St Margaret's Church, Rochester

St Margaret's Church, Rochester, is perched atop a steep hill overlooking the River Medway. Apart from its late medieval tower which bespeaks something of its real age, the rest consists of a rather boring Victorian nave and chancel, all very rectangular and uninspiring.

Curiously, Edward Hasted in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 4 (Canterbury, 1798) reported an event from the time of Charles II (who reigned 1660-85) in which a bejewelled crown or coronet was dug up in the churchyard. They were presumably digging a new grave and likely stumbled across a much older one, apparently belonging to an old Saxon king or prince. He took his treasures to his tomb, but he left them behind as he awaited God’s judgement in the other world. What became of it, we cannot tell; some museum likely has some dainty seventeenth-century jewellery which recycled its precious metal and gems.

One Sunday last month, I read aloud in chapel the 28th chapter of the Book of Proverbs, the twenty-second verse of which states:

He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

All we now have shall one day be lost and buried, and from it we shall separate; only Christ Himself is the treasure worth keeping, and the one that shall survive death's robbery.

A D