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The Rochester Castle was situated on Corporation Street. This pub closed in the 1970s and has now been demolished.

Source: Graham Clarke

I was a frequent of the Royal Exchange back when I was a very young bloke, 17 to be exact. The year was 1968 to 1969. I was working on a Norwegian ship named DIDO. She was a small, 2500 tonne, old, 20 odd years, bulk carrier. She had beams and wooden hatch boards with canvas over to close off the hatches. Even then she was an old shitbox and a 10 knot wonder in fair conditions. We carried paper pulp to Rochester from, usually, Sande Fjord, Norway. From there we would go up to Immingham for coal to go to northern Norway. We moored between buoys in the river and our paper pulp was offloaded by the dockies into lighters using the ships derricks. It was hard work but I learned a lot. We were in Rochester every 4 weeks or so and the Royal was our watering hole. There was usually a barge tied up in the river with a guy we knew as Pedro living aboard. He said he took cargo from here to there at times but I never actually saw the barge move. Pedro would come on board Dido when we were in port for a feed and a couple of beers. It was Pedro who taught me how to scull a dinghy. The Royal was usually packed with seamen and locals, some of questionable character, but there was never any trouble. Pedro had two brothers, a rough looking pair, (I thought then, as a kid) who would be in the Royal most nights. They said they were seamen but I never knew them to join a ship. There were two girls working the Royal, Rosy and Tina, occasionally, a couple of girls from Gravesend, Whisky Mary and Miss Gravesend, would come along and liven up the party. Miss Gravesend came to a sticky end. Her naked body was found in the river. As far as I am aware, they never found out exactly what had happened. My tattoos were done by Charlie of Chatham. Good to remember those times and the characters, good times when being an underage drinker wasn't a problem if you didn't cause a problem.

Martin Still (October 2025)

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