Rochester, Kent

Rochester
Coordinates: 51.3883° N 0.4982° E Image:Uk outline map.png
Population	24,000 (1991 Census)
OS grid reference	TQ739684
Unitary authority	Medway
Ceremonial county	Kent
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	ROCHESTER
Postcode district	ME1, ME2
Dial code	01634
Police	Kent
Fire	Kent
Ambulance	South East Coast
UK Parliament	Medway
European Parliament	South East England
List of places: UK • England • Kent

Rochester is a large town in Kent, England, 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 Borough of Medway.

Civic Structure

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. This was known as Strood Intra; before 1835 it was about 100 yards wide and stretched to Gun Lane. In the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act the boundaries were extended to include more of Strood and Frindsbury, and part of Chatham known as Chatham Intra. In 1974, Rochester City Council was renamed and extended to include the parishes of Cuxton, Halling and Cliffe, and the Hoo Peninsula.

Rochester had long been a city but was accidentally stripped of its centuries-old city status in 1998 through 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.

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.

Urban environment

The town is home to a number of important historic buildings, the most prominent of which are the Guildhall, the Corn Exchange, Restoration House, Eastgate House, 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.

Military Tradition

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 Royal Dockyard at Chatham was the key to the Royal Navy's long period of supremacy. The town, as part of Medway, is surrounded by two circle of fortresses; the inner line of forts built during the Napoleonic wars are; Fort Clarence, Fort Pitt, Fort Amherst and Fort Gillingham. The outer line of "Palmerston" forts was built during 1860s in light of the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom report, these consisted of Fort Borstal, Fort Bridgewood, Fort Luton, and Twydall Redobts, with 2 forts on islands in the Medway; Fort Hoo and Fort Darent.

During World War I the Short Brothers' aircraft company manufactured the first plane to launch a torpedo,the Short Admiralty Type 184, and during World War II manufactured the first four engined bomber,the Stirling, and flying boats at its "sea-plane" factory on the River Medway not far from Rochester Castle.

The decline in naval power and in shipbuilding in general led to the Navy abandoning the shipyard at Chatham, and the subsequent demise of much of the local marine industry. 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. On the closure of Chatham Dockyard in 1985- the area saw an unprecedented surge in local unemployment to 15.9%. This dropped to 3.5% in 2004.

History

Etymology

The Romano-British name for Rochester was Durobrivæ. This is commonly translated as 'stronghold by the bridge' or 'stronghold by the bridges'.^[1] This could have been a Belgic Settlement or oppidum, but there was no bridge in AD 43.^[2] It was also known as Durobrovum and Durobrivis, which could be a Latinisation of the British word 'Dourbruf' meaning swiftstream^[3]

It is recorded as Durobrivis c.730 and Dorobrevis in 844.^[1] It was pronounced as 'Robrivis. Bede copied down this name, c730, mistaking its meaning as Hrofi's fortified camp (OE Hrofes cæster). From this we get c730 Hrofæscæstre, 811 Hrofescester, 1086 Rovescester, 1610 Rochester.^[1]

As the name for the city of Rochester contains the Latin word 'castra', which is present in the names of many cities that were once Roman camps(e.g. Chester Latin 'Deva'), it is assumed that Rochester was a fortified Roman town, but no evidence has been found of such fort. The Roman street pattern suggest that it was a line of shops and houses built alongside a road, and systematic fortification did not take place until after AD 175.^[2]

The Latinised adjective 'Roffensis' refers to Rochester.^[3]

Traditional parishes

There were three traditional parishes within the city of Rochester, St Margaret's, St Nicholas' and the Cathedral.^[4]

Pre Roman

• 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.

Roman

• AD 43: The Romans arrived and called the settlement Durobrivae. On the strength of this name alone, one theory suggests that there was a 'fortified town by a bridge'. There was no bridge when the Romans arrived, and no fort has been discovered by archaeologists. Alternatively, Aulus Plautius 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.^[2] A bridge was built. There is evidence that the Romans bridged the river at the same point as the present bridge. They constructed a sustnatial causeway 14ft wide, over the marshy ground the Strood Side of the river,to the present day Angel Corner.^[2]
• 190+: Systematic earthen fortifications were established.
• 225+: These were replaced by stone, which are still extant.
• 427 Romans leave Britain

Kentish Kings

• 410 – 604: Tradition states that Rochester was continuously occupied by Celts, Jutes and/or Saxons. The Jutish brothers Hengist and Horsa landed at Ebbsfleet in AD 449, and defeated the Britons at Aylesford.
• 600: King Ethelbert of Kent (560-616) made a code of about 90 laws dealing with criminal acts, which were copied in twelfth century in the Textus Roffensis.
• 604: Augustine of Canterbury 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.
• 676: Rochester was sacked by Æthelred of Mercia.
• 730: Bede writes down the name as Hrofæscæstre.
• 842: Sacked by the Danes.
• 877: Alfred of Wessex orders the building of ships to fight the Danes. This could be the start of Medway's military shipbuilding history.
• 884: Under siege from the Danes again.
• 930: Rochester has a right to mint coins.
• 960: Wooden bridge across the Medway.^[5]

All this is evidence of an important and thriving continuous civic life.

