Flint and diapered brick wall at rear of Nos 1 and 3, East Row

Flint and Diapered Brick Wall at Rear of Nos 1 and 3, East Row

This is a garden wall dating from the 16th century, probably early to mid-16th century, with some 19th and 20th century repair and refurbishment.

The wall is constructed of knapped flint and handmade bricks with some clunch (chalk) filling. Later brickwork of various types and iron ties have been added during repairs.

The wall is a retaining structure, oriented north-west to south-east. Twenty-six metres survive to a depth of 3.10 metres from the foundation course. At the south-western end, the wall is 0.91 metres wide at the base and about 0.6 metres at the top, containing flint, bricks and lumps of clunch.

The eastern third displays the most decorative treatment, featuring knapped flints with a diaper brick pattern constructed of bricks set endwise. The handmade bricks vary in height between two and two and a half inches. Most of this section shows three diapers visible above ground level, but the western 4.4 metres has two larger diapers occupying the same height, representing a 19th century refurbishment using original fabric. A brick stringcourse runs 2.2 metres below the top. Three 19th century iron ties have been inserted near the top and the brick coping was replaced in the 19th century. The central section, 9 metres in length by 1.85 metres in height, uses a wide variety of brick types including some early brickwork, interspersed with concrete, tile and flint, with possible survival of earlier fabric underneath. The western section comprises flint and brickwork, with remnants of diaper patterned brickwork at the north-west end. The flints here are less regular than in the south-eastern section.

The wall appears on Sale's map of Rochester of 1816. On the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1864, it is shown as the south-western wall of a walled garden divided into a number of compartments. At that date it was part of a narrow compartment, possibly a long slip garden which sometimes had a specific function such as fruit growing. The 1864 map shows this compartment with trees either side of a central path. 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 20th century 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. Vines House was built on the footprint of a 15th century hall house, originally part of Restoration House. The wall likely formed part of a much larger garden belonging to Restoration House, the earliest parts of which have been dated to 1465, with further construction between 1502 and 1522. Between 1588 and 1600 Restoration House was remodelled by Nicholas Morgan, who in 1607 gave the house as a marriage portion to his daughter Grace on her marriage to Henry Clerke. The house 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, as Samuel Pepys recorded visiting the cherry orchard on 30 June 1667. By 1660 Roger Pilcher, a gardener, had received tenancy of at least part of the garden and held the orchard for a period. A title deed of 1693 describes "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 Ordnance Survey 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. Different outlines of buildings on the 1909 map are labelled as a brewery. By this date the wall had become a boundary wall to the Troy Town Brewery.