is a small city in
Kent , at the lowest bridging point of the
River Medway about 30 miles (50 km) from
London . With
Chatham ,
Gillingham ,
Strood and a number of outlying villages it makes up the
Medway Towns .
The city is home to a number of important historic buildings, the most prominent of which are
Rochester Castle and
Rochester Cathedral . Many of the buildings in the town centre date from the
18th Century or as early as the
14th Century .
Rochester has long been technically a city but was accidentally stripped of its centuries-old
City Status in
1998 due to a local government reorganisation. This was not noticed by Medway Council until
2002 ; it has since written to the
Queen asking for city status to be conferred again.
The city was for many years the favourite of
Charles Dickens who lived nearby at
Gad's Hill, Higham , and who based many of his novels in the area. Descriptions of the town appear in ''
Pickwick Papers '' and lightly fictionalised as Cloisterham in ''
The Mystery Of Edwin Drood ''. This link is celebrated in Rochester's Dickens Festival each June. The 16th-century red-brick Eastgate House once housed the town's museum. In the
1980s the museum was moved further west to the Guildhall so that Eastgate House could become the Charles Dickens Centre.
In the same decade the High Street was redecorated with
Victorian -style street lights and hanging flower baskets to give it a more welcoming atmosphere. The town also has revived the annual Sweeps' Festival, which has ancient roots relating to the
Green Man , and is celebrated by a large gathering of
Morris Dance sides.
The Dickens Centre was ultimately unprofitable and shut in
November 2004 . The future use of Eastgate House has not yet been decided: a plan to move the library there was rejected in 2004. A new library is now being built alongside the Adult Education Centre, Eastgate. This will enable the register office to move from Maidstone Road, Chatham to the Corn Exchange in Rochester High Street (where the library is now housed). According to a report presented to Medway Council's community services overview and scrutiny committee on 28 March 2006, the new library will be open "in late summer" (2006) -
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Rochester has for centuries been of great strategic importance through its position near the confluence of the
Thames and the
Medway . Its castle was built to guard the river crossing, and the dockyard at
Chatham was the key to the
Royal Navy 's long period of supremacy. The town is surrounded by a circle of fortresses —Forts
Amherst ,
Luton ,
Borstal ,
Pitt ,
Clarence ,
Delce and others - built during the
Napoleonic Wars and in the
1860s . During
World War II the
Short Brothers ' aircraft company manufactured flying boats at its factory on the Medway not far from Rochester Castle. However, the decline in naval power and in shipbuilding in general led to the Navy abandoning the shipyards and the demise of much of the marine industry in and around the town. Rochester and its neighbouring communities were hit hard by this and have experienced a painful adjustment to a post-industrial economy, with much social deprivation and unemployment resulting.
Rochester and its neighbours,
Chatham and
Gillingham , form a single large urban area known as the
Medway Towns with a population of about 250,000. However, Rochester has always governed land on the other side of the Medway in
Strood , and in recent times included the parishes of
Cuxton ,
Halling and
Cliffe , and the
Hoo Peninsula .
Watling Street passes through the town, and to the south the River Medway is bridged by the
M2 Motorway and the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link .
Model and actress
Kelly Brook went to school in
Thomas Aveling School, Rochester.
Also finding refuge here is the fabled
Art School , the
University College For The Creative Arts At Rochester .
- Pre-Roman: Evidence of Neolithic settlement nearby at Kit's Coty House . Belgic remains were found in 1961 by R E Chaplin under the Roman levels. Coin moulds suggest that this was a centre of some importance.
- set up a small fort, which was not needed long, as Kent was soon settled. The Roman settlement provides us with the present High Street and Northgate/Boley Hill.
- 190+ : Systematic earthen fortifications were established.
- 225+ : This was replaced by stone, which is still extant. There is evidence that the Romans bridged the river at the same point as the present bridge, and constructed a causeway 14ft wide, over the marshy ground the Strood Side of the river.
- , Jutes and/or Saxons . The Jutish brothers Hengist and Horsa landed at Ebbsfleet in AD 449 , and defeated the Britons at Aylesford . Jutish traditions were different from the Saxons.
- sends Justus to found a cathedral at Rochester, 42ft high and 28ft wide. The apse is marked in the present cathedral. This was the second see after Canterbury.
- 604: The King's School is founded.
- .
- .
- orders the building of ships to fight the Danes. This could be the start of Medway's military Shipbuilding history.
- again.
- 930 : Rochester has a right to mint coins.
All this is evidence of an important and thriving continuous civic life.
- is consecrated bishop.
- , over the previous cathedral.
- castle. Its curtain wall follow Roman walls, and its keep is 113ft high, 70ft × 70ft in breadth.
- 1130 : The Norman cathedral is complete.
- . It fell on November 30.
- Quire at the cathedral.
- .
- 1343 : Central tower at cathedral raised.
- 1461 : The first mayor.
- 1470 : The great window at the cathedral is built.
Rochester Cathedral is one of England's smaller cathedrals, yet it demonstrates all styles of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
- , bishop. 1535 appointed cardinal and executed by Henry VIII because he refused to sanction the divorce of Catherine Of Aragon .
- , bishop. 1554 executed by Queen Mary for demands of faith: a Protestant martyr.
- to protect Chatham Dockyard . Upnor is an estuarine water castle.
- born in Devon , was six and moved to Upchurch where his father was made vicar.
- on the eve of his Restoration to the throne. His home, Restoration House, in Crow Lane, was used as the basis of Satis House in Great Expectations , by Charles Dickens .
- December 1689 : King James II spent his last night as king at Abdication House in the High Street, now the Lloyds TSB bank.
- . In the Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch under De Ruijter broke through the chain at Upnor and sailed to Rochester Bridge capturing and firing the English fleet. Samuel Pepys , who was responsible at the Navy Board, describes the last successful invasion of British soil in his diaries. Trophies from the raid are in the Rijksmuseum , Amsterdam.
- .
- , the famous boys' grammar school, was founded.
- was launched in neighbouring Chatham . It became flagship of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Trafalgar .
In
1974 the
Municipal Borough and city of Rochester was merged with the borough of
Chatham and part of the
Strood Rural District including the
Hoo Peninsula . The resulting district was the . It was later renamed '''Rochester-upon-Medway''', and the city status transferred to the entire Borough.
In
1998 it merged with
Gillingham to form the Medway
Unitary Authority , consequentially losing its city status
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- Rochester, The evolution of the City. Ronald Marsh. 1974 p&p Medway Borough Council.
- City of Rochester upon Medway Visitors Guide 1996.
- Rochester Cathedral, Pitkins Guide ISBN 0-85372-669-8
- The Dutch Raid, p&p City of Rochester Society 1998.
