← All articles · 2026-07-26

Rochester

An April 2010 day in Rochester with Dileep's parents: the cathedral's painted organ pipes, blossom on the green, and the view from the castle keep.

Dileep's parents were over in April 2010, so we did the classic Kent day out: Rochester, where the cathedral and the castle have been staring at each other across one small green for about nine hundred years.

Rochester Cathedral with its grey spire and pinnacled west front, seen across a car park with pink blossom on the left — The cathedral doing its best to upstage the spring blossom. April 2010.

The organ of Rochester Cathedral, its pipes stencilled in gold and red beneath a painted wooden ceiling — Inside, the organ: every pipe stencilled and gilded. We spent a long while directly underneath it with our necks at silly angles.

Then across the green to Rochester Castle, whose Norman keep is mostly floorless these days, which just means better views straight up and long ruined galleries to wander.

Inga and Dileep's mother walking through an arched stone passage inside the ruined keep of Rochester Castle — Inga and Dileep's mother in the keep's passages, mid-conversation as usual.

Inga and Dileep sitting in a deep stone window recess of Rochester Castle, next to an information panel about the chapel — The window seats built into the castle walls fit two, as tested here by the chapel.

Dileep with his parents squeezed together in the same stone window recess, his father looking down at a camera — Same window, next sitters: Dileep with his parents. Three fit too, though his father never quite looked up from the camera.

Rochester Cathedral seen from above, from the castle keep, with the River Medway and dockside cranes in the distance — Climb the keep and the cathedral rearranges itself into a postcard, with the Medway getting on with its work behind.

The Union Jack flying from a white flagpole on a battlemented tower of Rochester Castle, in black and white — The flag over the keep. This frame came out in black and white and we saw no reason to argue.

Cathedral, castle, and the four of us in one window seat or another. Some day trips just organise themselves.