The cathedral of England's second-oldest bishopric, a Norman church with a big crypt, across the road from Rochester Castle
Only Canterbury has an older bishopric than Rochester. Justus, one of the missionaries who came to Kent with Augustine, founded it in 604, and the outline of that first small church is marked in the floor. Bishop Gundulf began the present Norman cathedral in the 1080s; the west front, with its carved doorway, is Norman work, and the large crypt under the east end dates partly from his time and partly from the early 1200s. Charles Dickens, who lived nearby, wanted to be buried in the cathedral’s graveyard, but was buried in Westminster Abbey instead. Rochester Castle stands just across the road in the old centre of Rochester, and Rochester station is about 300 m away.
