Crypt Colours
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Randolph Jones investigates the medieval heralds of the crypt vaulting.
Read MoreChapter Library Doorway, c. 1340
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Commissioned by Bishop Hamo de Hythe around the time of the Black Death, the Chapter Doorway is described as one of the finest examples of the English Decorated style, although we find issue its iconography today.
Read MoreElizabeth Elstob (1683-1756)
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Bishop’s Chaplain Lindsay Llewellyn-MacDuff discusses the centrality of Elizabeth Elstob to our understanding of and access to Anglo-Saxon history.
Read MoreManuscript facsimile project
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Sarah Taylor has been working over the lockdown months to digitise the collection of handwritten medieval volumes in the Chapter Library.
Read MoreMedieval Lady Chapel mural
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Bishop’s Chaplain Lindsay Llewellyn-MacDuff discusses the medieval Lady Chapel mural in an extract from the Bertha's Daughters: A History of the Church in Kent
Read MoreKings, Queens and Consorts
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The medieval equivalent of a datestone, dozens of regal sculpted heads adorn the Cathedral architecture, from the House of Normandy to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Read MoreRochester Cathedral Lapidarium and Spolia
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Dissertation submitted for an MA at the University at Leicester, December 2021.
Read MoreDame Ann Hennicker (d.1792)
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The C18th monument to Dame Henniker features statues of Truth and Old Time cast from the fascinating Coade stone, developed by notable early British businesswoman Eleanor Coade.
Read MorePaint Projection
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A tricky but exciting project ticking away by cover of night this past year is piecing together fragments of the Cathedral’s medieval painted decoration, now beginning to shine bright again for the first time in over four centuries.
Read MoreAerial exploration
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Precision recording from a quadcopter drone by Geoff Watkins of Aerial Imaging South East provides some stunning views and a wealth of new data on the Cathedral architecture.
Read MoreBlack Boy Alley, Rochester
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‘Black Boy’ can be found in the names of many UK pubs, roads and pathways. Rochester’s Black Boy Alley has an origin back in the years after the English Civil War.
Read MoreDean Reynolds Hole: King of the Roses→
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The Old Deanery was built in 1640 over the east part of the Chapter house of the Priory. A plaque records 'The deanery is situated where the prior's lodging formerly stood with its gardens extending south-eastward'. Dean Samuel Hole laid out a garden and planted a rose collection in the 1890s.
Read MoreStatue Swap
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Two statues flanking the Great West Doors are a statement of the dual patronage of the Cathedral in the mid-twelfth century. Eight-hundred years of weathering and damage have obscured their identities, so exactly who is depicted?
Read MoreThe Oxford Movement at Rochester Cathedral, 1895-1930
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David Cleggett examines the times of Bishop Edward Talbot, Bishop John Harmer and Dean John Storrs over the late 19th and early 20th century, a High Church period in the history of the Cathedral.
Read MoreDemons and Dragons
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The medieval sculpture of the Nave Crossing features a bestiary of demons, dragons, imps and grotesques. Why did the builders and patrons of the medieval Cathedral fill their place of sanctity and refuge with such nightmarish imagery?
Read MoreCottingham's Crossing bosses, 1840
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The crossing ceiling was rebuilt several times in the C19th. The crossing bosses designed by Lewis Cottingham in 1840 are based on medieval Green Men and grotesques in the Nave Transept and the North and South Quire Aisles and are painted as vividly as they would once have been.
Read MoreNorth Nave Transept haircuts and headwear
/Decorative carvings in the form of human heads became popular in church architecture around the turn of the 13th century, fossilising a record of medieval clothing, hairstyles and headwear.
Read MoreMasons' marks→
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Thousands of marks by the masons provide insights into the construction history of the Cathedral in the 12th century.
Read MoreThe Chapter House, 12th century
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The Chapter House was constructed in the twelfth century and survives in ruin, having lost its roof in the 18th century. It was where the monks met daily to discuss the business of the day.
Read MoreAlphanumeric graffiti
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The diverse alphanumeric corpus comprises thousands of names, dates, initials, letters and words. How can we begin to make sense of this enormous record?
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