Rochester Cathedral Lapidarium

The Lapidarium (‘repository of stone’) has grown over the past 200 years into a collection of over 400 fine sculptural artefacts from the 8th to the 18th centuries. Much of the Lapidarium collection comprises medieval sculptural fragments retained from 19th-century restoration and redesign campaigns.

Discoveries around the Precinct during decades of works, gardening, archaeological excavations and even war damage has added to this collection. The Lapidarium was first established in 1990 by the efforts of Anneliese Arnold and others including a group from the Cathedral Camps. In 2021 the Lapidarium collection was moved to a chamber over the South Quire Transept and choice fragments are often exhibited in the Cathedral Crypt.

The collection has been recorded by photography and modelled in 3D with photogrammetry. You can explore the collection on this page or search using the Kent Archaeological Society website.

Find out more about the history of the Lapidarium and sculptural fragments in a dissertation Rochester Cathedral Lapidarium and Spolia submitted to the University of Leicester in 2021 by Jacob Scott. The corpus is the topic of a current PhD study by the same author at Canterbury Christ Church University.

The conservation, care, and curation of the Lapidarium collection has been a major undertaking over several decades. Recent reports by conservation students at London City & Guilds are also available on the Kent Archaeological Society website.

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