Virtual Tour of Rochester Cathedral
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The South Quire Transept - more info
Crossing over to the South Quire Transept you are greeted with a beautifully carved stone doorway and evidence of past subsidence.
The earlier nineteenth-century work was done, principally, to stop the Cathedral falling down! If you go to the top of the ‘Kent Steps’ (as they are known) which lead down to the nave and look back, eastwards, you will notice a distinct lean outwards in the pillars on the south wall. This is due to the subsidence noticed in the mid-eighteenth century. Brick infilling of the crypt arches was done at the time but clearly it had not worked.
Cottingham’s work was more effective. He constructed and rebuilt the external ashlar facing of the transept. He also took down the fourteenth century short spire which was in poor condition. The spire had been put up by Hamo de Hythe when he vaulted the nave transepts and rebuilt the crossing tower. The early twentieth-century spire we see now is, supposedly, a replica of de Hythe’s. Following Cottingham’s work, Gilbert Scott added a large flying buttress outside the south door forty years later.
Like the other transepts there was originally an altar against the eastern wall (dedicated to St Peter). In its place is now a chest for altar frontals and a dedication plaque to Charles Dickens. Dickens had wanted to be buried here but Westminster Abbey was thought to be more appropriate to his national standing. To the south is the Chapter Library doorway, the monks’ entrance from their dormitory. This is Hamo de Hythe’s most striking contribution to the Cathedral, with some fine fourteenth-century stone carving.
The picture above shows Hamo de Hythe’s memorial doorway. The figures on the left represent the New and, on the right, the Old Testament. At the apex is Hamo’s soul, reduced to the innocence of a baby.
