo-Saxon church. He also replaced its secular clergy with Benedictine monks and established a Benedictine priory, traditionally dated to 1082. The oldest surviving above-ground part of the cathedral, Gundulf Tower, probably formed the first major element of the new building. In 1078, Gundulf founded St Bartholomew’s Hospital outside Rochester. The Priory of St Andrew supplied it with provisions, while offerings from the altars of St James and St Giles also helped support it.
Under Bishops Ernulf, from 1115 to 1124, and John I, from 1125 to 1137, the cathedral reached its principal Norman form. The quire was rearranged, the original piers were encased, parts of the nave were rebuilt, and western bays were added. Ernulf also constructed the refectory, dormitory, and chapter house. John I transferred the relics of Ithamar from the earlier Saxon church into the Norman cathedral.
The cathedral was dedicated in 1130 or 1133 by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of Henry I and thirteen bishops. A major fire soon afterwards damaged the building and devastated much of Rochester. Further fires occurred in 1137 and 1179, with one severely damaging or destroying the eastern arm, transepts, and monastic buildings. Around 1190, Bishop Gilbert de Glanville began rebuilding the eastern part of the cathedral and the monastic buildings. The north quire transept was sufficiently advanced by 1201 for the burial of William of Perth, although his coffin may first have been placed in the north quire aisle.
Pilgrimage and later medieval building
During the siege of Rochester Castle in 1215, King John’s forces looted the cathedral. The quire was back in use by 1227, and Bishop Richard Wendene rededicated the building in 1240. The shrines of Paulinus and William of Perth, together with the relics of Ithamar, made Rochester a pilgrimage centre. Offerings from pilgrims helped finance rebuilding and later additions.
Rochester was governed as a monastic cathedral by a prior supported by the bishop, rather than as an abbey governed by an abbot. Seven of its bishops between 1215 and the Dissolution had originally been monks. The close relationship with the priory and the poverty of the see limited the bishops’ income from sources outside their parishes. Later medieval work included the north and south transepts, alterations to the nave, the raising of the central tower by Hamo de Hythe in 1343, and the Lady Chapel, completed around 1490.
The Black Death, the plague epidemic that spread through Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, reached England in 1347 to 1349 and reduced the priory’s community, probably leaving considerably more than twenty monks. Medieval wall paintings found behind the choir stalls during restoration in the 1870s inspired the present decoration of the quire. Its lions and fleurs-de-lis refer to Edward III’s victories and claims in France. After the Black Prince captured John II of France at Poitiers in 1356, the French king gave sixty crowns to St Andrew’s church at Rochester on 2 July 1360 while returning from captivity.
Reformation and the Dissolution
John Fisher became Bishop of Rochester in 1504 and remained loyal to Rome during Henry VIII’s break with the papacy. Henry made him a cardinal in May 1535 and ordered his execution on 22 June that year. Henry VIII visited Rochester on 1 January 1540 and met Anne of Cleves there for the first time. Later in 1540, the Priory of St Andrew was dissolved by royal command.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries was Henry VIII’s programme of suppressing English monastic houses and transferring their property to the Crown. At Rochester, it ended the Benedictine priory and transformed the cathedral into a church governed by a dean and chapter. Nicholas Ridley became Bishop of Rochester in 1547. He ordered altars in his diocese to be replaced by communion tables and helped Thomas Cranmer compile the Book of Common Prayer. After supporting Lady Jane Grey’s claim to the throne, Ridley was executed for treason and heresy on 16 October 1555.
Decline, damage, and restoration
Confiscation of the cathedral’s estates after the Dissolution contributed to a prolonged decline. In the seventeenth century, Samuel Pepys described the building as shabby. Its position beside Watling Street nevertheless brought royal visitors, including Elizabeth I in 1573 and James I and VI with Christian IV of Denmark in 1606. Archbishop William Laud inspected the cathedral in 1633 and criticised its poor condition, particularly its defective glazing. Repairs followed in 1634, and one bell was recast in 1635.
Parliamentarian troops damaged the cathedral during the English Civil War. They removed and broke the altar table and rails, dismantled the organ, and used parts of the fittings as firewood. Thomas Fairfax’s troops stabled horses in the quire. The monuments largely escaped serious damage, although pits were dug in the nave floor and John Wyld was accused of removing metal from tombs.
Restoration after the war required extensive expenditure. By 1662, £8,000 had been spent, with another £5,000 still needed. Peter Stowell, diocesan registrar from 1629 to 1671, recovered books and fittings at his own expense and paid for a new nave floor between the west door and the pulpitum, the substantial screen separating the nave from the quire. Repairs continued through the eighteenth century, including work on the aisles, roofs, crossing, quire, steeple, and western towers. The south quire aisle and transept were strengthened in 1751, and a new organ was installed in 1791. In 1798, Edward Hasted considered much of the building at risk of collapse.
