Rochester Cathedral Research Guild

Forming in September 2016 and comprising a small group of volunteers, the Research Guild embarked on collation of the cathedral’s historical, archaeological and architectural documentation and researching the many buildings, artefacts and persons featuring in the long history of the site. To these aims it now seems appropriate to add the recording of the building’s architectural and artistic features to aid their interpretation and conservation. The ultimate objective of production of publications, mostly in the form of project reports, to an academic standard and available freely online. The guild has now published several such reports covering activities over the last year with many more planned for the next, which I’ll do my best to briefly detail here.

One of our earliest endeavours, and our first published report, was to be a photographic survey of the thirteenth-century pictorial engravings located on vertical surfaces in the nave and crypt (we can now add the sanctuary and the west façade too). Many of you will recognise the eagle and accompanying figures on the south arcade pillars and those of the Supper at Emmaus at the entrance to the Ithamar chapel, some of which have been traced with pencil at some relatively recent time.

An article entitled ‘Graffiti’ by Dean Earnest Blackie was published in the Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report 1939 identifying several medieval figurative engravings in the nave and crypt depicting mostly biblical scenes. The 1979 issue of The Archaeological Journal then featured an article published by Professor M. J. Swanton providing an analysis of the engravings, including 28 tracings, describing 78 figures across 37 scenes. A slightly truncated version of this article was re-published in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report 1989-1990.

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  Using raking light and tracing the engravings digitally, the guild has to date identified 18 more of these figurative scenes comprising 27 surviving figures. These photographs and traces will serve as a record in assessing the inevitable deterioration of this somewhat enigmatic thirteenth-century decorative scheme. The guild’s next report featured a similar sequence of several figures of virtually identical style at St. Clement’s church, Sandwich, perhaps even of the same hand. Fragments of similar sequences can also be seen at St. Albans and at Canterbury cathedrals, although at the latter they appear to be of at least several different hands.

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One of eight recently identified figures in the crypt, illuminated by raking light and digitally traced.

Our next published report features a photographic survey of ledgerstones and brass matrix within the cathedral, in accordance with the Ledgerstone Survey of England and Wales. A detailed dataset was produced, including much invaluable information from many years of previous efforts in inventorying the cathedral’s ledgers and monuments by various parties, not least among which has been performed by Dr Edwina Bell et al. and Mr Brian Micklewright. High-quality scale photographs were also painstakingly (and often back-breakingly) produced of each of the 130 examples described.

The last report of 2016 featured an update to the measured survey drawings produced by Carden and Godfrey in 2009 (from a laser survey conducted in 2007), including retraced scale drawings of the extent of the Romanesque cathedrals of Rochester; produced from William St. John Hope’s excellent drawings in his Architectural History of the Cathedral Church of St Andrew in 1898. This updated set of plans and elevations are being used to illustrate the guild’s other reports and are of particular use during the planning of works, maintenance and exhibitions within the cathedral. All the guild’s plans and elevations are finished to a fine standard by our graphic designer Mr Alan Minnerthey.

The first report of 2017 features a photogrammetric survey of medieval tombs from Rochester Cathedral. Many of you will by now be aware of the growing database of three-dimensional models produced over the last few years and featured in a presentation at King’s Hall back in

September 2015. The technique for producing these models is known as close-range photogrammetry, whereby many overlapping photos of an object are taken from different angles. A computer then identifies hundreds of matching features in each of these photographs and uses the distance between them created by the changes in perspective to produce a virtual 3D model.

This modelling survey of the tombs, and the many after it planned for publication this coming year, are an exercise in producing models of a high enough quality not just to aid in general interpretation but to serve as a record of condition of the artefacts and features for future use, often down to a stone-by-stone level and to within 1mm of accuracy. Although often still slightly below the quality of model produced by detailed laser scanning, photogrammetry offers the benefit of being cheap and versatile; off-the-shelf cameras are less cumbersome than scanners (think cherry-pickers and ladders) to employ in the modelling of every object or feature worthy of record within the building (all of them!).

A brass matrix easily over looked, propped almost out of view in a niche in the North Nave Transept.

Detailed 3D models of the tombs, corbel heads and other architectural features can serve asanaidto interpretation and as a record of condition.

3D modelling allows us to view artefacts or features from angles and in ways it would not otherwise be possible to.

The guild has also recently completed photographic and raking light surveys of some 200 graves within the cemetery of St. Nicholas church, the cathedral’s 250-odd examples of medieval graffiti (post-medieval graffiti is also in the works) and over 100 monuments and brass plaques. Another intriguing project has been the recording of the many holes, sockets and architectural scars around the building, some of which may betray the locations of screens and curtains which divided the interior spaces of the cathedral during the medieval period, due for publication shortly.

Reports planned for the next year include ultraviolet photography of the cathedral’s faded (or almost disappeared) medieval paintings and paint schemes. Also, photogrammetric surveys of bosses and corbel heads, ceilings and vaulting, the west façade carvings and tympanums of the nave and cloisters and carved stone fragments; both those in storage in the lapidarium and those re-used in later fabric. Further photographic surveys of mason's marks, stained glass windows, tiles and other ceramic materials are also planned, to name just a few!

Jacob Scott