The beginnings of Troy Town
The population of England grew in the eighteenth century, from an estimated 6.15 million in 1760, the date when the Industrial Revolution is traditionally said to have begun, to 8.3 million in 1801, an increase of 35%.
The populations of the north Kent towns grew due, among other things, to the development of the Thanet resorts, increased trade on the river, both local and long distance, and the expansion of shipbuilding, for both the Royal and merchant navies. The Royal Navy grew due to the frequent wars of the eighteenth century. The Royal Dockyard at Chatham expanded, and so too therefore did the town, with the increase in army and Navy personnel, civilian dockyard workers, and people employed in trades and professions providing goods and services to the Navy and its officers and men.
Chatham Dockyard, 1789
Neither Chatham nor Rochester were well-regarded by some contemporaries, but Rochester was regarded somewhat more favourably.
John Gale Jones, a political commentator, wrote in 1796:
‘Rochester, although called a city, is yet far from deserving that denomination, either from its size or its respectability. It forms but one continued street, which is neither paved nor lighted, and the inhabitants do not appear to abound in any opulence. Chatham, to which it immediately joins, and of which it seems but a part, is of the two the worst, being extremely dirty and much occupied by soldiers’.
The Kent historian Edward Hasted wrote of Rochester in 1798:
‘the city at present consists of one principal street, of a handsome breadth and considerable length, having several bye lanes on each side of it…. The high road from London to Dover leads through the High street, which has several large inns in it, for the accommodation of passengers, the traffic of the road here being extraordinary great…. The houses in it are in general well built, and are inhabited by people of wealth and condition’.He wrote of Chatham it is like most sea ports, a long, narrow, disagreeable, ill-built town.
Because of the growth of Chatham, civilian Dockyard officers, Army and Navy officers, skilled men such as shipwrights, and well to do Chatham businessmen, wanted good houses, perhaps somewhere a little quieter than busy Chatham.
Circumstances were therefore right for the beginning of new development in Rochester.
In December 1787 The Kentish Gazette advertised for sale
All that Leasehold Piece or Parcel of Land or Ground, as it is now fenced in and inclosed, laid out and intended for building on ... near and adjoining the Turnpike Road leading from Rochester to Maidstone and called or known by the name of Pleasant Row.
The two messuages were held on 999 year leases, which had commenced at Midsummer 1786, providing a definite beginning date for Troy Town.
In January 1792 The Kentish Gazette reported
The rage for building is nowhere more conspicuous than at Rochester, to which city, in imitation of Edinburgh, has been added a whole town, which is called Troy Town, in compliment to a distiller at Chatham, who is the ground proprietor, and bears that venerable name.
The distiller in question was Mr Jacob Cazeneuve Troy, of whom more in later posts. Mr Troy owned a piece of land in Rochester which was known as King's Field or Lucerne Field. According to one historian of Kent, the land had formerly been used as a brickfield. This was where the development of Troy Town was taking place.
Eventually, Pleasant Row consisted of twenty-seven houses or premises between East Row and King Street.
With one exception, these houses face the Maidstone Road; Pleasant Row itself is a footpath running to the rear of the properties. The gardens and outbuildings belonging to the houses are on the opposite side of Pleasant Row.
Only a small part of the original buildings on Union Street remain, and there is nothing left of the houses in King Street or Cazeneuve Street; their appearance is unknown.
Commercial properties as well as houses were built. In January 1792 the Kentish Gazette was advertising for sale
The Royal George was probably what is now the Granville, on the corner of Maidstone Road and King Street.
In August 1793 the Gazette was advertising
a very substantial new built brick dwelling house... situated next to the Portland Arms in King Street Troy Town and contains an excellent butcher's shop and slaughter-house.
A passer-by in the 1790s would have seen the King’s Field divided into plots, with houses of two or three stories at various stages of building. No doubt a brickworks would have been operating, using brickearth dug from the field, to make bricks for the houses.
People who had already moved in to finished houses would see carts and wagons constantly passing with loads of timber, tiles, glass and other materials. There would be the smell of sawdust, the sound of hammering. Some enterprising person might have opened the eighteenth century equivalent of a snack bar on the site.
Newspaper advertisements reveal what the houses were like and how they were fitted up. The house lately occupied by Colonel Moriarty in Union Street, 'in a very genteel neighbourhood', was to be sold by auction in February 1799:
A substantial well-built brick dwelling house.... comprising, on the basement story, a large coal and wood cellar, and wine cellar; ground floor, two parlours; second floor, drawing-room and two bed rooms; attick, three good bed rooms; a good kitchen, washhouse and pantry; a good garden and pump of water. The whole in complete repair, and conveniently fitted up with bath and register stoves, beausets, closets, bells, kitchen range, copper, &c, and in every respect fit for the immediate residence of a genteel family.
Other development was taking place at the same time as the beginning of Troy Town. On both sides of Star Hill a mix of three and four storey houses on a larger and grander style than those in Pleasant Row was built in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Theatre Royal, since much altered, was built in 1791 by Mrs Sarah Baker, a leading theatre owner in Kent.
Building was taking place along New Road in the early nineteenth century. From about 1790, New Road was extended into Chatham.
Troy Town did not have the unified plan, or grand scale, of Edinburgh’s New Town. However, the rapidity with which Troy Town was being developed, covering previously open ground, might have seemed remarkable to citizens of Rochester.
A map of 1816 shows Troy Town with building along the Maidstone Road, Union Street, Cazeneuve Street, with King Street running diagonally from left to right. Rochester High Street is at the bottom of the map, St Margaret's church at top right.
A history and description of Rochester described Troy Town in 1817:
to the north west of the Canterbury-road is Troy-Town, which though comparatively of yesterday, having been wholly built within memory, is now very populous, and consists of four tolerably regular streets.... It stands on a fine eminence, and is much esteemed for the salubrity of the air. As the ground is chiefly let on building leases for ninety-nine years at a small reserved rent, the houses in general are neatly and substantially built.
Jacob Cazeneuve Troy might not have created a new town, comparable to Edinburgh's New Town, but he had created a new suburb for Rochester, beyond the city walls.
Next: Building Troy Town
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