3-074-677 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Rochester Castle and grounds as a public park, 1883. 'The Mayor and Corporation of Rochester have purchased of the Earl of Jersey, for £8000, the fine old Norman Castle and adjacent ground, which for some years past had been held on lease, and had been used as a public pleasure-garden. On Wednesday week, the deed of purchase having been duly signed and sealed,...it was proclaimed the property of the town for ever. Its situation, on the banks of the Medway, close to the Cathedral, is very beautiful, and the ground is well laid out; while the ancient square tower, or Keep, built in 1077 by Bishop Gundulph, who was also the architect of the Tower of London, is one of the grandest Norman structures of its kind...Of this castle, founded by William the Conqueror on the ruins of an earlier Saxon or Roman fortress, history records that in the reign of King Stephen its possession was contested by rival parties, and in 1215 it was defended in the cause of the Barons against King John...King James I. in 1610 gave the castle to Sir Anthony Weldon, of Swanscombe, from whose descendants it was purchased by Mr. Robert Child, the banker, and his grand-daughter and heiress having married the fifth Earl of Jersey, it came into the possession of that family'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.