Lower School awed by Rochester Castle

Pupils in Lower School One had a successful outing in bright sunshine recently when they visited Rochester Castle and Cathedral.

The first phase of the field trip was the Castle, with tours of the bailey and the keep. Rochester is a fantastic example of a Norman Castle with Romanesque arches and square towers on three corners of the keep. One corner was mined by King John in 1215 and was replaced by a rounded tower. The pupils had the opportunity to hear about the horrors of this siege in 1215 and visit other areas of the bailey that had been altered through time.

The second phase of the trip included a guided tour of the Cathedral and an explanation as to how the building has developed through time from the Anglo-Saxon era. The students were helped to identify the Norman and Gothic parts of the Cathedral.

All the pupils spent some time exploring the crypt with its fantastic groin vaulting and observing the different types of buttressing outside the Cathedral.