Guess the Place

[John Walker]

I have now found it.  It appears in the far distance on GSV.

I've had a few GTPs lately but if no one else goes for it after a day or so I'll go for it.

[johnfilmer]

I found it, but will pass as I have a busy weekend ahead (well busy for me!)

It also looks like my sofa, with Leila our 39kg black Dutch Shepherd sitting on it   

[CAT]

Wrong side of the county MartinR. Resounded, not covered by a deafening roar.

[MartinR]

Brand's Hatch area?

[grandarog]

I will pass on this one as I know it.
Lets just say it brought Paul O'Grady to tears.

[CAT]

Not that I'm aware. The site of this is well known locally as it once resounded to the noise of motorcycle racing.

[John Walker]

Are there some other carvings near this one?

[CAT]

Many thanks MartinR.

It was one of the areas I had to clean of leaves, rubbish and other detritus many years ago before drawing the stonework in detail so I remember it well. (I was a much smaller person then).

The survival of the Roman wall was largely down to the early creation of Rochester Diocesan with the building of the early Anglo-Saxon church, which is beneath the west front of the present cathedral and its precincts. Forming a defendable enclave within the circuit of the Roman walled city of Rochester, it was subsequently reused as the precinct wall for the early Norman cathedral until they needed more space and pushed the boundary further out with its own secondary defendable wall. This internalised a section of the former Roman city wall as it extended through the priory buildings.

Here is my next, which is an addition to a fairly rural location, so doesn't appear on GoogleEarth, or StreetView

[MartinR]

CAT gets it.  The lavatorium is correct.

Quite fine vaulting IMHO.  The problem that they faced when building the Priory was the existence of the Roman ("significantly older") city wall ("much larger") running across the south of the site.  They had to punch through it and put some priory buildings above it.

It's hard to remember, but the ancient walls of Rochester were six or seven hundred years old already when the priory was built, a similar span back from today would take you to the period shortly before the Black Death and the Hundred Years War.  Chaucer was 50 years in the future but Kentish literature existed: "þis boc is dan Michelis of Northgate / ywrite an englis of his oȝene hand."¹


¹don Michael of Northgate: Ayenbite of Inwyt

[CAT]

Could it be the partially blocked-up remains of the monks 'Lavatory', (monk's communal washing are) built into the internal face of the Roman city wall along the southwest side of the cloister of St Andrew's Priory, Rochester?

[John Walker]

A blocked-off secret entry to perhaps the cathedral or an escape tunnel?

[MartinR]

No, not any form of hiding place.  Jackie worked out that it was part of the priory, and I can confirm that it was in use as part thereof for centuries prior to the dissolution.

Clue number 2 may help, or possibly send you on the wrong track: part of the structure is significantly older than the rest and forms part of a much larger (in surface area), older structure.

[Jackie Paper]

It also looks like it was a portion of an arch or buttress blocked up at some point. Is it a hiding place for catholic books or relics?

[MartinR]

Sorry grandarog, Jackie is much closer.

[grandarog]

Is it something simple such as just a  seat for a traveller to rest.