Rochester could be called Dickensville, given the number of references to him. He lived in a house called Gad's Hill in the town and he set many of his stories in the area.There was quite a lot of space devoted to him in the Guildhall museum.
Having mentioned the use of old ships for prisons yesterday, it was a coincidence to find a big exhibition devoted to the subject in the Guildhall. Magwitch, the convict in Great Expectations escaped from a Medway hulk prison ship. In 1814 there were 72,000 prisoners from the Napoleonic war held in old ships and, at that time, the new prison on Dartmoor. However the poor conditions resulted in other famous London prisons being built, and the last prison ship went up in flames in Woolwich in 1857.
The quote in French from the time seemed very poignant and speaks of the conditions they must have suffered..
Despite these conditions, the prisoners had plenty of time to produce model boats from carved bone and boxes from straw.
The last thing I found interesting in the Guildhall were the references to Sir Cloudesly Shovell. I had come across references to him when diving in the Isles of Scilly.His boat the "Association" and the fleet he was leading was wrecked on the Scillies when they made a navigational error and believed they were somewhere in the English Chanel.It seems he was the local MP and a good local benefactor. It must have been a big loss to the town at the time, as well as being one of the biggest ship wreck events in the Scillies.
Rochester has a cathedral and a Norman castle.The Cathedral was notable for ti being near a fabulous Catalpa tree, which was over 100 years old an in bloom.
Inside, it had an amazingly ornate organ that was being played beautifully.
There was wall painting dated about 1200 about the wheel of fortune, which seemed to be a pretty secular ubject matter,
...and there had been some serious settlement problems on the south wall, so that the pillars were well out of line. A case of the not-so-perpendicular style of architecture.
The other Norman building in the town is Rochester Castle. It would have had a commanding position next to the river and the river bridge.
Rochester has some good historic buildings and a vibrant town centre, with loads of coffee bars and restaurants.
Upnor castle is in the other side of the river. It started out as a gun battery to defend Chatham, then became a gun powder warehouse. It played an important part in bringing an end to the battle when the Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway in 1667 to set about the moored English fleet. A chain used to be pulled taut across the river as a line of defence, but 3 Dutch ships broke through it.The Dutch fleet captured the "Royal Charles", did some serious damage to a lot of ships and then retreated when they took a bashing from the cannons at Upnor. It wasn't the English navy's finest hour, and a lot of scapegoating went on afterwards.
The castle is now used for civil weddings. It seems an unlikely place to have a wedding ceremony. It's a lovely historic building, but weddings and gunpowder!!..The guests sit on cushions on the barrels.
The internal surfaces have been adapted to reduce sparks. It has a wood block floor, lead on the banisters and copper on the windows. I don't know how you get sparks off a wooden hand rail, but must have been a big problem in the 17th century.
I was a bit confused by the references to the "baricado", which the Guildhall information said was in place on the 1633 map. There was no reference to this at Upnor Castle.The chain was elsewhere in the river at Gillingham. I should have thought the baricado would have been pretty effective if it had been in place.
Upnor is a small pretty little village. At first sight, one of the oldest looking places was actually built in 2004. It is currently for sale.
An old rudder made a good gate.
Back on Hylje, I actually got my sketch book and pastels out for the first time. I had a go at doing the pink hulled classic wooden boat "Shrimper" moored in front of me. I was not happy with the result. It looked more like a deep sea trawler than a fine little sailing boat.
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