WHO ARE WE?

For centuries the people of Kent have maintained a bridge across the River Medway at Rochester. The earliest surviving written evidence of Rochester Bridge in the twelfth-century register of the Bishop of Rochester assigned to 54 parishes, manors, and estates surrounding Rochester the responsibility by ancient custom for repairing and maintaining the bridge. By letters patent of Richard II these contributory parishes were constituted a commonalty in 1399 and were charged to elect two wardens to oversee the maintenance and repair of the bridge. In 1576, an Act of Parliament reformed the Wardens and Commonalty of Rochester Bridge, requiring householders from the commonalty to assemble each year at Rochester Castle to elect two wardens, twelve assistants, and four auditors. This system continued to work for over three centuries, until another Act of Parliament in 1908 abolished the annual election and provided for the nomination of the wardens and assistants by local authorities. For most of the twentieth century there were seventeen wardens and assistants: six nominated by the Kent County Council; two each by the city of Rochester and the boroughs of Chatham, Gillingham, and Maidstone; and three by the various river authorities eventually united in the Medway Ports Limited. Since 1999 a new Charity Commission scheme has provided for twelve wardens and assistants: three nominated by the Medway Council, two by the Kent County Council, one by the Maidstone Borough Council, and six assistants appointed by the Trust.

WHAT DO WE DO?

The Rochester Bridge Trust has built and maintained numerous Medway crossings since medieval times. In the late fourteenth century the old Roman bridge at Rochester was replaced by a stone bridge with eleven arches and a drawbridge. During the early nineteenth century concern about the deposit of silt in the riverbed led to the alteration of the medieval bridge to provide a large central arch and eventually in 1856 to the construction of a new cast iron bridge with three arches and a swing bridge to allow ships with fixed masts to navigate upriver. Between 1910 and 1914 this Victorian bridge was reconstructed, moving the arches to their present position above the roadway in order to provide more clearance for shipping under the bridge. Between 1965 and 1970 the Rochester Bridge Trust built a second roadway bridge of concrete and steel box girders resting on the piers of the disused railway bridge immediately downstream from the reconstructed Victorian bridge. Between 1992 and 1996 the Rochester Bridge Trust helped to build the Medway Tunnel (which it legally owns) between Chatham Dockyard and the Frindsbury peninsula and has agreed to pay the greater part of the annual tunnel maintenance. Over the years other Medway crossings supported by the Rochester Bridge Trust have included the Great Bridge at Tonbridge, the Branbridges at East Peckham, the Bow Bridge at Wateringbury, and the Maidstone Bridge, in addition to construction of the Gillingham Pier and the Sun Pier at Chatham. The Rochester Bridge Trust also makes charitable and educational grants, having founded the Maidstone Girls Grammar School, the Rochester Grammar School for Girls, and the Bridge Wardens College of the University of Kent at Canterbury.

WHO PAYS FOR IT?

During the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV the Wardens and Commonalty of Rochester Bridge were endowed with lands in London, Kent and Essex, the income from which was to be used for the repair and maintenance of Rochester Bridge. Over the centuries some of these properties have been sold and other properties purchased and investments made in their place, but much of the original endowment still remains in the property portfolio of the Rochester Bridge Trust, including land at Dartford, Faversham, and Grain, buildings on Rochester High Street, and woodland still known as the Bridge Woods. The Rochester Bridge Trust has not charged a bridge toll since the mid-sixteenth century and today operates its bridges according to its ancient motto- publica privatis- "from the private for the public".