e Hengist and his bands had disembarked nearly one hundred and fifty
years before. Hengist's descendant, Ethelbert, King of Kent, received
them in the open air on the chalk downs above Minster, and, though he
would not at once renounce the faith of his fathers, promised them
shelter and protection. His conversion occurred a year later, and after
that Christianity spread rapidly among his subjects. The royal city of
Canterbury continued to be the centre of St. Augustine's labours, but
only seven years passed, Bede tells us, ere he deemed it necessary to
found other sees at Rochester and at London. Rochester therefore claims
to be the second, or at most the third oldest of English bishoprics.

Justus, one of the band sent by St. Gregory to help the mission in 601,
was consecrated as its first bishop in 604. A church was built for him
by the king and dedicated to St. Andrew, the patron saint of the
monastery on the Caelian Hill in Rome, from which St. Augustine and his
companions had come. Bede relates that St. Paulinus was buried in it,
later, "in secretario beati apostoli Andreae quod rex Edilbertus a
fundamentis in eadem Rhofi civitate construxit." Ethelbert endowed it
with Priestfield (a large tract of land lying towards Borstal) which
still belongs to it, and with other property; and Justus, though himself
a monk, placed it in the hands of secular priests.

All traces of this Saxon cathedral disappeared long ago, and its exact
site was forgotten and remained unknown until portions of its
foundations were discovered in 1889, during the underpinning,
preparatory to restoration, of the present west front.[1] Beneath this
front, but only for a little way within it, the older foundations
extended. They were of hard concrete, from 4 to 5 feet deep and wide,
and still carried fragments of the walls, about 2 feet 4 inches wide, of
tufa, sarsen, and Roman brick. These remains, on examination, proved to
have belonged to the east end of a building, which, in this direction,
terminated in an apse that occupied almost the entire width. The
southern junction of this apse was found first within the present
church; and later, in lowering a gas main under the road outside, the
north-east corner of the nave was discovered. The internal width of the
building was then ascertained to be about 28 feet 6 inches. The lines of
the north and south walls were followed by means of a probe across the
old burial ground westwards as far as the road