Kent Past
The History of Kent
Copyright Kent Past 2010
History of Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway. It is one of the best-
The
Romans under Aulus Plautius built a fort on the site of the present castle to guard
the important river crossing, where they constructed a bridge. There is evidence
of an earth rampart later replaced by a stone wall. The timber piles of the Roman
bridge were rediscovered during the construction of the present road bridge, and
the Roman foundation (and indeed the many generations of stone walls built on the
site) can be viewed from Rochester Esplanade, where the River has retreated.
The Norman
period commenced with the victory of William of Normandy at Hastings. He appointed
his half-
Rochester Castle was indirectly referred to in
the Domesday Book of 1086; it records that the Bishop of Rochester was paid for the
land on which the castle was built. One of 48 castles mentioned in the survey, Rochester
is the only one where landowners were compensated for land taken off them to build
a castle. The fortress town as a whole was besieged successfully by William Rufus
during the Rebellion of 1088. Gundulf was a talented architect: he had started the
building work on Rochester's Norman Cathedral in 1080, and was also responsible for
the White Tower at the Tower of London.
Henry I granted the custody of the castle
to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William de Corbeil in return for his building a
keep. Corbeil started to build the great stone keep in 1127, much of which survives
today. It is the tallest keep in England and, along with the Cathedral that stands
adjacent to it, has dominated the city and river crossing for 800 years. Indeed the
castle and keep occupy fully half of the Roman walled city.
In 1206, King John spent
£115 on repairs to the castle. He even pre-
The
rebels were expecting reinforcements from London but on hearing of the size of King
John's army they turned back at Dartford. Robert Fitzwalter rode out to stop the
king, fighting his way onto the bridge but eventually being beaten back into the
castle. He also sacked the cathedral, took anything of value and stabled his horses
in it, all as a slight to Langton. Orders were then sent to the men of Canterbury
saying, ‘We order you, just as you love us, and as soon as you see this letter, to
make by day and night, all the pickaxes that you can. Every blacksmith in your city
should stop all other work in order to make them and you should send them to us at
Rochester with all speed’. Five siege engines were erected and work carried out to
undermine the curtain wall. By one of these means, the king's forces entered and
held the bailey in early November, and began attempting the same tactics against
the keep, including undermining the south-
Winter was now setting in, and the castle was only taken, on 30
November, by starvation and not by force. John set up a memorial to the pigs and
a gallows with the intention of hanging the whole garrison, but one of his captains,
Savari de Mauleon, persuaded him not to put the rebels to death as a precedent would
be set if John ever surrendered. As a result, only one man was actually hanged, a
young bowman who had previously been in John's service. The remainder of the rebel
barons were taken away and imprisoned at various royal-
Following the castle's fall,
it damaged so as to be undefendable, which was to serve as an example to others who
would stand against King John. Unfortunately this led to the castle falling with
little or no resistance to Prince Louis of France during his invasion of 1216.
King
John died on 19 October 1216, so it fell to Henry III to repair the castle. He spent
over a £1000 on rebuilding, with new stables and gateways, and a further ditch to
strengthen the defences. A new chapel was built next to the Royal apartments in the
bailey. The most notable surviving feature is the new south-
In 1264, the dissident barons, led by Simon de Montfort, attacked
Rochester. They crossed the Medway under cover of the smoke from a fire-
Late in the Hundred Years War, Richard II invested heavily in the defences
of Rochester in response to French invasion threats. He built a new bridge at Rochester,
which included a removable central span, and created a new bastion at the North East
Corner of the castle, guarding the river crossing.
It was briefly taken by Wyatt's
men during his futile uprising of 1554. Although with the invention of gunpowder
and introduction of cannon, this form of castle was no longer so secure. It became
expensive to maintain so fell into disrepair.
It was given into private hands by Queen
Elizabeth the first, and repurchased by the corporation of Rochester during the late
19th century. In the intervening years, a fire had gutted the interior of the castle,
and a large amount of the internal stone had been removed. Even after the castle
came back into public hands, much of the North East Bastion was destroyed by Royal
Engineers creating a new path from the bridge.
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