Tours For Groups
An enjoyable way of ensuring you make the most of your group’s visit to historic Rochester is by having a walking tour or coach tour with a guide provided by the City of Rochester Society.
We are pleased to announce that we are open again to take group tours.
We also run the following special booked tours;
Dickensian Rochester
The Pickwick Papers
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Rochester's Home Front During the Great War
What Did the French Do for Us?
Dame Sybil Thorndike & Family
Contact us at info@city-of-rochester.org.uk to book.
Walking Tour
Discovering our Historic City
An enjoyable way of ensuring you make the most of your group’s visit to historic Rochester is by having a walking tour with a guide provided by the City of Rochester Society. The compact size and almost traffic-free City centre makes it ideal for exploring on foot.
The guided walks cover no great distance, yet the route passes all the major sights in the old City, the Cathedral precincts and the Castle grounds.
The City of Rochester Society guides are well informed local history enthusiasts, who will be pleased to share their knowledge of Rochester’s past and personalities with you.
The Society can provide a guide at most times during the year and at starting times and locations which suit your needs.
As well as our heritage tour, that lasts approximately 90 minutes, the Society can provide tours on specialist subjects, such as Rochester’s connections with Charles Dickens, Rochester’s industrial history, etc. We can also suggest special itineraries for your specific requirements. For children of school age the Society can arrange special shorter walking tours.
We do make a small individual charge of £5.00 per person (£4.00 for under 18’s) for booked group walks and our minimum overall charge is £40.00.
Please note that we are currently unable to offer tours to overseas student or schools groups.
Coach Tour
Dickens’ Country Ride
Groups visiting Rochester by coach (there is a free coach parking in the City centre) might like to add our Dickens’ Country Ride to their itinerary. This is a tour of about 20 miles in the pleasant countryside around Rochester with one of our knowledgeable guides as courier, taking in the villages and places that Dickens knew so well, such as Cooling Church and Castle, Cliffe, Gad’s Hill Place, Chalk and Cobham. Your coach must be equipped with a public address system and a courier seat.
Duration: between 90 minutes and 2 hours
The Dickens’ Country Ride is £100.00 per coach (whether or not combined with a walking tour).
We’ve received some amazing testimonials on recent tours
- Peter H
We were in Rochester for the day. We looked round the amazing castle, then joined the guided walk after lunch.
A friendly knowledgeable guide took us round the town in... read more
September 17, 2022avantgarde55 Our guide, Terry, was a veritable “walking Wikipedia” for Rochester. He was enthusiastic, full of energy and extremely knowledgeable. His extensive local knowledge made the easy walking tour a... read more
August 19, 2021Anne Mitchell Our guide, Terry, was a veritable “walking Wikipedia” for Rochester. He was enthusiastic, full of energy and extremely knowledgeable. His extensive local knowledge made the easy walking tour a... read more
August 1, 2021A Tripadvisor Member Well worth joining weather you are visiting or a resident.Our tour guild Rosemary ,was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable.Bringing the Historyof the city to life.The Society does a great job.There was... read more
July 7, 2021 - Rosemary Hamilt... H Well worth joining weather you are visiting or a resident.Our tour guild Rosemary ,was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable.Bringing the Historyof the city to life.The Society does a great job.There was... read more
July 1, 2021 City of Rochester Guided Walk. Very worthwhile, interesting and enjoyable. - We had a City of Rochester Guided Walk on Sunday 25 September with James as our guide. James was very enthusiastic about Rochester, gave us ample information about the sights... read more 
debbys781
October 25, 2022Alex P I came across the guided walking tour of Rochester in the Information Centre in Rochester. It was a 2 hour tour of the city; and free of charge. This is... read more
September 1, 2019musodave62 Very informative 2-hour tour by our knowledgeable and friendly guide Terry, with a mine of information on the history of this fascinating city
June 18, 2022 - kittencat75 My party of 4 found the walk informative and enjoyable hosted by an enthusiastic and knowledgable guide (John). The length - 90mins - was about right and our guide included... read more
September 16, 2019Lorraine S Interesting and informative tour. It takes around one and a half hours and is really nicely paced. James our tour guide was lovely and very knowledgeable (being a local for... read more
July 24, 2021Dream39787620399 A very relaxed, friendly but informative tour of the town /city! James pointed out many places we would have missed on our own, entertained us with stories of Rochester’s history,... read more
August 28, 2021TolzThundercats I stumbled across the self guided walking tour and it was super information an even easier to follow. Rochester is gorgeous and this tour gave me historical context which allowed... read more
April 24, 2019
If you’ve enjoyed one of our tours, please leave a review on Trip Advisor via the link below.
