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 was erected about 1235, in the Early English period and style. The screens to the gallery before the clerestory lancets have a main arch in each bay, with dog-tooth moulding, divided into three by Purbeck marble shafts placed the width of the window apart. In each bay without a window there is a row of blind arcading, which, like the mouldings of the arches by which the gallery passes through the wall piers, springs from carved corbel heads. In the transept end the screens before the three lancets of the clerestory are of the usual form, but are adapted to their graduated heights, and there are small additional arches, one at each side.

The arch opening into the north aisle shows a curious device for preserving a different level on each of its sides. On the transept side we see the mouldings of an arch like, and on the same level as, its neighbours to the north. The western half of the whole thickness of the wall is, however, continued lower, exhibiting a plain surface to the east, but terminating on the aisle side, at the height of the eastern arches of the nave, in mouldings that we should have expected to find higher up. This lower level was necessary on account of the vaulting at this end of the aisle, of which traces still remain, but the whole arrangement was clumsy, and we cannot be surprised at not finding it repeated on the other side of the church.

The next bay has on the triforium level a curious windowless recess, the mouldings of whose arch spring from two shafts on each side. There is another very similar recess opposite, but with only single side shafts.

The two northern bays of the east wall are occupied by a wide and deep recess [3], the arched ceiling of which rises to within 3 or 4 feet of the clerestory level. The outside shafts, and those from which the central ribs of the ceiling used to spring, have all gone, though their caps remain. Within this great recess there is, on the spectator’s right, a small one, with side shafts, containing a piscina. On the left, in the church’s north wall, is a window, which rises to only half the height of the pointed arch, with side shafts, within which it is inclosed. It was at one time the general belief that this recess used to be the site of the parochial altar of St. Nicholas, which may possibly have stood here during the short time between the completion of the north transept and that of the new work at the east end of the nave, for a document published in the “Registrum Roffense” tells us that, after a dispute about a removal, the position before the pulpitum was assigned to it in 1322. Arrangements were then made to avoid any mutual disturbance of the services of the monks and the parishioners, and the new church for the latter was already talked of. The writer of the “History and Antiquities of Rochester,”[11] quotes a will that suggests a possibility that an altar of Jesu stood on this spot.

The transept end and its west wall have windows of the same form at the triforium level, and there is a similar resemblance in the blind arcades below, except for the doorway restored by Sir G. Scott, and surmounted by an obtuse arch. The arch to the east of this doorway was cleared of masonry in 1840. A large figure, in distemper, of St. Christopher bearing the Infant Christ was then uncovered, but only to fall away as the air was admitted to it. Miss Stevens, daughter of the dean, made as complete a copy of it as possible, as stone by stone was carefully removed to disclose only a small piece at a time, and her drawing, with a note by Mr. Spence, is preserved in the British Museum.

The vaulting of this transept is rather remarkable. It is octopartite in plan, developed from the sexpartite form by the addition of a longitudinal ridge-rib which divides its larger cells. The fine bosses in both transepts merit attention, and so do the corbel-heads to the intermediate vaulting shafts in this one.

The Font [4] standing in the centre of the nave, only a short distance from the west door was erected in memory of the late Canon Burrows, who held a stall here from 1881 until his death in 1892. Executed for the subscribers, in Hopton Wood stone, by Mr. T. Earp, it is round in form, supported by a central column, of quatrefoil section, and four shafts placed corner-wise, rising from a double plinth, on which, facing the door, is the brass inscription tablet. Round the bowl are four groups in relief, facing the cardinal points, with eight single figures inserted in pairs between them. The subject of the west group is “Suffer little children to come unto me;” then passing round to our left we see, in order, figures of Noah and Moses, the Baptism of the Gentile (typified by the Ethiopian), figures of St. Bartholomew and St. Mary Magdalene, the Baptism of our Lord, figures of St. Barnabas and St. Cornelius, the Baptism of the Jew (typified by St. Paul), and finally, figures of St. Lydia and St. Winfred.

The old font, now removed to Deptford parish church, used to stand beneath the second arch, from the west, of the south nave arcade. Made in 1848, this was first used in 1850. In form, it was square and enriched, and borne by a circular column and four corner shafts. A still earlier font is to be seen in an engraving made by John Coney during the second decade of the present century. This stood under the eastern side of the third arch of the same nave arcade, was octagonal in form, with panelled sides, and had a substantial railing round it.

The Pulpit [5] in the nave is more elaborate in form and decoration than that now in the choir. It was designed for the choir by Mr. Cottingham, in 1840, and stood there, opposite the bishop’s throne, until it was removed to its present position by Sir Gilbert Scott. The Stalls are modern and very plain. A tablet on them tells us that they were erected in memory of Mr. Philip Cazenove, who died in 1880, by his son Arthur, an honorary canon. The Lectern is of carved wood, of the well-known form in which the book is borne by an eagle’s out-spread wings.