Souters Lane



Souter’s Lane is a medieval road that led from the area of the Newgate down to the River Dee, and was once called Shoemaker's River Passage. On the Lavaux Map it is marked as "Dee Lane". Souter is a Middle English term derived from the word for a shoemaker, which suggests that shoe-related aspects of leatherworking were concentrated in this vicinity in the late Saxon period.

The site of the Roman Gardens was previously occupied by a clay tobacco-pipe factory which was in production from at least 1781 until 1917. The foundations of a brick building have been found alongside the City Wall which runs to the east of the Gardens. Chester was the centre for a flourishing clay tobacco-pipe industry. Chester's pipes were exported in great quantities. The earliest clay tobacco-pipe kiln ever found in Britain has been discovered in Chester.