The next in a series of online talks hosted by the KAS, Jacob will be revealing 900 years of history as told through the inscriptions, scratches and marks on the walls and piers of Rochester Cathedral and the ruins of the cathedral Priory of Saint Andrew.
The teams of masons that built much of the cathedral and priory in the twelfth century left their identifying marks on each piece of stone they dressed, surviving in their thousands across the cathedral’s Romanesque west end and Gothic east end. They provide insights into the construction of the building that are otherwise unknowable to us today.
Around the turn of the thirteenth-century an entire decorative scheme - possibly for mural paintings - was scratched out on the walls and piers of the cathedral, featuring scenes from the gospels and the symbols of the Evangelists: a winged lion, bull, man and eagle. This enigmatic decoration campaign, one of the most extensive we have evidence for at this date, we now know also extended to the west front of the cathedral.
Thousands of inscriptions would be left at the cathedral in the Middle Ages, clustering around the sites of shrines and altars and featuring ships, real and imaginary beasts, body parts and people. After the Dissolution we find thousands of named individuals from all centuries and stations down to the present day, as well as a multitude of symbols for prayer, salvation and for the warding off of bad luck and evil.
Jacob Scott is the Digital Manager for the Kent Archaeological Society. In his previous capacity as Heritage Officer at the cathedral he worked with Dan Graham on the photographic recording for the graffiti survey and published three summary articles in Archaeologia Cantiana. He is currently undertaking his PhD studies on the architectural history of the cathedral with Canterbury Christ Church University.
Joining instructions
Topic: Medieval and historic graffiti at Rochester Cathedral
Time: Oct 30, 2025 07:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87007471976
Meeting ID: 870 0747 1976