|
St. Clement’s, in Horsewash Lane, another
fragment of the wall was found in I887,30 but it is
not clear from the description whether this forms part of the
north-eastern or of the north-western wall of the
town—presumably, however, the former. Towards the
north-eastern end of this lane, in Gill’s Shipping Yard, a
part of the northern corner of the wall was found in 1889 at a
distance of 100 ft. from the river bank. It was about ‘7 ft.
thick, built of ragstone, with a double bonding-course of
tiles,’ and in 1903 an external ‘buttress’ (possibly
part of a former projecting tower), 4½ ft. wide and
projecting 1 ft. 9 in., bonded into the wall, was discovered
in the same yard.31 The corner is the only
positive indication as to the position of the north-western or
river wall. Stukeley states that he saw pieces of the wall
‘near the site of St. Clement’s church on the north of the
bridge.’ These were probably destroyed when the present
bridge was built between 1846 and 1856. The wall was not found
during some excavations on the north side of the bridge in
1863. Phippen in 1861 saw a piece of the city wall in the yard
of the Crown, and foundations with indications of a watergate,
and Samian .potsherds were observed in building an inn near
the Crown, apparently at the north corner of the Esplanade and
High Street,32 perhaps the same as a ‘high
wall’ and ‘portions of walls’ at right angles to the
bridge and next to a public-house, but not traceable because
there were houses in front of it.33 These
observations are supported by a report furnished by Mr. G. E.
Dibley of Rochester to the effect that workmen laying a cable
close to the southern corner of the Esplanade and High Street
in 1927 tunnelled beneath ‘a very wide and strong
foundation.’ With these possible exceptions, the
north-western wall has disappeared without record.
While the line of the wall is thus comparatively
certain, little is known of the gates, though the position of
three of them is obvious. The line of the road running through
the centre of the area, more or less beneath High Street and
Eastgate,34 demands the existence of a
Roman gateway at Eastgate and of another at some less certain
point near the bridge, although, until the line of the western
wall is better known, it is useless to guess at the exact
position of the north-western gateway. At Eastgate, in
rebuilding the Mathematical School in 1894, part of a
semicircular tower was found beneath a medieval tower, and was
supposed to be Roman. No adequate account of the masonry
exists, and although a very small and obscure fragment of
curved footing is visible in an open area .between the
Mathematical School and the roadway it is impossible to state
to what period it belongs.35 Phippen saw a
piece of this wall before it was destroyed to make room for
the Mathematical School, and suggested that it was not Roman,
in spite of the hardness of the cement.36 More
of the masonry of this gate was encountered in 1905.37
The Roman north gate is supposed to have stood on the site of
the medieval north gate or ‘Cheldergate,’ but the actual
gateway has not been found or, if found, recorded. The wall,
which would adjoin it, was laid bare beneath the Quakers’
Meeting House in 1905; but the part beneath the road, where
the gate should stand, had been destroyed by previous drainage
works. The discovery of a Roman road, however, lying beneath
the present one was justly
30 Arch. Cant.
xviii, 194. 31 Ibid.
xxi, 8; xxvii, lxix. 32 Arch. Journ.
xx, 390. 33 Phippen,
133.
34 For a section through
this road near the centre of the town, see Arch. Cant. xxviii,
lxxxix.
35 Arch. Cant. xxi, 52.
36 Descr. Sketches, 1862, p. 258.
37 Arch. Cant. xxviii, lxxxviii. |