Virtual Tour of Rochester Cathedral
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The East End - more info
Turning back eastwards, the end of the Cathedral building is primarily early thirteenth century with a homogeneous Early English feel to it, although a few details were added in the fourteenth century and much restoration work was done in the nineteenth century.
The restoration was master-minded firstly by Lewis Cottingham (1825–40) and secondly by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1870s.
In a major study on the Cathedral at the end of the nineteenth century, William St John Hope concluded that the work done after the second fire of 1179 substantially enlarged and rebuilt the east end, repeating the aisle-less, flat-ended cathedral built by Gundulf. More recently, Philip McAleer questions whether Gundulf’s building did not end with the more usual apse. Either way, the Early English presbytery is unique amongst English cathedrals in being aisle-less.
The east end windows were ‘restored’ to their assumed Early English state by Scott when he removed a Perpendicular window, apparently not a very good one. Whether he was right to do so is a matter of taste! However, there is no doubt that most of his work was extremely beneficial.
The picture above shows the High Altar, reredos and east windows. The central sanctuary lamp and the smaller aumbrey lamp on the north side have both come from orthodox patriarchs in the East, at the beginning of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
