At the top of Rochester High Street, where the bridge crosses over the Medway, there is a pub with a long history: the Crown. The present building, which dates from the late eighteenth century, is adjacent to where the original building (built early fourteenth century, now lost) once stood, most notably providing accommodation for passingRead More
Tag: Rochester
The lost garden of Evelyn Dunbar
Ever since Eden was lost, we have been trying to find it again. Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors that followed him identified various parts of the Americas as the Garden of Eden. Confident claims for its location have been made for Mesopotamia, Armenia, Iran, Jackson County Missouri (according to some Mormons), and Bedford (according toRead More
Walled city
I live in a walled city. (Technically, I know, Rochester is not a city, owing to an administrative blunder back in 2002, but let’s keep to the romantic). It is not a place where the ancient walls survive largely complete, therefore circumnavigating the city, as is the case with Chester or York. Only fragments remain,Read More
Wasteland
I have been going round and round in circles. With all of the interesting and historical and often beautiful sites on offer, near to home or within a reasonable walking distance, increasingly I have found myself drawn to one small corner of Rochester. The Riverside development is a major regeneration programme, converting a large areaRead More
Day-dreams and bad dreams
There are some small out-of-the-way landing-places on the Thames and the Medway, where I do much of my summer idling. Running water is favourable to day-dreams, and a strong tidal river is the best of running water for mine. I wish those words were mine. They fit so precisely with my thoughts and my locationRead More
A day in Rochester
It’s another sunny day. Today I shall visit Rochester, because Rochester is where I live, and to where I am confined in these days of Coronavirus lockdown, even as that lockdown is beginning to be eased. For the time being, Rochester is the world. Early morning Zoom call, talking to early evening Sydney. How quicklyRead More
Time and the megaliths
There can hardly be a better place for observing the continuum of history and time than the Medway valley. While life may appear to have slowed to a standstill in these days of lockdown, brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, everywhere I turn there are the layers of time, as though looking at an exposedRead More
God watches golf
God, so Einstein assured us, does not play dice. I disagree. If there is any game that God chose to play, dice would be practically the only one worth undertaking. Any other game or sport would be pointless, since the supreme being would be bound to win every time, knowing all of the rules, allRead More
What will survive
In my ignorance, I had thought that the tomb of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ was in Arundel. One day I shall be in Arundel, I thought, then I shall pop into whatever church it is and see it. So it came as a bit of surprise to be wandering through Chichester cathedral, forRead More
Faint traces
I live close to England’s second oldest cathedral, which is a privilege. I regularly visit Rochester Cathedral, taking in a different feature each time, or just enjoying the the peculiar sense such places give of standing outside time through having witnessed so much of time’s passing. It’s a small cathedral, as English cathedrals go, andRead More