“Fenced around with barbican and bastion on the one hand, and girded by high walls towards the river, the legal and baronial occupiers of Rochester Castle sat in safety,” says the historian, “whether dispensing the rude justice to trembling serfs, or quaffing the red wine among their knightly retainers.” The last repairs the castle received were at the hands of the possessor in Edward VI.’s time. James I. granted it to Sir Anthony Welldone, and his descendant Walker Welldone, according to Grose, “sold the timbers of it to one Gimmit, and the stone stairs, and other squared and wrought stone of the windows and arches, to different masons in London; he would likewise have sold the whole materials of the castle to a paviour, but on an essay made on the east side, near the postern leading to Bully Hill, the effects of which are seen in a large chasm, the mortar was found so hard that the expense of separating these stones amounted to more than their value, by which this noble pile escaped a total demolition.” The streets of Rochester, though they contain many beautiful houses of ancient date, can boast of little, if anything at all, equal to the castle in antiquity. There is one very fine gabled residence, now used as a school, on the south side of the city. The gateway called the College Gate is here shown. It is built of oak, with clinker boarding, and is extremely picturesque. The street in which it stands leads up to the cathedral precincts. The ancient house architecture of Kent is very valuable for examples. In the neighbourhood of Broadstairs the chimneys, both of brick and stone, afford a great store of quaint examples for this little understood branch of building. And all antiquarians are indebted to Kent as being the home of Camden, the greatest of antiquaries, who died at Camden Place in 1623, at the residence where the Emperor Napoleon III. expired exactly 250 years later.
Two illustrations only are given in Sussex, though it has many quaint old street scenes. Chichester is rather disappointing to those who see it for the first time, and know it by its old cross and cathedral. There still remain in the upper part of South Street some houses with overhanging cornices, that are attributed, and in all probability accurately so, to Sir Christopher Wren. The Cross has often been described and drawn, and is a thoroughly good example of street architecture. It is quite impossible to do more than hurry over this county. Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports before the reign of King John, and in the reign of Henry VI. it was the principal port of embarkation for the continent. The Land Gate, the Strand Gate, and the New Gate, three out of its old gateways, are still standing, though they are rather ruinous, and Winchelsea itself is in a state of decay, hardly being more now than a village.
Rye is about two miles to the north-east of Winchelsea, and is a very ancient town with grass-grown streets. They are nearly all narrow, steep, and very winding. Rye is one of the Cinque Ports, like Winchelsea, and as yet its harbour continues to be of some little consequence. The church clock, which is still in use, is said to be the most ancient in England. The gabled houses here shown are very characteristic of the town, and much resemble those in Chester and Shrewsbury.
It has been said that it is difficult to decide if this rather familiar style of building which still adorns so many of our older county towns is an adaptation of a still older form. “Owing to constant improvement,” says an author of a paper read before the Liverpool Architectural Society, “it is impossible to determine exactly the various periods, because old timbers and productions in wood were used in the construction of new houses. For the same reason it is difficult to say whether examples were new in design or copies from earlier buildings. Such an instance we have in the ceiling of Neworth Castle, which is richly carved, and bears the character of the fourteenth century, although the structure was rebuilt almost entirely towards the close of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.” We have already remarked on the former part of this sentence, as illustrated in so many street fronts in Chester, and for the second part, there is no doubt that the ordinary street architecture of Queen Elizabeth’s time, where it had none of the peculiarities introduced by Thorpe into the country, was similar to that which existed for centuries before. It is quite possible that the house in Shrewsbury where Richmond lodged before the battle of Bosworth[2] was of some age then—indeed, there are reasons for supposing so; yet there is no characteristic in it that would distinguish it from a town house of Charles II.’s time, unless, of course, the latter had some enrichment. East Grinstead is seated on a hill near the borders of Sussex. It contains many very interesting half-timbered houses, not dissimilar in character to the illustrations from Rye. The one we have shown is a characteristic stone house, with a fine massive chimney and mullioned windows.
If some sort of a consecutive order is to be kept in the counties, Middlesex would almost seem to follow Kent and Surrey, and London is yet full of quaint old relics like Staples Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Crosby Hall, the interesting streets at the north side of St. Paul’s. There is also much curious architecture in the buildings of the twelve great guilds, and in the squares and streets round Russell Square are many fine old remains of Queen Anne’s time. Many of these are turned into lodging-houses, or let off in flats to professional men; but one thing is certain, there is a wealth of old city architecture inside London houses that would surprise many an old inhabitant.
This is more valuable now since the revival, by Mr. Norman Shaw, of the Queen Anne architecture; not that it necessarily should supersede all other styles, or any other, but there are places where it might have its use, and form a valuable addition to the picturesque appearance of the landscape. But in coming to London after the streets and homesteads we have been considering, one feels almost like a country cousin that has arrived from the shires. Anything that can be said is so well known already by nearly all the residents. Every spot round London is classic ground. Hampstead, where the meetings of the famous Kit Kat Club
