Rochester Castle, South East England

Rochester was one of the first castles in England to be re-built in stone, after the Norman Conquest. Work started in 1087, by Bishop Gundulf of Rochester. His curtain wall is still largely the castle’s boundary. William de Corbeil, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury, built the Keep or great tower, which remains today. Henry I had granted the Archbishop custody of the castle in 1127, and work on the Keep started shortly afterwards. The Keep is one of the largest in England, with walls up to 12 feet thick. The castle remained in the custody of the Archbishops of Canterbury until 1215.

From the 11th of October, to the 30th of November, 1215, the castle was held for the barons against King John, who set up his opposition base inside the Cathedral. The castle was being held by William de Albini and Reginald de Cornhill, with between 95 and 140 knights inside. For seven weeks they held out against the king. King John personally led the attack against the castle, battering the walls with stone and keeping a constant barrage of crossbow bolts. He managed to breach the south curtain wall and drive the defenders back into the Keep, which seemed impregnable. He decided that if he couldn’t breach the walls, he may be able to undermine them. A tunnel was dug out under the south west tower and, in this case, the fat from 'fourty bacon pigs of the fattest and least good for eating, to bring fire beneath the tower’, was the thing that worked.  The fire burned though the pit props, the tunnel collapsed and brought down the corner of the Keep.

Even the collapse of a quarter of Rochester’s Keep was not enough to force the garrison to surrender, they pulled back again and fought on, some who were captured had their hands and feet cut off, on John’s orders. The remainder eventually surrendered and a chronicler at the time wrote:

‘Our age has not known a siege so hard pressed nor so strongly resisted.’

King John’s son, Henry III, made the castle a major royal stronghold. In 1226, the tower was rebuilt in a cylindrical style to better deflect missiles.