Being the first part of an account of a lovely day trip in August of 2019, now written and illustrated properly in… 2021.

The day out started for me with a train to Redhill and a huge full English at a place called Poppins near the station; it almost continued, having met Charlie, at Ightham Mote, but a rammed car park early in the morning and a knowledge of many highlights yet to come kept us on the road. So the first real sight of the day was the Barad-dûr like spire of Hadlow Tower which, since the fall of Fonthill Abbey, is the premier example of the Gothick Ludicrous architectural style in the British Isles.

The tower is best viewed from the nearby parish church (a very nice example, and one which felt well loved and relevant to its community.) A churchgoer told us how the current owners did the tower up with lots of Heritage money (we looked up the interiors; they’re hideous) and then stopped letting people in. It’s now on sale again for three times the asking price. Yuck.

The next stop was St Leonard’s Tower, one of the many bits of fun 11th century oppressive architecture constructed across England as William of Normandy consolidated his invasion (although, as a helpful English Heritage board pointed out, the building’s lack of serious defensive features indicated it was probably more of a symbolic and administrative fort than average). There was nothing inside to see, but we agreed it was a very fine tower.

Then, we came to Rochester. Half the reason for this Expedition had been hearing that there was mini golf going on in the cathedral there, so we came for the memes, but we stayed for the really beautifully distinguished interiors.

Cryptic.

DISDAIN FOR THOSE NOT MADE OF STONE.

Yes, it’s made of feathers!

I have had the good fortune to see a great many cathedrals, and this was an excellent example of the genre. There was a great mural with a very Eastern Orthodox feeling to the art (which made perfect sense when we saw in an info board that named the artist as Sergei Fyodorov – who had hidden a little picture of himself peeking from the side of the corbel, in true medieval style); memorials to men of Rochester fighting and dying in every corner of the world; an atmospheric crypt, glorious ceramic tiles. (We didn’t actually fancy the mini golf, so skipped it.)

The High Street was very cheerful and active on a bright sunny day; we had fish and chips, and Charlie bought a mosasaur tooth. We took a turn around the excellent Guildhall museum – a perfect little town museum, made with absolute love and interest in the town’s considerable historical pedigree, with just enough budget to make it really work (a replica deck of a prison hulk padded out with mirrors was a high point.)

The High Street also boasted one of those huge, wonderful Hay-on-Wye-esque bookshops, which I escaped having spent only 10 with a book of architecture and an Ian Hogg illustrated history of artillery. Then, to the castle; I actually bumped into a work colleague on the way there – my CSSC membership doubles as English Heritage, so that’s me and a plus-1 in for free.

The castle is of the same basic design language as the Tower of London (although built a fair bit later): a huge solid militaristic cube with towers at each corner, within later rings of concentric defences. It’s in considerably poorer nick than the White Tower,  having had fewer prison/mint/arsenal side gigs in the intervening centuries and being completely obsolescent in its main role a fort by the 17th (which may have spared it from Cromwell’s general castle-vandalising after the Civil War). But this means that the interior hasn’t been mucked about with much, and, thanks to the lack of floorboards, you can see five storeys of gorgeously carved Norman arches and immensely impressive columns in the middle all at once. From the platform at the top, we can see the Garden of England in all directions, much of the visual interest coming from the Medway estuary with its rather lost-looking Soviet submarine.

Castled out, we returned to Charlie’s car for the second part of our adventure: north and west to the low, windswept Hoo Peninsula and its many fortresses.