A towering Norman keep above the Medway, scene of King John's brutal siege of 1215
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Rochester’s keep is one of the tallest to survive in England, well over a hundred feet of pale stone rising above the river. Bishop Gundulf raised the first stone castle here around 1080, and the great keep — the central tower — went up a little later, around 1127, under the archbishops of Canterbury. Its most dramatic moment came in 1215, when rebel barons held it against King John. John’s men undermined the south-east corner, propping the tunnel with timber and then firing it with the fat of forty pigs; the corner tower crashed down and the garrison held out on the far side until hunger forced a surrender. When the tower was rebuilt it was made round, not square, which is why one corner of the keep looks different from the other three to this day. English Heritage runs the castle, with the walls and grounds open around it. Rochester Priory and the cathedral stand just across the way, and the Saxon Shore Way passes below the walls at Rochester.
More at the National Heritage List entry
