Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester / A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See

by G. H. Palmer

The North Transept is in the Early English style. Flat buttresses with offsets halve the sides and flank the end. The high gable, with three circular windows and flanking pinnacles, is the work of Sir G. Scott, who rebuilt it, in place of the low, commonplace one that had replaced it about seventy years before. He also raised the roof to its original pitch. The occurrence of blind arches between the windows here is to be noticed, making continuous arcades of which the heads are carried by single shafts. The windows in the northern bay of the west wall were all inserted by Scott, who found only dilapidated blind arcades there, and the doorway in its present form is also by him, he having found the old entry very ruinous. The east side used to be almost entirely hidden by Gundulf’s tower, and is still slightly concealed. It has therefore no windows except in the clerestory, and some bays even of this have none.

The South Transept is of rather later date than its fellow, and belongs to the Early Decorated period. Its very interesting gable was lowered, with the roof, at the same time as that of the north transept, but has fortunately, like it, been replaced by Sir G. Scott. The chief authority for the restoration seems to have been an engraving in the 1788 edition of the “Custumale Roffense.” The gable stands back a little and has its base hidden by a parapet rising above a decorated string course. Beneath a sculptured bust, near the apex, is a chequer-work cross, and lower still a band of chequer-work bearing three shields of arms, the dark squares in each case being formed by flints. The central shield contains the arms of the see, that on the left three crowns, and that on the right a cross with martlets. The transept is well buttressed, and the gable is flanked by pinnacles, beneath which curious gargoyles project. The five graduated windows of the upper range have double shafts on each side, and the connected dripstone over the lower range ends in carved heads. The clerestory of the west wall looking out over the aisle and Lady Chapel roofs is similar to that on the east side and the quatrefoil heads of the two-light windows help to mark the entry into the Decorated period. The little room in the angle between the transept and the choir aisle is used as a vestry and will have to be mentioned again.

The North Side of the Choir can, as has been said, be well seen from the High Street. To one or two points in it attention may well be drawn. In the window heads, the dog-tooth moulding, the characteristic ornament of the Early English style, constantly occurs, and the openings often have side shafts. In the lower tier of the presbytery windows Decorated tracery has been inserted; elsewhere we have Early English work, or, frequently, a modern copy of it. The lowest row of windows lights the crypt. The gable at the end of the north choir transept, that above the east wall of its aisle and that at the east end of the church, are all by Sir G. Scott; they still require roofs of corresponding pitch, a need both great and conspicuous. The gables replaced by these present ones were flat and late in period. The east end and the transept end are both flanked by towers, with double gables crowned by curious little pinnacles, copied by Scott from one still remaining. The east gable has three graduated windows, that to the transept aisle a quatrefoil within a dog-toothed circle. The present form of the east end is altogether due to Sir G. Scott; and to it and its history we shall devote more attention in describing the interior of the church. This part of the fabric is well buttressed.

Of Gundulf’s Tower, on the north side of the choir, between the main and choir transepts, only ruins now remain, but these are older than any other part of the church’s buildings still in existence above ground. The tower was certainly Gundulf’s work and built before his church. The construction of the latter rendered useless two out of the four long narrow windows that had been inserted in the tower, one in each side, on the ground floor, and they were therefore blocked up. The tower, though rather dilapidated, was still almost complete at nearly the end of the last century. A view in Grose’s “Antiquities,” vol. iii., shows it as it was in 1781. At that time it still rose as high as the parts of the church beside it, and traces are to be seen in the print of the flying bridge that formerly connected it with the Early English turret at the north-west corner of the choir transept. There is now, however, only a mere shell of the lower part left. The walls were 6 feet thick, inclosing a space 24 feet square. In the “History and Antiquities of Rochester” (1772), we are told that there were at that time traces of one floor at a height of 20 feet, and of another 25 feet above that. The walls then rose 20 feet more, giving a total height of 65 feet. During the Early English period the north-east angle, which stands quite clear of the church, was strengthened by massive buttresses, and a story, apparently of wood, was added on projecting arches resembling machicolations. This wooden story probably formed the bell chamber; the machicolation-like supports still existed in 1781.

There has been much discussion as to the original purpose of the tower. Some leading antiquaries of the eighteenth, and of the early part of this century, thought that the bridge entrance at the top was at first the only one and that the structure with its massive walls formed the cathedral treasury. It must be remembered, however, that the early English turret to which the bridge was thrown was not in existence until much later. The lower part still remaining is so dilapidated, with all its ashlar facing gone, that it seems impossible to fix the position of the original entrance. At the present day there are two entrances, one through a large opening in the north wall, the other through a doorway in the south-west corner formed by knocking out the back of an old recess.

