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.
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