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Updated: June 11, 2025
During the closing years of the eighteenth century or the earliest ones of the nineteenth occurred the destruction of the upper portion of Gundulf's tower, which was, before it suffered this injury, one of the most curious and interesting pieces of architecture in England. Some sketch-books of Mr.
The treble was again re-cast by Pack and Chapman, of London, in 1770, and in 1834 the tenor was re-made by Thomas Mears. After all these re-castings, it would be interesting to know how much old metal, from Bishop Hamo's or even older bells, the present peal still contains. Mention will be made of some very early bells when Gundulf's tower is described.
In one or other of these two fires the eastern arm and transepts of Gundulf's fabric, and Ernulf's conventual buildings, must have been much injured if not reduced to ruins, and to the date of the second the outer part of the north choir aisle possibly belongs.
In the same way the choir was finished, while the nave, or parochial portion, in which the monastic establishment had less interest, was possibly left to the townsmen, and remained longer incomplete. All that the monks most wanted, enough of the nave to secure the stability of the choir and transepts, and the south wall that supported their cloister, was built under Gundulf's direction.
Want of money at first stood in the way of reforms; but, with the archbishop's help, much of the alienated property of the see was recovered, and the substitution of regular for secular clergy was undertaken. In 1082 a priory was established with twenty monks of the Order of St. Benedict, a number which grew to sixty before Gundulf's death.
The earliest monastic buildings at Rochester were of Gundulf's time; the next, in the new situation, were the work of Ernulf, who built the chapter house, dormitory, and refectory. Of these fine specimens of later Norman architecture, ruins still exist. The chapter house and dormitory formed the east side of the cloisters.
Passengers along the High Street are now, by the substitution of an iron railing for a former wall, enabled to gaze on the north side of the choir and the ruins of Gundulf's tower, across a stretch of turf that generally bears visible testimony to Dean Hole's love of flowers.
The windows in the northern bay of the west wall were all inserted by Scott, who found only dilapidated blind arcades there, and the doorway in its present form is also by him, he having found the old entry very ruinous. The east side used to be almost entirely hidden by Gundulf's tower, and is still slightly concealed.
In the underpinning of the side aisles in 1875-76, the bases of Gundulf's buttresses were discovered, his foundations being easily distinguishable from later ones, and the curious fact was then made manifest that he did not finish the nave westwards.
It has been thought likely that the nave was completed by the parishioners before the later Norman period. If so, the builders of that time seem to have swept away all the townsmen's work, probably because of its ruder execution. Gundulf's arcades consisted, apparently, of two plain square-edged orders; the plan of his piers is not known.
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