Rochester Cathedral is England's second oldest and features glorious Norman architecture and one of the finest Romanesque facades in the country.

There are so many hidden gems within the walls of this magnificent building it would be easy to miss them during a visit. So what should you look out for…

The Very Rev'd Dr Philip Hesketh talks about the cathedral

The West Door

As you walk into the Cathedral you are drawn towards the Nave with its stunning Romanesque and Early English Gothic style arches.

But turn around and face the West Door and you will see the names of dozens of Royal Engineers and the campaigns in which they fought. The Cathedral is the Royal Engineers’ spiritual home.

The Dean of Rochester Cathedral The Very Rev'd Dr Philip Hesketh said: “This was done by the Royal Engineers to remember all the officers and soldiers who were killed in various campaigns in the 19th century.

“The sad thing about it is that there are places mentioned where we have been more recently, like Afghanistan."

The Northbourne Pall

One of the gems which is truly hidden at the Cathedral is a funeral pall which is stored inside a huge wooden chest near to the West Door. The pall was for Dean Ernald Lane who was Dean of Rochester from 1904 until 1913 and Lord Northbourne’s brother-in-law. It would have been draped over his coffin,

The Dean said: “The cabinet itself is quite an extraordinary thing.

“The pall is a magnificent embroidered piece of work but it needs some restoration. It was hidden away in an area of the Cathedral where it is almost impossible to get to. They must have built the cabinet in the room for it because they would never have got it down the spiral staircase. What we’ve done in my time here is dismantled it and brought it down here, because we want to make these hidden things known and have them on display at various times for people to see."

The Nave

The Nave itself is not only stunning but also has a rich history. It has endured several major fires and other hard times. Troops and horses were quartered there during medieval and Civil War sieges of Rochester Castle. During the Commonwealth period in the 1650s it was used as a carpenter’s workshop and an alehouse.

If you look up, you will see huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. These were made at Chatham Dockyard.

The Crossing

This marks the midpoint of the Cathedral. The large stone screen separates the Nave, used in the medieval period by ordinary people, from the Quire behind it which was where the monks would worship separately.

The Cathedral’s organ is spectacular - and rather large for a Cathedral of this size. The organ dates from 1791 and it has almost 4,000 pipes.

Here is another point where visitors should make sure they look up. Looking back at them are a series of carved wooden Green Men. They were created in 1840 and repainted in 1992. These rather scary looking faces, which have leaves growing out of their mouths, were originally a pagan fertility symbol. They were adopted by the medieval Christian church to represent God’s creation and Christ’s resurrection.

The Pilgrim Steps

For more than 300 years, medieval pilgrims came up the steps in the North Quire Aisle to visit the shrine of a man called William. He was a baker from Scotland who was making his own pilgrimage to Canterbury when he was murdered on his way out of Rochester. His body was found by a local woman who was said to have been cured of her madness as a result. Monks recovered his body and he was buried in the Cathedral. The shrine was destroyed during the Reformation. But the steps remain and have been covered with wooden boards to protect them.

The Dean said: “People used to assemble by the steps and then they would go up to the shrine on their knees. You can literally see where they have been worn away by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, who have worn away the stone.

“A project that we are looking into at the moment is to have these slightly repaired, I mean not made straight but we are looking to have the wooden tops replaced with perspex so that you can actually see them.”

Anglo-Zulu war memorial

Half way up the Pilgrim Steps, on the left, is a plaque to commemorate Colonel John Chard, a British Army officer and Royal Engineer who was trained and based in Chatham. He received the Victoria Cross for his role in the defence of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu war in January 1879. The battle was recreated in the film Zulu in which Chard was portrayed by Stanley Baker.

The Dean said: “When I was a young Canon, before I became Dean, I was called up by somebody in Gravesend to say that the king of the Zulus was on a visit and wanted to come to the Cathedral. So I said yes absolutely.

“And why he wanted to come was to put a wreath by this plaque which is extraordinary really.”

Charles Dickens

On the other side of the Cathedral, in the South Quire Aisle, is a memorial to former Rochester MP Richard Watts who left money in his will to establish the Richard Watts Charity.

But beneath the memorial is another piece of local history - which is not marked by a plaque because it never came to be. It is the spot where Charles Dickens would have been buried.

The Dean explained: "They dug a grave here, a vault, and we have got the records of it, for Dickens to be buried after he died, but then Queen Victoria decided that such a noble and great person should not be in a provincial cathedral and against Dickens' wishes because he didn't want to be commemorated in any way, they took him by train at night up to Westminster Abbey and they buried him overnight quietly. But this is where he was going to be buried.

“There's a little bit in our chapter notes from 1870 which says that having done this we couldn't possibly charge the family for it, we must incur the costs.”

