Earls Eye



Approaching the outskirts of Chester the valley of the River Dee narrows somewhat and will reach its narrowest between the two major bends at Chester. This poses something of a problem - just why does the river Dee flow through Chester and not flow further west through Rosset and Broughton? Looking at the steepness of the banks of the river between a little way upriver of the Suspension Bridge and the Grosvenor Bridge it is clear that the river has almost had to cut a gorge out of the sandstone between the Earls Eye and the Roodee. If this gorge were blocked by a dam where the Grosvenor Bridge is (and just as tall), then the Dee would back-up to flood the Earls Eye, narrow at Heronbridge then form a broad lake back to Holt and a second lake back to Worthenbury and Bangor on Dee. However the waters would not eventually pour over the dam, as they would find a route to the estuary and hence to the sea through Lavister and Lower Kinnerton along the English/Welsh border before they climbed high enough. One possible solution is that the "gorge" between Chester and Handbridge is another glacial spillway, similar to the "Backford Gap" behind Chester Zoo. It is even possible, though unlikely, that this spillway is a continuation of the Backford spillway and that the "River Dee" at Chester, which would have been the Mersey, actually once flowed in the opposite direction until it managed to cut through previous high ground between Blacon Point and Chester Golf Club at Wilcoxons Point.



Another mystery concerning this loop of river relates to the extramural settlement of Roman Chester at Heronbridge. The Romans apparently used to ship tiles here from Holt/Farndon, but off-loaded the tiles at Heronbridge and brought them overland to Chester. It has been suggested that, prior to the construction of the Norman weir, the River Dee was not actually navigable between Heronbridge and Chester itself and so the land route was needed. This is a subject still open to debate.



More mysteries linger like the fog: just where "Bottoms Lane" joins the riverside path is a stone fairly professionally inscribed with the very faded words "Capt J Wardle 1710". Whether this is a gravestone or some other type of memorial is unknown. The 1872 OS map shows a Boundary Marker on or near the site of this "Wardle" stone and it could be that someone just carved their name on a stone which was already there.

Sources and Links

 * Friends of the Meadows - with an excellent section on the history of the meadows and more on natural history &c;
 * James Farley 360 view of the Earls Eye flooded;
 * A "Virtual Stroll" in the meadows;