"Postcards - New" Top 5 Page for this destination Rochester Travelogue by grayfo

Charles Dickens lived in Rochester as a child and spent the final years of his life here, having used the town as a setting in a number of his books. The annual festival celebrates the writer’s life and works and features parades with people dressed in Victorian costumes, street entertainment and theatre, displays and readings.

Officially the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Rochester Cathedral is England's second oldest foundation and has been a place of Christian worship ever since the Saxons built a cathedral on the site in 604 A.D. By 1077, the cathedral had suffered through an invasion by the Danes but by 1082, the first Norman bishop; Gundulf had established the Benedictine Priory of St. Andrew. There were a couple of fires during the 12th century and during the following century under King John’s reign it was plundered by rebel barons. The cathedral was later desecrated when the city fell to Simon de Montfort's troops. Oliver Cromwell's soldiers caused yet more damage to the cathedral in the 17th century.