n the home, during his
later years, of Cardinal Fisher, a considerable part still exists to the
south-west of the cathedral, between it and Boley Hill. The palace was
perhaps originally erected by Gundulf himself. It is said to have been
rebuilt, after a fire, by Bishop Gilbert de Glanvill (1185-1215), though
he may have found it sufficient to repair the shell then left, using
Caen stone for the purpose. Another definite notice of the palace is
found when we see Bishop Lowe, in 1459, dating an instrument from his
"new palace at Rochester." Here, again, it is probably a re-modelling
and not a complete reconstruction that is referred to, but the
re-modelling was certainly thorough, for many fifteenth century features
are to be seen in the part that is left.

The main framework of the whole rectangular structure probably dates
from Gundulf's or, at the latest, from Bishop Ralph's time; the simple
plan and the walls, 3 feet in thickness, being such as might be expected
in early Norman work. The building, which has a total length of 70
feet, is of stone, with a tiled roof, and now forms dwelling-houses. It
has a massive buttress in the centre of the southern face, and the
outlines of old windows can be traced in various parts. The western
gable end, which can be seen from Boley Hill, is also interesting and
worthy of attention. The cellars and vaulted passages extend even beyond
the building to the eastward, and are very massive in their
construction. Fragments of wrought masonry that probably once belonged
to the chapel have been dug up; they were mostly portions of capitals,
with beautiful foliated ornaments, or of column shafts.

Cardinal Fisher was the last Bishop of Rochester to reside here. He
received a visit from Erasmus in 1516, and this great scholar gave a
very bad account of the residence and its situation. Fisher himself
complained of its dilapidated state and of the rats that infested it.
Cardinal Wolsey stayed at the house with the bishop on the 4th of July,
1527, and wrote to the king on the next day: "I was right loveingly and
kindely by him entertained." After his cook's attempt, in 1531, to
poison him and his family at his London house, on Lambeth Marsh, Fisher
stayed continuously at Rochester, until, in 1534, he was peremptorily
summoned to the capital--never to return. The palace was continued to
the bishops by the charter constituting the new establishment, but they
neither inhabited it nor, in fact, l