The Medway is right at the heart of everything here in Rochester - geographically, historically, environmentally and culturally. Our city exists as it does because of the river, being a crossing point for the earliest humans, who settled along its banks, and for the Romans who likely built the earliest form of bridge. Rochester Castle was built to control this crucial strategic location, and the Bridge Chapel came into being for the benefit of those seeking a blessing before undertaking the dangerous journey over the medieval bridge. Many would have been pilgrims, en route to Canterbury Cathedral.
The Friends of the River Medway undertake a yearly pilgrimage to celebrate the river, including activities to monitor and improve the health of the water and surrounding environment. We're delighted to be hosting another special litter picking session in Esplanade Gardens with our friends from FoRM on Sunday 26th July.
Our regular monthly activities always include litter collection: while contributing to maintaining the beauty of our green spaces for everyone to enjoy, this also prevents contaminants including microplastics from collecting in the earth and making their way into the river. We also regularly go over the flood defence walls when the tide allows and pick up the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates along the river foreshore, although unfortunately the state of the tide does not allow us to do this safely on this occasion. Nevertheless, we can't wait to welcome the pilgrims to help us with collecting discarded waste from around the Gardens.
This activity is a little earlier than our usual weekend events, starting at 9:30am and going on until 11:00am. If you'd like to join us, check out our Volunteer Activity page for this event; if you can't make this one, there are plenty more coming up this year that we'd love to welcome you to. You can also get involved with the Friends of the River Medway in other ways as they make their way from source to sea: check out their website and follow them on social media to find out more.
We're grateful to Mark Brumell for giving permission to use images from last year's pilgrimage in this article. You can see more of Mark's beautiful photos on his website markbrumell.com
Rochester Pier News
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Rochester Pier Survey Scheduled for October
Our partners at Medway Council have informed us a contractor has been selected, and a commencement date scheduled, for essential survey work to be carried out on Rochester Pier, which will hopefully pave the way for our major restoration project to continue.
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Rochester Pier Temporarily Closed
For the last nine months, we’ve been delighted to have had Rochester Pier open to the public again while our volunteers work on restoring and refreshing it, but unfortunately, an important safety inspection now requires us to close the pier for some weeks.