Norman

• 1077: Gundulf is consecrated bishop.
• 1080: Gundulf commences the new cathedral, on the site between the Roman wall and Watling Street, over the previous cathedral.
• 1087: Gundulf starts building the Norman castle. Its curtain wall follow Roman walls, and its keep is 113ft high, 70ft × 70ft in breadth.
• 1130: The Norman cathedral is complete.

Middle Ages

• 1215: Besieged by King John. It fell on November 30.
• 1227: Completion of Early English quire at the cathedral.
• 1264: City attacked by Simon de Montfort.
• 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.^[5]

Tudor and Stuart

• 1504 – 1535: St John Fisher, bishop. 1535 appointed cardinal and executed by Henry VIII because he refused to sanction the divorce of Catherine of Aragon.
• 1547 – 1550: Nicholas Ridley, bishop. 1554 executed by Queen Mary for demands of faith: a Protestant martyr.
• 1559: Construction of Upnor Castle to protect Chatham Dockyard. Upnor is an estuarine water castle.
• 1560: Sir Francis Drake born in Devon. At the age of six he moved to Upchurch where his father was made vicar.
• 20 May 1660: Sir Francis Clarke entertained King Charles II 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.
• 11 June 1667: Dutch Raid on the Medway. 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.^[6]Trophies from the raid are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
• 1687: Construction of the Guildhall, the ceiling being given by Sir Cloudesley Shovell.^[5]

Georgian and Victorian

• 1701: Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, the famous boys' grammar school, was founded.
• 1765: HMS Victory was launched in neighbouring Chatham. It became flagship of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Trafalgar.
• 1850: Thomas Aveling financed by his father in law bought a small millwrighting shop in Edwards yard, where he set up a business producing and repairing agricultural plant.^[5]
• 1861: Thomas Aveling and Richard Porter move to Strood and establish Aveling & Porter, the engineering company which was to become the largest manufacturer of agricultural machines and steam rollers in the country.Of the 12,700 steam engines which they made, no less than 8,600 of them were steam rollers."^[5][7]

20th Century and Modern

• 1974: The municipal borough and city of Rochester merged with the borough of Chatham and part of the Strood Rural District including the Hoo Peninsula. The resulting district was the Borough of Medway. It was later renamed Rochester-upon-Medway, and the city status transferred to the entire borough.
• 1998: the council merged with Gillingham and Chatham to form the Medway unitary authority, consequentially losing its city status [3].

Culture

Dickens

The town 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 , Great Expectations 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.^[8]

The Dickens Centre was ultimately unprofitable and shut in November 2004. Medway Council's Cabinet agreed proposals for the restoration and development of Eastgate House as a major cultural and tourist facility, and for the project to be recognised as a key cultural regeneration project on 7 November 2006^[9]

Library

A new library has been 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)^[10]

Media

It was the setting for the 1965 television film The War Game. ^{[citation needed]}

The model and actress Kelly Brook went to Thomas Aveling School, Rochester.

The University College for the Creative Arts can be found on the Rochester-Chatham border.

Industry

Rochester Airport

Main article: Rochester Airport, England

Rochester City Council purchased the land at Rochester Airfield in September 1933 from the landowner as the site for a municipal airport. One month later Short Brothers, who had started building aircraft in 1909 on the Isle of Sheppey, asked for permission to lease the land for test flying.

In 1934-5 Short Brothers took over the Rochester Airport site when they moved some of their personnel from the existing seaplane works. The inaugural flight into Rochester was from Gravesend, John Parker flying their Short Scion G-ACJI.

In 1979 the lease reverted to the council. After giving thorough consideration to closing the airport, GEC (then comprising Marconi and instrument makers Elliot Automation) decided to take over management of the airport. It maintained two grass runways whilst releasing some land for light industrial expansion.

See also

• Medway
• Gillingham
• Chatham
• Strood
• Medway Little Theatre

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