CHAPTER IV.
ROCHESTER CASTLE.
"I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway."—The Seven Poor Travellers.
To the lover of Dickens, both the Castle and Cathedral of Rochester appeal with almost equal interest. The Castle, however, which stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river Medway, close to the bridge, claims prior attention, and a few lines must therefore be devoted to an epitome of its history in the ante-Pickwickian days.
Tradition says that the first castle was erected by command of Julius Cæsar, when Cassivelaunus was Governor of Britain, "in order to awe the Britons." It was called the "Castle of the Medway," or "the Kentishmen's Castle," and it seems, with other antagonisms, to have awed the unfortunate Britons pretty effectively, for it lasted until decay and dissolution came to it and to them, as to all things. It was replaced by a new castle built by Hrofe (509), which in its turn succumbed to the ravages of time.
Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester (1077), whose name still survives here and there in connection with charities and in other ways in the "ancient city," appears to be entitled to the credit of having commenced to build the present massive square Tower or Keep, the surviving portion of a magnificent whole, sometimes called "Gundulph's Tower," "towards which he was to expend the sum of sixty pounds," and this structure ranks as one of the most perfect examples of Norman architecture in existence. Other authorities ascribe the erection to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, half-brother to William the Conqueror, who is described by Hasted as "a turbulent and ambitious prelate, who aimed at nothing less than the popedom." Later, in the reign of William Rufus, it was accounted "the strongest and most important castle of England." It was so important that Lambarde, in A Perambulation of Kent, says:—"It was much in the eie of such as were authors of troubles following within the realme, so that from time to time it had a part almost in every Tragedie."
Mr. Robert Collins, in his compact and useful Visitors' Handbook of Rochester and Neighbourhood, quoting from another ancient historian, says that "In 1264, King Henry III. [who in 1251 held a grand tournament in the Castle] 'commanded that the Shyriffe of Kent do set aboute to finish and complete the great Tower which Gundulph had left imperfect.'" About 1463, Edward IV. repaired part of the Castle, after which it was allowed to fall into decay. The instructions to the "shyriffe" were no doubt necessary; for although £60 would probably go a great way in the time of Bishop Gundulph, the modern æsthetic builder would do very little indeed for that sum, towards the erection of such an impregnable fortress as Rochester Castle, the walls of which vary from eight to thirteen feet in thickness, whatever his progenitor may have done in 1077.
The Keep—the last resort of the garrison when all the outworks were taken—is considered so beautiful that it is selected, under the article "Castle" in the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, as an illustration of Norman architecture, showing "an embattled parapet often admitting of chambers and staircases being constructed," and showing also "embattled turrets carried one story higher than the parapet." There is also a fine woodcut of the Castle at p. 198 of vol. v. of that work.