St. Catherine'S Hospital, Rochester

St. Catherine's Hospital, Rochester was a leper hospital founded in 1315. By the end of the eighteenth century it had become an almshouse charity and moved to its present buildings at the top of Star Hill. In 1975 it merged with the Richard Watts Charity. OriginIn 1315 Symond Potyn left estates to fund the building of "a House with Appurtenances called the Spittell of St. Katherine of Rochester in the suburbe in Eastgate". It was intended for any "Man or Woman of the Cittee of Rouchester to be visited with Lepre or other such Diseasses that longe to Impotence". This is the leper hospital of which Richard Watts may have been thinking when he banned proctors from the Six Poor Travellers' house. The will laid down the equivalent of trustees; the Vicar of St. Nicholas, Potyn's heirs, John St. Denys and his heirs and finally the "Baylie of the same Cittee". Rules for the running of the hospital and the behaviour of the inhabitants were included. Amongst other things residents were not to "haunt the tavern or go to ale" which on the surface seems odd as Potyn was the Master of the Crown Inn. Phippen is quoted by Hinkley as remarking on the incongruity of this. Hinkley comments that perhaps as landlord Potyn had seen enough of the effects of such attendance. It is also possible that Potyn was mindful of the dread in which lepers were held and wished to keep them away from healthy customers. The hospital was duly built at the foot of Star Hill. By 1704 complaints about maladministration led to a commission of inquiry which sat at the Bull Inn. Apparently estates were being let for excessive periods at poor rates. An agreement was eventually reached which raised enough money for immediate repairs followed by a rebuild in 1717, some 400 years after the original founding.

St. Catherine's Hospital, Rochester was a leper hospital founded in 1315. By the end of the eighteenth century it had become an almshouse charity and moved to its present buildings at the top of Star Hill. In 1975 it merged with the Richard Watts Charity. OriginIn 1315 Symond Potyn left estates to fund the building of "a House with Appurtenances called the Spittell of St. Katherine of Rochester in the suburbe in Eastgate". It was intended for any "Man or Woman of the Cittee of Rouchester to be visited with Lepre or other such Diseasses that longe to Impotence". This is the leper hospital of which Richard Watts may have been thinking when he banned proctors from the Six Poor Travellers' house. The will laid down the equivalent of trustees; the Vicar of St. Nicholas, Potyn's heirs, John St. Denys and his heirs and finally the "Baylie of the same Cittee". Rules for the running of the hospital and the behaviour of the inhabitants were included. Amongst other things residents were not to "haunt the tavern or go to ale" which on the surface seems odd as Potyn was the Master of the Crown Inn. Phippen is quoted by Hinkley as remarking on the incongruity of this. Hinkley comments that perhaps as landlord Potyn had seen enough of the effects of such attendance. It is also possible that Potyn was mindful of the dread in which lepers were held and wished to keep them away from healthy customers. The hospital was duly built at the foot of Star Hill. By 1704 complaints about maladministration led to a commission of inquiry which sat at the Bull Inn. Apparently estates were being let for excessive periods at poor rates. An agreement was eventually reached which raised enough money for immediate repairs followed by a rebuild in 1717, some 400 years after the original founding.