Gorse Stacks

The Gorse Stacks area is located just outside the north-east corner of the city and is dominated by a bus-station and the St Oswald's Way section of the inner ring road. The Shropshire Union Canal also passes through this area. The railway-line crosses diagonally to the immediate north of the area. The name of Gorse Stacks originated from it being the location where kindling was safely stored, dried and supplied to the City, seemingly for the benefit of the city bakers. The adjacent suburb of Newtown originated in the late 1790's because of the location by the cattle market and along the Shropshire Union Canal. Newtown, together with Boughton and Hoole, provided most of the workers to Chester during the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century. With the development of the area after 2000 archaology revealed both Roman and Medieval remains.

Roman
Those excavations located to the north-east of the legionary fortress of Roman Chester were largely undertaken during the considerable urban redevelopment of this area of Chester during the first two decades of the current millennium. A Roman drain, perhaps running from the north-east corner of the fortress (King Charles Tower) has been found at the west end of the site, this perhaps fits with "folk tales" of Tunnels under Chester where a Roman culvert might be discovered and misinterpreted.

A Roman road and buildings, possible Roman clay extraction pits, a further late-or sub-Roman burial were found a little further to the west. The Roman clay extraction pits may be related to the debris from Roman pottery-making found in the area from 1970 onwards, and the kilns themselves could be situated nearby.

Medieval
The medieval rural landscape was made up of open fields and woodland interspersed with farms, cottages and manors providing a wide range of raw materials for the urban market including foodstuffs, clay and other extraction processes as well as wood and animal products.

Commerce
Despite Chester having largely missed-out on the Industrial Revolution until the arrival of the railways, the area around Gorse Stacks can be seen as an industrial center of some regional importance. It was the home of several engineering firms, some of which were involved in manufacture of goods using lead from the nearby Leadworks. These included the manufacture of leaded lights and casements, many of which can be seen in older properties in Chester. Williams Bros. began c. 1859 as a timber business in the Kaleyards, but later switched to making metal windows and relocated to Victoria Road. The firm of Williams and Williams was founded in 1910 and also made metal window frames, at premises in the old engineering works on the corner of Victoria Road and George Street. It later became a company of national significance. During WW2 it manufactured a very large quantity of "Jerry Cans".

Cattle Market
Before 1529 the livestock market was apparently held in Bridge Street and Lower Bridge Street, but in that year it was confined to the latter, presumably because of the nuisance caused by the animals. Evidently they remained a problem, because in 1596 a proposal was put to the Assembly to take a toll of ½d. for every calf brought to market in return for cleansing the site. A horse market was held on the Gorse Stacks in the late 16th century, and a swine market in Eastgate Street until 1640. The horse market formerly held in Northgate Street was relocated near the Bars in Foregate Street in 1677. By the 18th century the cattle market was established in Upper Northgate Street, where by 1820 it was obstructing the road. The 1845 Improvement Act provided for the purchase of land, and in 1850 a new site, the Paddock, was found in George Street, adjoining the Gorse Stacks. The weekly market continued to be held there on Saturdays, and the site was also used for monthly cattle fairs. The market was roofed over with corrugated iron in 1950 and remained in use until 1970, when a new cattle market was opened by the city council in Sealand Road, adjacent to the corporation abattoir built in 1964 to replace one opened in Queen Street in 1925. While Chester’s main cattle market was at Gorse Stacks local livestock sales were held at The Ermine Hotel, in Hoole just outside the city limits. The 1876 Flookersbrook Improvement Act stipulated that provision should be made for the watering of horses and cattle at the large pit located there. Cows were driven up and down Hoole Road and Lightfoot Street on a regular basis,



The cattle market even had its own bank. Martins Bank briefly operated a number of successful cattle market branches, many of them inherited from the various banks that came together to form the modern-day Bank in 1928. The Chester cattle market branch was opened at 33 Brook Street on 7th November 1922 and opened on Tuesdays and Thursdays (for counter service only). It closed in 1928 around the time of the merger of the Lancashire and Yorkshire with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins.

Coal Merchants
In 1711 sales of coal and lime were removed from the main streets to specialized market places established in Handbridge and between the New Tower and Watergate Street, both of which lay close to the river and so were more convenient for such bulky commodities. The arrival of the canal in Chester later in the century led to the abandonment of dedicated market places for coal, and in 1840 three of the coal merchants operating in the city had riverside premises, five were by the canal, and one had already moved to Brook Street to be near the newly built railway. Ten years later all but two of Chester's eleven coal merchants and colliery agents were in Brook Street. New premises, the Coal Exchange, were built for them on Black Diamond Street, just off Brook Street, in the 1850s. The Exchange was a plain brick building, domestic in appearance, three-storeyed in the centre and two-storeyed to either side, which contained offices for the different firms. To its rear, approached through two arches in the central block, were extensive coal yards and railway sidings. Further offices were built in the yards in later years. Between 15 and 20 coal merchants, some also dealing in bricks, lime, gravel, and other building materials, were based there until the 1950s. With the fall in the domestic use of coal thereafter their number had fallen to five when the Exchange was demolished in 1970 as part of the inner ring-road scheme.