Hamo de Hythe’s doorway

Also in the South Quire Aisle is this huge wooden doorway, created by Bishop Hamo Hythe before he died. The stone carving around the door depicts his soul being blown to Heaven. It contrasts Christianity - depicted on the left by the figure of a woman called Ecclesia, with Judaism, symbolised by the woman on the right, Synagoga who is blindfolded and has a broken staff.

The Dean said: “The door is quite anti-Semitic, that's how we would see it now. One of the things we do when we come here, is that we say a prayer and we ask for forgiveness for our religious intolerance.”

Leaning pillars

As you walk towards the doorway, you will notice that the pillars on the south wall lean outwards - evidence of historical subsidence that had to be repaired.

The Dean explained: “In the 1840s they realised that the Cathedral was falling into the garden. So they had to do major repair works to somehow hold it up. They sealed up the side passages that take you up into the rooms above, they bricked them up, in order to stop it falling away.”

The Crypt

Down in the crypt is a cosy cafe, but walk through the tables and chairs to the far corner and you will find paintings on the ceiling which date back to 1290.

The Dean said: “At one time down in the Crypt there were seven chapels. Most of the paintings have gone but in one section there's quite a lot left. There has been a lot of work done to try and stabilise the paintings to preserve them.”

Textus Roffensis

Also in the Crypt is one of the Cathedral’s most treasured items, the Textus Roffensis. The book was written at the Cathedral between 1122 and 1124 and it contains the laws of the early Anglo-Saxons - the oldest laws in England.

The Dean said: “This is probably one of the greatest treasures the Cathedral has, it is also seen as probably the most important book in Britain, much more important that the Magna Carta because the Magna Carta is based on this.”

Previously stored away at Strood Archives Centre, a project to restore the Crypt so it could be on display begun in 2014.

The Dean said: “There is a charter in there, which is known as the Charter of Henry I, and it is the oldest copy of the Henry I Charter and it is that charter that the Magna Carter is based on.

“Part of my time here as Dean has been to bring it home and let people know about it.

“It's a really important treasure that belongs to the people of Rochester and the people of Medway, and it is here to see. And our task over the coming years is to help people interpret it and understand how important it is.”

Deliberate mistakes

In The Sanctuary, where the High Altar is located, there are beautiful floor tiles which were redone in the 1870s but based on a medieval design.

The Dean said: “Children love them because if you look one way you have got a sort of a lion creature, but if you look from the other side it becomes a bird with a beak.”

Children also love looking for the deliberate mistakes in the tiles. Look carefully at the floor and you may be able to spot a tile that has been deliberately laid the wrong way around.

The Dean explained: “It was most definitely deliberate. It is to represent that no-one is perfect other than God.”

The Zodiac

Also located in The Sanctuary is a stunning Zodiac design on the floor. The tiles, which used to be hidden under a carpet, depict the Zodiac constellations and Earth at the centre.

The Dean said: “People may ask why has a cathedral got a Zodiac in it. It goes in conjunction with the window above it which depicts the universal Christ - Christ in Glory looking over the entire universe.

“And it is a very simple message, which is that it isn’t the stars that move our lives, it is the one who created the stars and the planets who rules over the universe and directs our lives.”

Sanctuary lamp

Above the Zodiac is a hanging lamp which was a gift from the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church in Jerusalem

The Dean said: “At the beginning of the century the patriarch came to Rochester and he brought one of the lamps from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as a gift so it links us with the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and we have something from that very special pilgrimage site.”

The lamp is constantly lit, to symbolise hope and eternal life.

Wheel of Fortune

In The Quire at the centre of the cathedral is one of the finest surviving wall paintings in England dating back to the 1200s. It depicts the Wheel of Fortune and shows the rise and fall of fortunes - although some of the painting is missing.

The Dean said: “The fact that is has survived and wasn't destroyed during the many religious turmoils in England is because it was hidden behind a pulpit. When they moved the pulpit, in the 1830s, they discovered it.”

The fresco

In the North Transept, by the north entrance to the Cathedral, is another important painting. The colourful fresco was unveiled in 2004 to mark the 1400th anniversary of the original founding of the Cathedral. It depicts Jesus at the top being baptised, the baptising of King Ethelbert in 597 at the bottom, and St Justus who was the first bishop of Rochester baptising people in the River Medway.

The Dean said: “When this was completed it was the first fresco in an English cathedral in 800 years. It reminds us that at one time the whole of this building would have been full of colour like that.”

In the spotlight

The Cathedral nearing the end of a £700k project to refurbish all of its lighting. By the middle of the summer the building would have been completely re-wired with new lighting installed.

The Dean said: “It will enable us to highlight parts of the building and the architecture that we've not seen before. We can light up different parts of the building and show it in a different way. “When it is all finished, we're going to open up to the public in the evening to allow people to see the different things.”

Rochester Cathedral welcomes thousands of visitors every year and remains free to enter and open to all. You can take a guided tour or explore the building on your own.

The Cathedral also welcomes school trips and has a series of free downloadable activities and worksheets for children.

To find out more, click here.