Rochester Castle / by Charles Henry Hartshorne.

  • Hartshorne, Charles Henry, 1802-1865.
Date:
[1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rochester Castle / by Charles Henry Hartshorne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ROCHESTER CASTLE.1 By the Rev. CHARLES HENRY HARTSHORNE, M.A. It would be an unnecessary claim upon the attention were I to request it to the very early history of Rochester Castle. The events connected with the city during the Anglo-Saxon period, though possessing in themselves a peculiar interest, more particularly when considered with reference to the foundation of the Monastery of St. Andrew, and the various donations to the church belong, however, to a time that has not left us any memorial of an architectural character. They will therefore receive but slight notice. The kings who flourished from the eighth to the eleventh century made various grants to the church. Their charters have been preserved in a noble record that has been printed, and thus these proofs of their devotion have been made generally accessible. The first of these deeds is a grant from Ecgberht King of Kent, dated in the year 765. It conveys, at the request of Bishop Eardulf, and by the assent of Genberht, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, to the former prelate the land within the walls of the Castle of Ilrofescester, with a small hamlet and two acres adjoining the broad road or street, whose boundary is on the south of the same land.2 It would be merely conjectural to attempt fixing upon any particular spot as this, which is here so vaguely described. The same difficulty exists in endeavouring to ascertain where all the 1 Read at the Annual Meeting of the Dugd. Mon. vol. i. p. 166; Codex Dipl InBtitute at Rochester, July, 1863. vol. i. p. 137.