Lewis Nockalls Cottingham directed a major restoration from 1825 to 1830. He reroofed the quire and south transept because of dry rot, supported a leaning wall with an external face, demolished and rebuilt the tower without a spire, lowered the altar, removed the old altar screen, and reopened blocked arches and windows. He also discovered the tomb of Bishop John de Sheppey. From 1840, his work included the pulpit, bishop’s throne, crossing ceiling, a canopy for the tomb, cleaning, and repairs to the crypt. Removing the old pulpit revealed the medieval Wheel of Life, an allegorical image of changing fortune and the stages of human life.
George Gilbert Scott restored the cathedral between 1871 and 1877. His work covered the nave clerestory, the foundations and timber vault of the south transept, the masonry and western openings of both transepts, the high-pitched roofs and gables, the organ screen, east window, presbytery floor, and choir stalls. Medieval heraldic painting found behind the stalls informed his redecoration of the quire. J. Loughborough Pearson later decorated the quire screen with statues in memory of Dean Robert Scott and supervised the restoration of the west front in 1888. The flanking towers were returned to their original height and form, and the ancient foundations of the Anglo-Saxon church were uncovered. Scott’s tower received its present spire in 1904.
Continuing religious and archaeological life
Further Anglo-Saxon foundations were discovered outside the Great West Door in 1998. In 2004, for the cathedral’s 1,400th anniversary, the Russian icon painter Sergei Fyodorov painted a new fresco in the north transept. Archaeological work in 2014 beneath the Kent Steps revealed Norman foundations under a wall previously regarded as fourteenth-century. Excavation beneath the crypt floor also exposed a Roman house and foundations belonging to the original eastern end of the cathedral.
The cathedral choir traces its institutional history to 604. The present main choir includes boy and girl choristers together with professional adult singers, while the girls’ choir was established in 1995. The current organ derives from an instrument built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd in 1905 and rebuilt by Mander Organs in 1989 under the advice of Paul Hale.
The present ring consists of ten bells cast in 1921 for English change ringing. They were dedicated on 16 May that year and first rung half-muffled in memory of those killed in the First World War. The bells were rehung on a new steel frame in 1960, and the heaviest weighs 1,530 kilograms and is tuned to D. An inscription on the third bell commemorates USS Pittsburgh. James W. Todd paid £52 10 shillings towards its recasting after the ship spent about two months in dry dock at Chatham in 1920.
Remains
Anglo-Saxon and Norman foundations
The cathedral is a Romanesque and Gothic building whose fabric combines Norman work with Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular additions. The original Anglo-Saxon church was approximately 42 feet high and 28 feet wide. Its apse is marked on the present floor, while paving outside the west front follows the line of its walls.
Gundulf’s Norman cathedral had a six-bay presbytery with aisles of equal length. The four eastern bays stood above an undercroft incorporated into the present crypt, and a small eastern projection probably housed the shrine of Paulinus, transferred from the earlier church. The transepts were about 120 feet long and only 14 feet wide. Gundulf planned a nine-bay nave, but most of the south side and only five northern bays had been built during his phase. A southern tower was also built, although no visible remains survive.
West front and nave
Great West Door
The deep Norman Great West Door has concentric patterned arches and a semicircular tympanum showing Christ in glory. Justus and Æthelberht stand on either side, supported by angels, while symbols of the four Evangelists surround the central scene. The lintel carries the Twelve Apostles, and Solomon and the Queen of Sheba appear on the supporting shafts. A glass porch behind the doors allows them to remain open during the day.
Great West Window and towers
The west front is dominated by the large Perpendicular Great West Window. Its dripstone ends in small carved heads, a crenellated parapet rises above the nave roof, and a blind arcade runs beneath the window. Flanking towers rise two levels above the nave roof and end in pyramidal spires. Their lower portions and the aisle ends retain Norman character, while the towers have four stages of blind arcading above plain bases and octagonal spires.
Nave and crossing
The western nave substantially retains Gundulf’s design. Its main arcade is surmounted by a Norman triforium, an upper arcaded gallery, and a Perpendicular clerestory, the upper windowed level. The aisles have plain flat pilasters. Their two eastern bays are Decorated and retain the springing for vaults.
The crossing is the area where the nave, quire, and transepts meet. It contains a nineteenth-century quire screen with an organ above it and figures connected with the cathedral’s early history. The central tower houses the bells and carries the spire. Four carved Green Men, foliage-associated heads common in medieval decoration, appear on the crossing ceiling bosses, and a trapdoor allows the bells to be raised and lowered.
Transepts and chapels
North transept
The north transept dates from 1235 and is Early English in style, although its windows were inserted or renewed during the Victorian period. Its unusual vault is divided into eight sections rather than the more common six. An arched recess contains Sergei Fyodorov’s 2004 baptismal fresco. A piscina, a shallow basin for washing sacred vessels, stands beside it and indicates the position of an altar. The Pilgrim Door is now the principal entrance, while the transept is reached through Black Boy Alley, a medieval pilgrimage route from the High Street. Its high-pitched gables, western openings, blind arcade, and pilgrim entrance were restored or reconstructed by George Gilbert Scott.
