Project: Kent - Rochester

No. 3 - 6:- Exploring Rochester - Rochester Castle

City of Great Expectations - Charles Dickens..

 

The Battlements

The castle battlements are a key part of the castle's defences. Around the top of the outer wall, or parapet. You will see square holes. Strong timber beams were passed through these in order to support 'hourds', as kind of enclosed wooden platform that projected out from the walls. Defenders could climb on to these and drop objects through holes cut into the floor onto any attackers who succeeded in reaching the walls of the keep. Archers could also fire from this vantage point while remaining sheltered. Guide-board.

 

 

'Magnificent ruin!...What a study for an antiquarian!'

The impressive Norman castle at Rochester had a humbling effect upon Dickens, reminding him perhaps of his own mortality. In Household Words he wrote: 'I surveyed the massive ruin from the Bridge, and thought what a brief little practical joke I seemed to be, in comparison with the solidarity, stature, strength and length of life.' In Dickens' time the castle looked very different. Houses and workshops filled much of the moat by the cathedral, the keep and towers were festooned with ivy and the waters of the River Medway lapped the base of the walls. - Guidemap

 

 

To see Large:-

farm4.static.flickr.com/3372/3445560318_78a29e4335_b.jpg

 

Taken on

July 18, 2007 at 11:38 BST

Done