Reasons for Designation
This wall is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is part of a C16 garden wall;
* The decorative quality of the eastern section's brick diaperwork is of a high order;
* The garden wall was originally part of the western boundary wall to Restoration House, which is listed Grade I;
* Despite the loss of part of the wall and later repairs C16 garden walls are rare survivals.
Details
1357/1/10012
EAST ROW
Flint and diapered brick wall at rear of Nos 1 and 3
23-JAN-08
GV
II
Garden wall. C16, probably early to mid-C16, with some C19 and C20 repair and refurbishment.
MATERIALS: Knapped flint and handmade bricks with some clunch filling. Some later brickwork of various types and iron ties.
DESCRIPTION: A retaining wall, orientated north-west to south-east. 26m survive to a depth of 3.10m from the foundation course. The width, exposed at the south-western end, is 0.91m wide at the base and about 0.6m at the top and contains flint, bricks and lumps of clunch. The eastern third has the most decorative treatment of knapped flints with diaper brick pattern constructed of bricks set endwise. The bricks are handmade and vary in height between two to two and a half inches. Most of this section has a pattern of three diapers visible above ground level but the western 4.4m has two larger diapers occupying the same height and is a C19 refurbishment utilising original fabric. There is a brick stringcourse 2.2m below the top. Three C19 iron ties have been inserted near the top and the brick coping was replaced in the C19. The central section of the wall, 9m in length by 1.85m in height, uses a wide variety of brick types, including some early brickwork, interspersed with concrete, tile and flint and there is possible survival of earlier fabric underneath. The western section, is of flint and brickwork. At the north-west end are remnants of diaper patterned brickwork and the flints are not as regular as the south-eastern section.
HISTORY: The wall is shown on Sale's map of Rochester of 1816. On the First Edition OS map of 1864 it is shown as the south-western wall of a walled garden, itself divided into a number of compartments. At this date it was part of a narrow compartment, possibly a long 'slip' garden which sometimes had a specific function such as fruit growing. On the map this compartment is shown with trees either side of a central path. Also, immediately adjoining to the south-west, is a rectangular enclosure, labelled reservoir on the 1896 map, which was the source of the first piped water to the City of Rochester in 1710, now replaced by two C20 houses. On the 1864 map the wall appears to be part of the garden of Vines House, later divided into The Vines and Vines Croft, but Vines House was built on the footprint of a C15 hall house, originally part of Restoration house. The wall is likely to have formed part of a much larger garden belonging to Restoration House, the earliest parts of which have been dated to 1465, and dating between 1502 and 1522. Between 1588 and 1600 Restoration house was re-modelled by Nicholas Morgan, who in 1607 gave the house as a marriage portion to his daughter Grace on her marriage to Henry Clerke, and remained in the same family, apart from during the Commonwealth, until 1693. A 1633 map of Rochester shows a walled enclosure, probably Mr Clerke's garden. In 1667 an orchard had been planted because Samuel Pepys recorded visiting the cherry orchard on 30th June 1667. By 1660 a Roger Pilcher, gardener, had received tenancy of at least part of the garden and held the orchard for a period, described in a title deed of 1693 "and all that Orchard or little place of ground, planted with fruit trees containing by estimation half an acre or more or less lying by St Margaret aforesaid , and adjoining or lying near to the yard and gardens belonging to the said capital messuage and now or late in the occupation of Roger Pilcher". In 1757 the garden to the rear of Restoration House was divided east to west between Jane Baynard, widow, and Wilkes.
By the 1896 OS map the adjoining area to the south-east of the wall (shown as gardens on the 1864 map) had been replaced by buildings including glasshouses and different outlines of buildings on the 1909 map are labelled as a brewery. By this date this wall had become a boundary wall to the Troy Town Brewery.
SOURCES:
Samuel Pepys Diaries. Entry for 30th June 1667.
Roger Tucker "Restoration House". 2006 guidebook.
Maggie Henderson. Archaeology South-East "An Interpretative Historic Building Survey of Boundary Wall Remains 22-26 Victoria Street, Rochester, Kent. January 2008.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATATION DECISION:
The wall is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is the surviving part of a C16 garden wall;
* The decorative quality of the eastern section's knapped flint with brick diaperwork is of a high order;
* The garden wall was originally part of the garden wall to Restoration House (Grade I);
* Despite the fragmentary state and later repairs, C16 garden walls are rare survivals.
