Following much discussion over toast (with very fine new French marmalade from the good mummy ('Bonne Maman') marque), we opted for the train rather than drive and we further opted for day trip rather than overnight, the thinking being that parking in Rochester, an ancient town, might be a bit of a pain and it was unlikely that any hotel actually in the town was going to have integral parking.
The visit was in three parts: cathedral, castle and guildhall. Cathedral very old - if heavily restored over the years - and rather unusual. Some old carving, not quite as exuberant as that at Ely but tendencies in that direction. Quite a lot of rather good stained glass, presumably mainly Victorian. Quiet and pleasant cloister for the consumption of sandwiches, followed by tea in an old outbuilding. An outbuilding with its masonry the wrong way around; that is to say corners, frames and edges in brick with stone being used to fill in - the more usual arrangement being the other way around. The mortar between the stones was decorated with slivers of flint, pushed into the wet mortar on the diagonal.
Castle also very old, with a five or six storey square keep in very good condition. Last serious activity was to provide a venue for the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor and his suite - around 1,000 of them in full parade armour - in 1400 or so. Very Neibelungenlied (see, for example, July 25th 2010). Some of the rooms had once been rather grand, with rather grand pillars, some of which were still visible. The place reminded me of a modern tower block, albeit inside out. So rather than a hollow central lift shaft holding up the floors around it, we had similarly hollow walls containing the various services around the outside, with floors up the inside. Massive great holes let into the walls for the floor joists, maybe 9 by 9 (inches). Didn't make it to the top as my vertigo kicked in half way up and completely overlooked the fact that one of the four corner towers had had to be rebuilt after being badly knocked about when the place was besieged by Good King John; something to look out for next time - along with the monument to the forty pigs whose lard contributed in some important way to the knocking about.
Fine view from the outer bailey of the rocks of Rochester across the water, that is to say the white cliffs of Rochester. River cliffs, which our friends from across the big water might call bluffs.
Running out of puff by now, but onto to a quick visit to the Guildhall Museum, where, in the handsome council chamber, we came across Sir Clowdisley Shovell again (see, for example, August 27th 2008 in the other place). As well as being a naval hero of some note, he was also a local boy responsible for much philanthropy in the town and was, in consequence, honoured by a full length portrait in said chamber. It was a decent local museum with a good collection of exhibits, geological, ancient, old and more recent, which will bear more time on our next visit. There were, for example, some interesting examples of straw work, being jewellery boxes and such decorated with straw, rather in the way of marquetry. Never seen such a thing before. The work of prisoners of war in the hulks in the 18th and 19th centuries, these hulks being the subject of this particular part of the museum. There was also a rather odd cherub hanging face down from the ceiling of the main stairwell: white, naked, chubby and maybe five feet long from top to toe. Not sure that social workers would approve of such a thing if it were being fashioned and erected now.
In fact, rather an odd town altogether with lots of sweet shops, novelty shops, charity shops and book shops. Clearly not where the locals do their day to day shopping. Visited one of the book shops where I paid for my visit with a rather handsome £5 copy of 'The British Pharmaceutical Codex' from my birth year, 1949. A first impression (of a paltry 20,000 copies) full of all kinds of fascinating stuff. No entries for heroin or methadone but there are for heparin (of warfarin fame), honey (pure) and for tartrazine, which last surprised me, having assumed the stuff to have been of more recent origin. I also learned that, despite the name, surgical cat gut is made from sheep gut. I am now wondering whether such a book still exists, with what I presume to be a massive increase in the number of pharmaceuticals to be listed and their rate of change: the 1949 edition was getting on for three inches thick. Perhaps the thing only exists now in some electrical form.
Finally closed the visit to Rochester with a visit to the butcher, one A.E Capon & Son (a very suitable name for a poultry man), where we bought one home cooked sausage roll (room temperature) for immediate consumption and some chuck steak for evening consumption with the Rioja from the Cabin of the last but one post. Chuck steak cut very small and fried in a little rape seed oil from the Co-op. Add at little water, a little celery, one orange pepper and one medium onion and simmer for an hour. Serve with, in addition to the Rioja, boiled white rice and boiled white cabbage. Excellent. I think I have decided that dishes are not improved by adding lots of onion. One was quite enough for pound and a bit of meat, for which full marks to the Capon.
PS: jam lovers might care to visit http://www.lovebonnemaman.co.uk/.
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