St Bartholomews Chapel

St Bartholomew’s Chapel is a complex building, originating as part of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, founded in 1078 by Gundulph. The surviving chapel was largely completed around 1120, with alterations in the 13th century, a partial nave rebuild in the 18th century, and significant restoration and the addition of a north aisle in 1896 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The building is constructed of flint and rubble with limestone dressings, covered by a tiled roof.

The chapel comprises a Norman apse, an Early English north chancel, a chapel and nave, and a later Early English Gothic Revival north aisle and southeast vestry. The apse has a half-conical roof with three round-arched 11th-century windows featuring incised zig-zag decoration. The north chapel gable displays tufa quoins, two lancet windows, and a quatrefoil with an exposed truss. The north side has two windows. The 19th-century north aisle features three pairs of round-arched windows and a sill band, with low buttresses separating the middle and right pairs. The west end has a gabled nave and lower north aisle, each with two lancets and a quatrefoil above. A coped, gabled porch of the mid-19th century has a two-centre chamfered arch leading to a similar west door with strap hinges. The south elevation of the nave features two small flat-headed windows, and the southeast vestry is lower and gabled with an arched west door and paired east lancets. A steep, square, pyramidal spirelet with swept eaves rises from the west end of the nave ridge.

Inside the chancel, a 13th-century round-arched sedilia includes attached black marble columns. A round chancel arch exists within the vestry, which contains a carved 12th-century piscina, set on top of a column with a moulded base and capital, and potentially attributed to Hugh de Trottescliffe. Restored round arches define the north chapel and chancel arch. The three-bay nave features round columns with waterleaf capitals and checked arches. A 19th-century roof is supported by ashlar posts and collars.

Historically, the chapel is the only remaining part of the former St Bartholomew’s Hospital, built outside the East Gate by Bishop Gundulph and connected to his works at Rochester Cathedral. After the Reformation, it served as a dwelling, but was repurchased and restored in 1725. The cloister originally lay to the south. The chapel possesses group value with the surrounding walls.