New in v1.0: added Upnor Castle and Hillside Barge; recompiled with sdk v0.14 for better compatiblity with sim update 5.
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Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, South East England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France.
Situated on the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester served as a strategically important royal castle. During the late medieval period it helped protect England's south-east coast from invasion. The first castle at Rochester was founded in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. It was given to Bishop Odo, probably by his half-brother William the Conqueror. During the Rebellion of 1088 over the succession to the English throne, Odo supported Robert Curthose, the Conqueror's eldest son, against William Rufus. It was during this conflict that the castle first saw military action; the city and castle were besieged after Odo made Rochester a headquarters for the rebellion. After the garrison capitulated, this first castle was abandoned.
Between 1087 and 1089, Rufus asked Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, to build a new stone castle at Rochester. He established the current extent of the castle. Though much altered through the centuries, some parts of Gundulf's work survive. In 1127 King Henry I granted the castle to the Archbishop of Canterbury in perpetuity. William de Corbeil built the massive keep that still dominates the castle today. Throughout the 12th century the castle remained in the custody of the archbishops.
During the First Barons' War (1215–1217) in King John's reign, baronial forces captured the castle from Archbishop Stephen Langton and held it against the king, who then besieged it. The Barnwell chronicler remarked "Our age has not known a siege so hard pressed nor so strongly resisted". After resisting for just over seven weeks, the garrison surrendered. The castle had been greatly damaged, with breaches in the outer walls and one corner of the keep collapsed, and hunger eventually forced the defenders' hand. The castle did not stay under John's control for long: in 1216 it was captured by the French Prince Louis, who was the new leader of the baronial faction. John died and was succeeded by his son King Henry III in 1216; the next year, the war ended and the castle was taken under direct royal control.
Rochester was besieged for the third time in 1264 during the Second Barons' War (1264–1267). The castle's royal constable, Roger de Leybourne, held Rochester in support of Henry III. Rebel armies led by Simon de Montfort and Gilbert de Clare entered the city and set about trying to capture the castle. Again the castle's defenders resisted, this time with a different outcome. After a week, the rebel armies raised the siege in the face of relief from Henry himself. The garrison did not surrender, and the castle suffered extensive damage that was not repaired until the following century. The castle saw military action for the last time in 1381 when it was captured and ransacked during the Peasants' Revolt. As Rochester Castle fell out of use its materials were reused elsewhere and custodianship relinquished by the Crown. The castle and its grounds were opened to the public in the 1870s as a park. At various points during the 19th and 20th centuries repairs were carried out. The castle is protected as a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Monument. Today the ruins are in the guardianship of English Heritage and open to the public.
The castle comes with its own POI and the mod also covers the nearby Rochester Cathedral. This church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building.
This pack contains also additional mods covering other noticeable buildings and landmarks of the Medway Towns area.
-Rochester Bridge: the current "bridge" is in fact four separate bridges: the "Old" bridge and "New" bridge carrying the A2 road, "Railway" bridge carrying the railway and the "Service" bridge carrying service pipes and cables. The bridge links the towns of Strood and Rochester in Medway.
-Anchorage House: home of the Medway County Court
-Chatham Town Hall and Pentagon Centre: designed by George Edward Bond in the Renaissance style, the Chatham Town Hall opened in January 1900 and went on to become the Brook Theatre in April 1997. Built as part of the redevelopment of Chatham town centre in the 1970s, the Pentagon Shopping Centre contains over 70 shops and 7 leisure facilities, many high street names in fashion, homeware and food stores.
-Chatham Historic Dockyard: The Chatham Historic Dockyard is a maritime museum homing three historic warships: HMS Gannet (1878), HMS Cavalier (R73) and HMS Ocelot (S17)
-Chatham Naval Memorial: the Chatham Naval Memorial is a large obelisk dedicated to the memory of the sailors who lost their lives during the two World Wars.
-Chatham Marina: the marina has 412 berths and is close to a factory outlet shopping complex, multiscreen cinema, and numerous restaurants and bars.
-U-475 "Black Widow": submarine U-475 Black Widow was a Soviet Navy submarine of the Cold war period, which is now in private hands. It is currently moored at Strood, on the River Medway. Black Widow was built at Sudomekh shipyard in Leningrad and commissioned in 1967. It was based at Riga and served with the Soviet Baltic Fleet. It was decommissioned in 1994 and sold. After passing into private hands, and under the name "U-475 Black Widow" it was moored at Long's Wharf near the Thames Barrier in England where it was open to the public as a museum ship. In 2004 it was moved to her present location, in a state of disrepair, and is currently awaiting restoration.
