Dwarf parapet wall, c.1490
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The south wall of the cloister is known to be Roman in origin: it was in fact the south wall of Roman Rochester’s defined urban area. The Cloister Gate was built against the north side of the Roman wall, and Garth House is on its south side: this Victorian building is a successor of the medieval Frater (refectory).
3D model of the Knot Garden in 2022 showing the location of the dwarf parapet atop the small section of the Cloisters south wall.
The parapet is formed by a row of pierced quatrafoils.
3D model of the dwarf parapet in 2022.
When in situ, the design would have allowed the sun to stream through into the Presbytery, beneath the large Perpendicular-style window inserted at the same time.
The screen in situ (arrowed) at Triforium level in a mid-19th -century image of the Presbytery (before G G Scott’s alterations).
The clerestory was restored back to what is understood to be the original 12th-century design during the works of Sir George George Gilbert Scott. In 1900 William St John Hope wrote:
Another fifteenth century alteration was the substitution of a wide window of nine lights with a transom, for the three upper lancets of the east front, and the addition of a low screen of stone, pierced with quatrefoils, in front of it to guard the clerestory wall-passage. This window was destroyed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who “restored” the three lancets, and the quatrefoil screen was then placed in front of the west window, but has since been taken down and deposited with other lumber in the Crypt.
William St John Hope, Architectural History 1900.
No photo or illustration has been identified of the screen in situ in front of the west window. At some point the stones were removed from the Crypt and set up forming a low wall along the Cloisters. They have since deteriorated significantly and had become overgrown. It is hoped their being cleared, and the addition of a handrail running the length of the Knot Garden wall, will afford the parapet some small protection, though their further deterioration seems inevitable.
Graham Keevill,
Keevill Heritage LTD.
Extracts from the Archaeological statement on the New fencing
adjacent to the Roman town wall, The Precincts.
Acknowledgements
With thanks for the previous researches of Anneliese Arnold and Jacob Scott.