St Barnabas
The church and the adjacent curate's house were designed by John Douglas in 1877, originally as a mission church, financed from public subscription, to serve the workers living near Chester Station. From 1985-1987 the church was used by the Greek Orthodox Christian parish of St Barbara's before the community moved due to the dilapidated state of the building (during rain the congrgation needed umbrellas}. They moved out to the redundant cemetery chapel in Overleigh Cemetery. The congregation is mainly composed of English converts but also includes Greeks, Russians, and Romanians. The Sibel Street building is now used as offices.

Primitive Methodists
In 1861 some of the congregation from the Steam Mill Street chapel decided it was time to leave, perhaps because the chapel was located in "a discouragingly violent neighbourhood". Hemingway is particularly disparaging about Steam Mill Street being "not of the most reputable description" and also appears to have a poor opinion of the Methodists:


 * "..an opening leading to the canal in the olden time designated Horn lane but now called Steam Mill Street. It is said to have received the former appellation from one or both of its boundary banks having been formed of the hoofs and horns of cattle brought there from the various tanneries with which the neighbourhood abounded; its latter cognomen is derived from a corn mill at the top of the street occupied by the Messrs Frost's who have built on the opposite side of the way an extensive warehouse with which the mill is connected by a stage thrown across from the respective upper stories in each building. In the description of the city in the fourteenth century this was called Chester lane and by Webb somewhat more than two hundred years ago we have it named Starre lane. The houses in this street are in general small and paltry and the neighbourhood not of the most reputable description. A small chapel has lately been erected here used as a place of worship by the Primitive Methodists more generally known by the appellation of Ranters."

They looked for a site in Newtown and found one at the junction of George Street and Gorse Stacks. The foundation stone of a new building – a chapel with schoolroom beneath, of brick with Gothic details – was laid on 12 August 1862 and the chapel was opened on 8 March 1863. In 1885 a new site was purchased in George Street, opposite the existing premises. A new chapel, designed by T. M. Lockwood in a Gothic style, of brick with stone dressings, with a squat tower and spire, opened there in 1888 and became the headquarters of the First circuit; the former chapel became a temperance hall, later commercial premises and now houses a department of the university.

Cinema
Gaumont Palace, a 1997–seater auditorium with an opulent interior behind the black-and-white entrance front in Brook Street, opened in 1931. The Gaumont closed in 1961, the latter becoming briefly a ten-pin bowling alley, then a bingo hall.

An earlier cinema was the Collins Cinema De Luxe in Brook Street, initially owned by fairground operator Pat Collins which made its debut on 18th April 1921. After alterations and redecorating it re-opened as the Majestic on the 12th July with ‘Lady Robin Hood’. The hall later became the Majestic Ballroom, opening on the 15th March 1957. The first music was provided by Roy Williams and his orchestra. In 1965 it became a bingo hall. Bingo was transferred to the Gaumont in 1970, and the auditorium of the Majestic was demolished to allow for road widening.

"Supertrees"
The "supertrees" are a community based, environmental project, with a stated aim to improve the bio-diversity, wildlife and air quality currently present within the City of Chester. The inspiration came from the Supertree Grove in Singapore, which were completed in 2012 and range between 25 metres (82 ft) and 50 metres (160 ft) tall. The Chester trees are on a much smaller scale and was funded by public subscription.

Italy's Pavilion in Expo 2015, featured a structure called "Albero Della Vita" (or "Tree of Life" in Italian), which proved visually similar to Singapore's Supertrees. This sparked accusations of plagiarism, which fell somewhat flat when it was pointed out that these were somwhat similar to the 1997 Bougainvillea "rebar trees" at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles created by artist Robert Irwin. In 2020, Singapore requested that Chester rename the trees (and the roundabout) as it claimed rights in the name "Supertrees". The name "City Forest Garden" was chosen.

Related Pages

 * Brook Street;
 * City Walls;
 * Canalside;
 * Tunnels;

Online

 * Character Assesment: from cheshire archaeology;
 * Gorse Stacks explored;
 * more on archaeology: and more;
 * Former Penri Baptist Church;
 * Former Primitive Methodist Chapel;
 * Gorse Stacks - 2000 Years of Quarrying and Waste Disposal in Chester;