South transept and Lady Chapel
The original Lady Chapel occupied the south transept, where its altar stood beneath the eastern arch behind a screen. Around 1490, a large arch was cut through the western wall and a new chapel nave was built against the south aisle. A later screen created the present Lady Chapel. The south transept is Early Decorated, while the Lady Chapel is Decorated and contains modern stained glass depicting biblical and saintly subjects, including the Annunciation, Nativity, St Elizabeth, the Adoration of the Magi, St Mary Magdalene, St Margaret of Scotland, King Arthur, and the Ascension. Memorial inscriptions commemorate those killed in the First and Second World Wars.
Quire transepts and Warner Chapel
The north quire transept and eastern end are Early English in character, although much of the visible eastern end was reconstructed by Scott. Lower windows illuminate the earlier crypt, and the chapter-room wall adjoins the eastern end. The gables were raised to their earlier height, while the roofs were not raised to the corresponding pitch.
The north transept formerly held the shrine of William of Perth, which drew medieval pilgrims. Little of the shrine survives. The enclosed eastern area later became St John the Baptist’s Chapel and then the Warner Chapel. It contains a Cross of Nails, the tomb of Walter de Merton, and a door leading to the treasury.
Monastic ranges and tower
Cloister and former priory buildings
The cloister garth preserves the outline of the medieval cloister. The eastern range contained Ernulf’s chapter house and dormitory, of which the western wall survives. The southern range contained the refectory, built by Prior Helias around 1215. Its lower wall remains and incorporates part of the earlier Roman city wall, which was pierced to form a doorway.
Gundulf Tower and Sextry Gate
Gundulf Tower stands immediately north of the cathedral between the quire transept, the Pilgrim Steps, and Sextry Gate. Originally about 65 feet high, it is the oldest surviving above-ground part of the cathedral. Severe decay during the nineteenth century left it largely ruined by 1897. Its lower part was repaired and roofed in 1925, and its three floors now serve cathedral music and the vergers.
Sextry Gate, east of the north transept, dates from the reign of Edward III and has wooden domestic rooms above it. A rear entrance beyond the gate provides access to Gundulf Tower. The former north-west doorway, now blocked, once connected the cathedral with the adjacent Church of St Nicholas.
Quire, library, and crypt
Quire and chapter-room doorway
The eastern part of the church was formerly the enclosed monastic area. Screens, side walls, and cross walls separated it from the nave and public spaces. Scott’s restoration opened the quire transepts into a larger shared area. The south quire aisle incorporates the base of Gundulf’s former small tower and leads towards the quire transept by the Kent Steps and towards the crypt by an earlier entrance.
The quire walls preserve the medieval Wheel of Life painting, while the surrounding wall pattern is a modern copy. Above it are a blind triforium, clerestory, and sexpartite vaulting. The Decorated Gothic doorway to the chapter room and library has full-length figures representing the Old and New Covenants. Above them are the four Doctors of the Church, authoritative Christian theologians recognised in church tradition, together with angels bearing scrolls and a small figure representing a purified soul rising from purgatory. Deeply undercut foliage and diaper decoration frame the arch.
Crypt
The oldest part of the crypt consists of the two westernmost bays beneath the eastern quire, dating from the 1080s. They have Romanesque groin vaults. The remainder is about a century later and uses quadripartite rib vaulting. The eastern crypt is arranged as a chapel dedicated to Ithamar and is used for private prayer and reflection. Stairs from the south quire aisle lead to the crypt, where archaeological investigation exposed a Roman house and foundations of the cathedral’s original eastern end.
Library and memorials
The medieval library belonged to the Benedictine priory and was administered by the precentor. A catalogue in the Textus Roffensis, completed around 1130, lists 116 volumes and eleven later additions; a catalogue from 1202 lists 280 volumes. The collection included the Gundulf Bible, biblical commentaries, writings by the Church Fathers, historical works including Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, and books on monastic life. Manuscripts were lost during the sieges of 1215 and 1264 and dispersed further after the Dissolution. John Leland saved part of the collection. Ninety-nine Rochester manuscripts entered the Royal Collection in the British Museum, while another thirty-seven works were traced elsewhere.
After the Dissolution, the former vestry east of the south quire transept became the chapter room and library. The library later expanded through donations and bequests. Its east wall, floor, and bookcases were reconstructed between 1907 and 1909 with support from T. H. Foord. The Textus Roffensis is displayed in the cathedral, alongside associated works that include the Custumale Roffense, a Rochester copy of Augustine’s De Consensu Evangelistarum, Peter Lombard’s Book of Sentences, medieval charters, and sixteenth-century Bibles and liturgical books.
More than twenty-five memorials commemorate officers and soldiers of the Corps of Royal Engineers. A separate plaque commemorates Major Samuel Anderson, who surveyed part of the Canada–United States border along the 49th parallel during the 1860s and 1870s.