-Priestfield Stadium: popularly known simply as Priestfield, it is a football stadium in Gillingham. It has been the home of Gillingham Football Club since the club's formation in 1893.
-NEW:Upnor Castle is an Elizabethan artillery fort located on the west bank of the River Medway. It was constructed between 1559–67 on the orders of Elizabeth I, during a period of tension with Spain and other European powers. The castle consists of a two-storeyed main building protected by a curtain wall and towers, with a triangular gun platform projecting into the river. It was garrisoned by about 80 men with a peak armament of around 20 cannon of various calibres.
Upnor Castle became a naval ammunition depot, storing great quantities of gunpowder, ammunition, and cannon to replenish the warships that came to Chatham for repair and resupply. It remained in military use until as late as 1945. The castle was subsequently opened to the public and is now an English Heritage property.
-NEW: Hillside Accomodation barge: "The Hillside", constructed in 1970 and originally built as an accommodation barge for the Dutch Navy, has just under 70 rooms and was able to sleep over 200 people. Along with all its toilets and showers, the vessel also has a cinema capable of seating up to 80 people. The ship, initially from Holland, was first transported to Portsmouth in 1990, where it remained moored and disused for the following 23 years. Then, in 2013 it was towed to Rochester, where it continued to remain disused, and for the most part, forgotten about. A mystery businessman has recently purchased the accommodation barge to transform it into 400 luxury holiday apartments in Gibraltar. This mod also contains a 200 tonne shipping crane which, orginally, was one of a pair, built in 1957 at Cory's Wharf on Rochester Riverside. They had a 10 tonne lift capacity and were used to unload aggregates for the nearby cement works. The cranes were dismantled in 2006 to allow the construction of the new river wall. In 2007, one crane was reassembled and re-painted in its original colour before being erected at the edge of Blue Boar Creek.
This pack does NOT contain a full photogrammetry extract of the city in order to keep acceptable size and performances for lower configurations.
Related mods:
-Leeds Castle: https://flightsim.to/file/16282/leeds-castle
-Bodiam Castle: https://flightsim.to/file/11873/bodiam-castle
Just installed Orbx South East England and now have to Rochester Catherdrals...is there away of editing it out and just have the castle added in?
Thanks for the great add-on.
26 days ago
25 days ago
mv46
andwhiteley
2 months ago
CaptainMoonlight
Awesome. As a local to the area it was great seeing these added to the SIM...please keep progressing the area...
Any chance of placing the correct be buildings in and around EGTO would be magical....Asda on the approach, all the large industrial shops along the edge.... wonderful.
Thanks.
2 years ago
steverandall78
Before the last update It was working, but with the last update, when I try to fly over Rochester MSFS2020 hung-up and I have to abort FS2002. I do not know why.
Great job.
3 years ago
Hello,
Thanks for the feedback. I tried to reproduce your issue with no success. Did you manage to determine if it was caused by one of the mods in particular?
3 years ago
mv46
julesta
Hi,
I've downloaded mv46-rochester_castle_EOvHF.rar several times, and am seeing a problem with the file's content.
I'm using/testing MFS Addon Collector (MAC) to organize my addons, and there has been one consistent problem.
In case you are unaware, MAC is a tool that extracts your addons, moves them to directories for each type of addon, tags them all, and presents you with a list of extracted addons that you can then manipulate in various ways, and can add one or more to your flight sim Community folder, and remove them when you no longer want them in the sim.
What's happening? Every time I try to delete the extracted files, "U 475 Black Widow" returns an "Item not found" message, but will not delete any folder in the path to U 475 Black Widow, giving a "Could no find this item" message, although the structure is plainly visible..
I've looked deeper, not being sure whether the problem was with the package, or with MAC.
I've opened the package outside of the MAC directory structure, and initially found that I could access Scenery and Contentinfo. I was also unable to open both the json files, but when I came back to them, i saw a "the directory name is invalid" message, and I could not delete the structure.
I can see the content of the json files, if I open (not extract) the .rar using 7zip.
I am not seeing this porblem with any other addons, and have found that the only way to delete the directory is to remove everything wlse from the drive, and fast format it.
If you want any images, I can supply them, but I'd need to know if you use My Messages, to post images direct to you.
3 years ago
I am not sure what could cause this, in particular the fact that you could not open the json after extracting them. I'm using winrar for that.
You don't have this problem with any other of my mods?
3 years ago
mv46
JohnG
3 years ago
3 years ago
mv46
Qantas10
3 years ago
3 years ago
mv46
Qantas10
3 years ago
3 years ago
mv46
tazmantaylor1
3 years ago
3 years ago
mv46
craigamon
Thanks + Regards from Us.
3 years ago
3 years ago
mv46
Thom