The Chapter House was constructed in the twelfth century and survives in ruin, having lost its roof in the mid-16th century. It was where the monks met daily to discuss the business of the day.

According to Tim Tatton-Brown the centre of all three upper medieval windows in the west wall of the Chapter House had their chills lowered so as '.... (presumably to make them into doorways)... .' (1994, 21). These doorways supposedly gave access to a corridor built above the cloister and, if extending the whole length of the east range, effectively forming a long gallery. If this is correct the series of joist holes just below the apex of the robbed out blind arcade arches presumably belong to the 1540s alterations. Whether this floor was ever finished is a debatable point (see above, page 58).

3D model of the Chapter House by Jacob Scott.

The ground surface inside the Chapter House is at two levels. A lower level to the west, which is the result of clearing the door and cloister alley in 1935 when parts of the medieval tile floor were seen and a higher level over most of the interior. Previously, in 1766 a skeleton was found when a new cellar for the deanery was dug and was supposedly fully seven feet in length. A stone coffin was also found in 1770 but the skeletal remains had been reduced to dust (Denne 1817, 86 note). The note implies that the skeletal remains were those of Paulinus. AW will say here and now, they were not and neither was the skeleton 7ft in length.

In the 2014-2016 project areas of demolition material (1691) were seen and, in the soil (1695), below a considerable amount of broken floor tile and a few sherds of post-medieval pottery. The only feature of note was a 0.30m wide north to south aligned wall (Wall 1692) made from chalk and Reigate Stone rubble. In the south face of the trench, whilst the full depth of the wall (1693) may not have been exposed a compacted area of fl mortar may have been the level of a tile floor. This wall abutted the 0.50m wide stone work (1697), which is regarded as part of the bench that would be originally have been situated around the Chapter House for the monks to sit on during meetings. Only a 1.80m length survived. Most of this bench had probably been destroyed c.1540. An offset foundation for the wall itself, upon which the bench sat, existed at a lower level. Presumably it was at this junction between foundation and bench that the medieval tile floor would have been set.

Wall 1692 was situated just 0.60m to the east of the late fourteenth century inserted door giving access to the vestry, the wall and door effectively making the Chapter House some 3.50m shorter. In the south wall of the Chapter House the scar of a dividing wall can also be seen, but does not quite line up with that uncovered in the trench excavated. Presumably there is a dog-leg, perhaps at the position of a central door within the length of this inserted partition wall.

In the north wall at a higher level the blind arcade that went around the Chapter House can, in places, still be seen (Fig. 72a; Plates 78 and 79). All of its facing stone has been lost, but several of the bases for the shafts, which supported the arches survive on a 0.15m wide offset situated 1.25m above the present ground surface. Some of the shaft bases can also still be seen in the south wall, but only traces of the blind arcade could be identified. In one of the upper rooms of the St. Andrew's Centre part of the arcading with its facing stones still intact survives. Above the arcade inserted much weathered corbels, originally depicting carved angels and supporting a new roof, possibly of the fourteenth century (Tatton-Brown 1994, 21) or the second half of the fifteenth century (McNeil 2006, 202 note 9), are still in place. Presumably they replaced the twelfth century earlier corbels within the same sockets. Cutting into the arcade arches were seven large joist holes. These holes were mirrored in the south wall. This must mean that a timber floor was at one time inserted into the Chapter House. However, the joist holes do not continue into the westernmost 4m part of the structure. The floor may not have been completed or the western end acted as an open gallery or a timber partition end wall existed at this point.

Also in the south wall, the threshold of an inserted and now blocked door at first floor level, originally giving access from the dorter to the library, the latter situated above the vestry, can still be seen. Access from the dormitory to this door was across the dorter stair by means of a three arch bridge inserted across that space and dated to 1342 (McNeil 2006, 185, 202 note 9). The tree ring date of c.1360 from the roof timbers of the library would suggest the bridge would be slightly later. With the identification of joist holes it might be assumed that a timber floor was also inserted at this time and connected with the bridge. However, no joists holes could be seen in the western 6.50m of the building, which is saying there was a 5m gap between floor and bridge and a 4m gap between floor and partition wall to the east of the inserted doors t ground and first floor level in the Chapter House north wall. Also of course one would expect the new roof to be visible at Chapter House meetings. It seems far more reasonable to assume that the date for the insertion of such a floor would be at the time Henry VIII's palace was being constructed c.1540. One suspects that it was never completed.

The east end of the building survives within the Old Deanery to the east, with the best surviving example of Romanesque blind arcading in the whole of the Cloister. Such arcading once lined the interior walls of the Chapter House. Two 14th -century angel corbels belonging to the Chapter House (certainly one, probably both in situ) also survive in the Old Deanery – highly eroded ones also survive in the ruinous section of the building. The former Dorter to the south is now a courtyard to the Old Deanery and is used as an access to and car park for the King’s School.

-> St John Hope, 1898. Elevation and plan of Romanesque blind arcading of the Chapter House preserved in the Old Deanery.

July 2019 excavations

Two archaeological trial pits were excavated by hand in the Chapter House at Rochester Cathedral in July 2019. One, just inside (east of) the medieval entrance to the building, uncovered an adult skeleton at a depth of 1m-1.1m below ground level. The available evidence suggests that this was a medieval burial, contemporary with the use of the Chapter House itself. The skeleton is probably the one found (and left in situ) during an excavation in 1937.

Skeleton 28 was an articulated burial, but with parts of what may have been a second body in the grave. The disarticulated skull and other bones over the abdomen were either from an earlier burial which had been disturbed by this one, or were from the same body and had been displaced at an unknown time in history. Either way, the bones had been placed in this grave with a degree of care. It seems highly unlikely that the disturbance was caused by the excavations of 1936. A note in The Times for 2 April of that year stated that “the bones were not removed, and were covered up again within half an hour of their having been discovered”. It seems very unlikely that bones would have been moved around to this extent within half an hour, and the disturbance evident in the burial is therefore assumed to have happened in antiquity. The grave itself is most likely to be of medieval date given its location immediately inside the Chapter House’s entrance, and its orientation on the long axis of the building. An Anglo-Saxon date is felt to be much less likely, while a Roman date can be ruled out because of the location within the area of the town.

It is not certain that skeleton 28 is the same as the one revealed in 1936, but this seems very likely. The homogenous nature and the date of the (relatively few) finds from context 26/27 both suggest a high degree of disturbance above the burial. This might simply be a result of gardening activity in the Chapter House once the Old Deanery had been built, but this seems implausible given that the bottom of layer 26 was more than a metre below the medieval threshold in the Chapter House door. The best explanation for the thickness and character of layer 26, and the finds from it, may be that it was the backfill of the excavation described in The Times of 2 April 1936, and thus that skeleton 28 is one and the same as that exposed in 1936.

The second pit was located against the south wall of the Chapter House, and exposed the top of its foundations 0.84m below ground.

This is the same level as the current entrance threshold from the Cloister into the Chapter House: this was only established in 1937 (during the same excavations that found the skeleton), but it now is clear that a historically correct level had been chosen. The foundations were offset by 0.3m from the wall above, and cut a layer of late Saxon ‘dark earth’.

Graham Keevill
Keevill Heritage

Extracts from Keevill Heritage Ltd Evaluation and watching brief report. Site/project: Rochester Cathedral - Chapter House and Dorter, Trial pit excavations in the Chapter House, and a watching brief in former Dorter, 2019.

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