Rochester is a historic city which Charles Dickens made famous in his books. It is also the seat of one of the oldest English dioceses. There is a medieval cathedral and ruins of a Norman castle.
The Rochester diocese was founded at the beginning of the 6th century. A stone cathedral was erected here, on the site of which a later temple was built from the 11th to the 13th century. Rochester Cathedral is considered to be the oldest in England, next to the Canterbury Cathedral. It is a raw, Norman-Gothic building with decorated, carved portals and cross vaulted crypts.
In the vicinity of the cathedral stands Rochester's second most important landmark, a Norman castle that dates back to the invasion of William the Conqueror. The castle belonged to the local bishops and was also a strategic defensive point near the junction of the Medwey and Thames rivers. Today, its ruins, preserved in very good condition, are open to the public.
Rochester's old town boasts many preserved historic buildings from the 14th to 18th centuries. Among them, one of the most beautiful is the Tudor-era Eastgate House with a timber-framed façade. You can learn about the history of the city in the building of the former town hall, where the Guildhall Museum currently operates. In 2015, in turn, the Huguenot Museum was opened in the city, which presents the functioning of this religious group in Rochester during the Reformation in a modern way.