It seems very likely that the tower was primarily intended to be a defensive work. Whatever its original purpose, however, it is certain that it was used for bells at a very early date. In or before 1154, for he died in that year, Prior Reginald “made two bells and placed them in the greater tower. One which was broken was applied to the making of another bell.” In support of the view that the tower was a defensive work the suggestion has been made that the metal thus re-used may have belonged to the original alarm bell. Two other bells came to the cathedral in the twelfth century, and were probably placed here at once as they are mentioned in the “Custumale Roffense,” written about 1300, as then hanging in the “greater tower,” a name by which this is distinguished from the long destroyed south one. Gundulf’s Tower is certainly, therefore, an early example of a detached campanile, and, if built as such, was probably the first in this country.

As has been before mentioned, its reduction to a mere ruin is of quite recent date. The author of the 1772 edition of the “History and Antiquities of Rochester,” thinking it a bell tower, wrote in that work: “May the present reverend and learned gentlemen (the Dean and Chapter), and their successors, experience the necessity of finishing this venerable tower and applying it to the uses for which, it has been conjectured, it was originally intended.” In the second edition, of 1817, stands: “So far, we regret to say, is this ardent wish from having been realized, that a part of this ancient tower has lately been taken down to supply materials for the repairs of the church.” Denunciations follow of the action of the dean and chapter in thus demolishing one of the most curious and interesting pieces of architecture remaining in England.

The space between the tower and the church seems to have been floored and occupied by the wax-chandler’s chamber and the sacristan’s rooms. The remains of an oven and chimney, conjectured to have been used for the baking of altar-breads, have also been described.

The South Side of the Choir presents no very remarkable features. A brief history of the efforts to save it during the latter part of last century, and in 1825 and the following years, has been given in our opening chapter. The wall of the choir aisle is supported by a flying buttress as well as by the small room in the corner between it and the south main transept. In the wall are three lancet windows, the easternmost with dog-tooth ornament, and a fine doorway, which used to open into the western range of the cloisters. The ends of the outer mouldings of the doorway arch, which also have the dog-tooth, bend round and upwards in an unusual way that is worthy of notice. All that can be seen of the transept end is by Cottingham. He gave it a new ashlar facing, which, as the wall was considerably out of the perpendicular, constituted an invisible buttress. His destruction of the old brick buttresses was a great improvement. The same architect found no gable, and built the present rather flat one containing a circle ornamented with zigzag mouldings. In the south wall of the transept aisle is a Decorated window with beautiful tracery. This window was of course an insertion. Remains of recesses on each side of it, like those still in the transept end, made this evident until 1825, when they were hidden beneath the smooth modern surface. The southern wall of the presbytery is almost entirely concealed by the eighteenth century chapter room, with its plain, square-headed, sashed windows. The clerestory, however, which is like that on the north side, appears over the red-tiled roof of that modern structure. In the basement on this side some windows have quite recently been inserted, to light the new vestries in the crypt, and a door opens into the cellar beneath the chapter room.

The Monastic Buildings and Cloisters originally stood in the usual position on the south side of the nave, and were apparently of wood, but these first structures having soon perished, their successors were erected in an uncommon position, said to be unique in this country, on the same side of the choir. At Lincoln, also, the cloister is indeed beside the the choir, but to the north of it. The earliest monastic buildings at Rochester were of Gundulf’s time; the next, in the new situation, were the work of Ernulf, who built the chapter house, dormitory, and refectory. Of these fine specimens of later Norman architecture, ruins still exist. The chapter house and dormitory formed the east side of the cloisters. Of the western wall of the chapter house three arches remain, with a recess, having zigzag mouldings continued down to its base, and not merely round the head, on each side of the central arch, between it and the others. The chapter house was an oblong room, as some remains of it within the deanery prove, and must have been fine and of ample size. It was raised above the ground level, and the space beneath, into which the three lower archways (now walled up) opened, was looked upon as an honourable place of burial; it was entered by the middle arch, the side shafts of which have fine and elaborate capitals, while the arch itself is richly sculptured and has elaborate zigzag and other mouldings. The panels round it are said to contain representations of the twelve signs of the zodiac, but all the carved work here (general in Caen stone) is so worn and decayed that it is impossible, in most cases, to feel sure of what was intended. The damaged state of all the carved work is possibly to some extent a result of the great fires of the twelfth century. Ernulf’s diaper occurs in the spandrels on either side of this central arch; and each of the outer arches has zigzag and billet mouldings and, within them, a row of a diaper pattern. Passing on to the south the next arch also has zigzag and circular mouldings, while its lunette is occupied by a relief, now so worn that the subject is scarcely discernible. It represents Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. The father holds his son with his outstretched left hand, and is about to slay him, when God’s hand appears in the clouds above. Behind Isaac is seen the ram that was afterwards to be offered in his stead, and in the opposite corner, behind Abraham, there seem to be traces of two small figures, probably the two servants who had been left at a distance to await the patriarch’s return. This interpretation is confirmed by three words of an inscription, which still remain round the inner part of the arch (Aries per cornua). Beneath the lunette runs a fine band of foliated ornament, including birds. The capitals are rich, and an angel and a bird appear in those on the south side. Continuing southwards the still remaining lower portion of the dormitory west wall has a blind arcade with double intersecting heads, semicircular like all the other arches here, but interrupted once or twice by an uncut arch.