Small world

 

Small world

 

City Walls and north-east Bastion, Free School Lane, Rochester, Kent.

This photograph, from the 1920s, shows St Nicholas' School on the left. The grass in the foreground became the lower yard of Sir William Josephson's Mathematical School for Boys. It is now  a car park!

Image courtesy Medway Archives Centre

Today, my middle daughter is working, by chance,  with someone from my old home town. In the course of discovering how much her colleague and I had in common, in terms of local landmarks, I found myself looking back to my young life.

My first school was St Margaret’s in St Margaret’s Street, Rochester. I spent my infant years there, from five to seven. I learnt to read, but was rarely called out to read to the teacher, which I later realised was because I was a ‘good reader.’ The school no longer exists.

My junior school years were spent at St Nicholas’ School in Free School Lane, Rochester. This had been built in 1857 alongside the mediaeval City Walls, and north-east Bastion. A bastion is a defensive, angled extension built out from the main wall, enabling defenders to fire along the wall’s sides and cover blind spots.

Records state that it educated boys and girls, but there were no boys when I was there. Possibly, there were boys in the infant department, but not in the junior school. The school was demolished in 1968.

                                            Rochester Cathedral

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

 Another school built inside the city walls was King’s School, Rochester. It is a cathedral school, founded in 604 AD, and forms part of the foundation of Rochester Cathedral, which was constructed in the same year. It is claimed to be the second oldest continuously functioning school in the world. The oldest is The King’s School, Canterbury, which was founded in AD 597.

Rochester is an attractive small city on the banks of the River Medway. The Norman castle keep looks out across the river. The fortress was designed to control the Medway bridge and protect the road to London.

                                             Rochester Castle

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The cathedral, castle, and walls form one of the most complete Norman landscapes in England.

                                                        Image source

Charles Dickens lived near Rochester for most his life and it features in much of his work, often under other names, like ‘Dingley Dell’ in The Pickwick Papers, and ‘Cloisterham’ in Edwin Drood. Other buildings appear, too, like The Bull Hotel, Guildhall, and Eastgate House, which was renamed Westgate House for The Pickwick Papers.

 

Eastgate House, Rochester

 Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons