Medway’s Lady Swimmers
were they early ‘female emancipators’?
Nuthatch Nest
Busy Nuthatches – Knole Park, Sevenoaks It’s currently difficult to get out to watch birds raising their young – so I thought I would share the video I made early […]
Medway Epidemics
and how they helped evolve our ‘health services’ From Leper houses that ‘hid’ victims – Almshouses – Pest House – Quarantine ships – Infirmaries – to St Williams that was […]
Britain’s WW2 ‘secret weapon’!
Was a Rochester woman – Chrystabel Leighton-Porter of 115 City Way, Rochester, was the curvaceous model for ‘Jane’ who, during WW2, appeared six days a week in a strip cartoon […]
The First Children’s Home in Medway? 1615!
Under the 1601 Poor Law passed by Elizabeth I, local authorities were required to make provision for the bringing up of poor orphans of their parish, in some occupation or trade […]
Evelyn Dunbar 1906 – 1960. – artist and “insistent feminist”
This is an account of the ‘local-life’ of Evelyn Dunbar – an outstanding young woman artist / illustrator who lived and partly trained in Medway, and who documented through her art the […]
Bertha – from France — ‘Mother of England’? And how Kent got two Cathedrals?
Bertha’s history seems somewhat to have been overwritten by that of her husband, King Ethelbert of Kent – but it was through their marriage and Bertha’s influence, that Christianity was […]
A dark period in the history of St. Barts that delivered a “burning injustice to women”
The following describes what, by today’s standards, was a very dark period in the history of St. Barts – part hospital, part ‘prison’ – but it may have also strengthen […]
Christmas Day 1914 – Air battle fought over Cliffe – disturbing lunch and a wedding!
The first aerial battle to take place in British skies took place over Cliffe on Christmas Day 1914. It not only disturbed Christmas lunch it also disturbed a wedding! The […]
Armistice 1918, the Bells of Rochester Cathedral announce the Peace.
News of the Armistice reaches Medway – at 11:30 am on 11 November 1918, the Bells of Rochester Cathedral rung-out to announce Peace. The Armistice with Germany had been anticipated […]
Spymaster of Rochester from 1908-1913
This is an account of Frederick Adolphus Gould / Schroeder, landlord of the Queen Charlotte public house in Rochester, and “special intelligence officer” for the German Army. Gould took on […]
Spanish Flu – arrives in Rochester
Every national event is made up of a myriad of individual causative or consequential experiences. In this blog I hope to give a sense of how Spanish Flu affected the […]
La Providence – an account of the Huguenot’s arrival in Rochester
La Providence – The French Hospital The tranquillity of the picturesque French Hospital situated off Rochester High Street, belies a distant history of brutality that required French protestants to escape […]
St. Bart’s, Rochester, 1914/1918 – and its matron honoured by the King.
This blog offers some insights into how St Barts continued to grow and the demands made on it during the Great War. Such were the demands, arising from the number […]
A Forgotten Hero of Westerham?
Ask for a link between Westerham and the war and I think most people will come up with Churchill and Chartwell. But there is a lesser known person associated with […]
Modern St. Bart’s – Rochester – its first 50 years
St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester, 1863 – 1914 – if its walls could talk. (At end of blog I’ve included names / specialties of later wards.) The requirements for the ‘modern’ St. […]
Rochester and the women’s suffrage movement
It is right in 2018, a century after some women gained the vote, to recognise the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett however their success could not have been […]
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester, 1078 to 1864
The making of a ‘new model hospital’ – with ‘buried treasure’? I have heard many people mistakingly say that St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, at Rochester, was the oldest hospital in the […]
Nature has it sorted! A symbiotic relationship between deer and jackdaws
A symbiotic relationship between the fallow deer and the jackdaws living in Knole Park, Sevenoaks. The following video was taken in April. Not exactly professional as it was opportunistic ‘filming’ […]
Rochester MP’s campaign ends flogging in the British Army
In 1880 the principled opposition of Arthur Otway, MP for Rochester, brings flogging in the British Army to an end. Arthur Otway was the MP for Rochester from 1878 to […]
1,000 Rochester women chase a bigamist out of the City.
Bigamist escapes with his life but is hounded out of the City
Three men with Rochester connections who ‘helped’ Britannia Rule the Waves.
And the ‘story’ of the ‘missing’ portrait. Visit the Guildhall Museum in Rochester and you will see portraits of two of the three men, Sir Joseph Williamson and Sir Cloudesley […]
A Slave Trader with Medway Connections
The brutish life of a ‘reformed’ slave trader This is an account of John Newton (24 July 1725–21 Dec 1807) – a man who was press-ganged at Chatham, who was […]
The River Medway’s Missing Monsters!
A true ‘fisherman’s tale’ of two metre long Sturgeon that used to be captured in the Medway. This is a story of losses. A lost environment, the loss of sturgeon […]
Lady Jane Grey – beheaded 17 days after the fall of Rochester.
On 12 February 1554, Lady Jane Grey aged 16 or 17 was beheaded. Was her execution related to events that occurred 17 days earlier in Rochester – which could have […]
Rochester’s House of Correction
Rochester’s lock-up for the lewd and disorderly! The Six Poor Travellers – ME1 1LX The next time you walk past the Six Poor Travellers in Rochester, High Street, look to the ground […]
Early balloon flights from Rochester
Coal-gas balloon flights from Rochester! The invention of the balloon was a technical and theatrical marvel of the 19th Century; balloons, wherever they were inflated or exhibited, drew huge crowds. […]
Rochester’s ‘Chamber of Horrors’ – 1938
Exhibition of ‘Tools of Torture and Punishment’ and the barbaric execution of the Bishop of Rochester’s Cook – by boiling. Eastgate House closed as a museum in 2004. For many […]
Three Dickens’ associations in Rochester
There are many associations with Dickens’ stories, and his life, in Rochester. Many are obvious or have plaques, but others may be less known – even to locals. In this […]
A New Year ‘Love Story’ that started in Rochester?
The less familiar ‘Love Story’ between Anne of Cleaves and Henry VIII – that began in Rochester over the New Year 1539/1540. Fake News? Some dramatists and storytellers like to […]
A Rochester Christmas Mystery
Did he jump before he was pushed? How many times have you walked past Abdication House, 69 High Street, Rochester, ME1 1LX – the now closed Lloyds Bank – and […]
1951 – Death of 24 Cadets in Dock Road, Gillingham
Bishop of Rochester denounces the idol of speed on the road. Hopefully reader you will understand why I decided to blog on this subject at what should be a time […]
Body of executed boy given to Rochester surgeons
(Detail from the image by William Hogarth – The Four stages of Cruelty : The Reward for Cruelty, 1751) In 1831 between 8,000 and 9,000 people – mostly members of […]
Pre-Raphaelites in Knole Park
The Pre-Raphaelite’s “Trip to the Forest” – Knole Park, Sevenoaks, 1850. But where in the park did the artists position themselves? In the autumn of 1850 William Holman Hunt and […]
Rochester’s fire service gets a motor fire engine
Just over 100 years ago – and somewhat later than its neighbours – Rochester’s fire brigade acquired its first powered fire engine – and breaks it! On display in the […]
Ghost of Rochester
OMG – he’s accidentally shot his fiancé! This is a type of ‘West Side This story’ plot that occurred around 750 years at Rochester. It is a story of two […]
