Foregate Street

Sometime "Forest Street" (probably a corruption of "a'Fore East Gate Street") is now Foregate Street. The Rows have never extended into Foregate Street, and there have only ever been some covered "arcades" here. The reason for the lack of Rows may be that the Roman construction here was never as substantial as that within the City Walls, and so upon its collapse did not form the raised areas which provided the basis of the Rows.

Foregate Street




In the Roman Chester, the civil settlement outside of the walled fortress was on the eastern side of the City and the spine of this development was an early form of Foregate Street. The aqueduct which supplied Roman Chester with water followed the route of Foregate Street from the spring sources at Boughton. The Fortress probably used about half a million gallons (2.5 million liters) of water each 24 hours. As it was outside of the City Walls the proto-Foregate Street would have been home not to the active military but to the houses, shops, workshops, taverns and other building errected and occupied by civilians, including the unofficial families of serving soldiers and retired members of the legion. The buildings were long, narrow plots with a street frontage of around 10 meters and stretched back about 30 meters - the Roman equivalent of medieval burgage plots.. There would be a shop at the front, a workshop in the middle and the living accomodation would be furthest from the road. By the end of the first century, when Roman Chester was about a generation old, Foregate Street appears to have been lined with buildings out to about 300 meters from the Eastgate, a little beyond present-day Love Street.

After the buildings the road would have been lined by funeral monuments (mostly cremations).

A red sandstone Roman altar was found in 1653 during excavation for the cellar of Richard Tyrer in Foregate Street. It stood in Tyrer's garden until he donated it to the University of Oxford in 1675. Inscribed on one side of the altar was a dedication (now illegible) which read:


 * "I O M TANARO / L ELVFRIVS GALER / PRAESENS [Cl]VNIA / PRI LEG XX VV / COMMODO ET / LATERANO COS / V S L M"

The altar employs commonly used abbreviations which would have been recognisable to most readers in Roman times. The Latin transcription runs:


 * "Iovi Optimo Maximo Tanaro / Lucius Elufrius Galeria / Praesens Clunia / princeps legionis XX Valeriae Victricis / Commodo et / Laterano consulibus / votum solvit libens merito."

In modern English this would read:


 * "To Jupiter Best and Greatest Tanarus. Lucius Elufrius Praesens, of the voting tribe Galeria from Clunia, princeps of the 20th Legion Valeria Victrix, when Commodus and Lateranus were consuls, willingly and deservedly fulfilled his vow."



The first line records the name of the god being honoured. Dedications to Jupiter Optimus Maximus are common throughout the Roman empire, but the last name is unique. It could come from the Latin ‘tonare’ meaning ‘to thunder’. It could also be a misspelling for Taranis, a Celtic thunder god syncretised with Jupiter. The next three lines record his name, origin (Clunia in Spain) and rank (the princeps being the second most senior centurion in the legion after the primus pilus). Then comes the date, recorded in the standard Roman way by the names of the consuls for that year, in this case AD 154. The last line is an abbreviation commonly found on dedicatory inscriptions and refers to the nature of Roman religion (commonly referred to as "do ut des" – "I give so that you may give"), whereby the supplicant gives or promises to give an offering in exchange for a favour. In this case, Lucius Elufrius Praesens promised to dedicate an altar to Jupiter. The remaining three sides of the altar are decorated, each with a different image: a six-petalled flower, a five-petalled flower within a wreath, and a jug.



In medieval times Foregate Street existed, as it does today, as the principal road leading directly eastwards from the principal road leading out of Chester. Frodsham Street was originally the commencement of a Roman Road which ran from the fortress, along the line of modern Brook Street, through the suburb of Hoole and on to Frodsham and beyond. Much of this Roman route remains in use to this day although some sections are now little more than footpaths (such as Newton Hollows). The Barrs (at the eastern end of Foregate Street) was once the location of a outer defensive fortification for the City. In the Middle Ages it was Chester's principal industrial area. Industries associated with transport were concentrated here, including cartwrights, wheelwrights, saddlers and blacksmiths. There were also a very large number of breweries.

A focus of activity in this area in the Middle Ages was the Jousting Croft. Located to the north of Foregate Street, presumably centred on the Kaleyards site - formerly the Roman parade ground, this space has a long continuous history of being undeveloped. It was here that jousts, tournaments and archery practice took place. All around the perimeter were erected the stalls, booths and amusements of the fairs and markets. Military exercises ceased to be performed around the close of the 16th century. The canal now flows through the old Jousting Croft and part of Queen Street covers the south of it today.

Both the Braun and Hogenberg map (1581) and the Smith Map (1588) show that Foregate Street was fully developed as far as the Barrs by the end of the 16th Century. 18th During the Century when the City Walls were converted into walkways, the medieval gateways were replaced by wider arched gateways that allowed traffic to enter the City more easily. Eastgate was the first gateway to be replaced in 1768.

In Georgian and Victorian times, the area around Grosvenor Park was a popular location for the wealthy gentry to build homes (as was Lower Bridge Street) and it included the homes of several notable families. Forest House, on the corner of Love Street and Forest Street, remains as the last vestige of this area. The historical maps reveal the evolution of the existing street pattern over time. The most significant change has been the construction of the inner ring road and Grosvenor Street roundabout, severing the direct link between Seller Street and Foregate Street and reducing east-west connectivity between York Street and Bold Square. Queen Street extended through to the canal until it was recently severed by the Tesco development. Forest Street appears only after 1938, the grounds of the former school having previously included land to the north, preventing connection between Love Street and Bath Street. The link between Queen Street and Frodsham Street is shown to have only ever existed as a footpath (Union Walk).



Number 2-4 "Old Bank Buildings"


Part of a block of shops and offices from 1895 by T. M. Lockwood. The building is timber framed on the three storey elevation to the front and that facing the City Walls. The ground floor is arcaded, with a timber bracket to the Eastgate and vase-topped, carved wooden pillars and probably conceal iron supports. The shallow first-floor jetty has a running vine carved onto the fascia. The first floor is close-studded with three six-light mullioned and transomed windows, the central four lights of each forming a bowed or canted oriel on carved brackets, two of which are in the form of dragons. The close-studded second floor has a bold jetty on six "dragon"-brackets and two mullioned and transomed oriels, left and centre, with broad central lights, each of which is round-topped, a feature which Lockwood uses often. The right bay has composite casement in form of a cross-window to each side of a "Palladian"-style window. All glazing is leaded. The two left bays have close-studded front gables and are inscribed with the date of contruction. The corner turret is timber-framed with a copper cupola roof (a common feature of Lockwood's designs) with tall finial. The interior has a broad open-well stair with ornate cast-iron balustrades to first floor.



The "Chester Old Bank" occupied this building. This private bank was established in Chester by Owen Williams in 1792. Initially it was closely connected with Anglesey’s copper mining industry (Parys Mountain dominated the world's copper market during the 1780s, when the mine was the largest in Europe), and the bank survived the collapse of that industry around 1805 to become Chester's premier bank for much of the 19th century. Owen Williams was of the same family as (but not to be confused with the son of) Thomas Williams, who had transformed himself in less than 20 years from a prosperous Anglesey solicitor into what Matthew Boulton described as "the despotic sovereign of the copper trade". The turning point in his career was his retention in 1769 by the two local families of Lewis and Hughes, to fight a legal action against Sir Nicholas Bayly, father of the 1st Earl of Uxbridge, over possession of the recently re-discovered Parys Mountain copper mine at Amlwch. When the litigation ended in 1778, Williams emerged as the active partner in the Parys Mine Company. Thomas Williams had built copper works at Flint and Penclawdd where he made copper and brass products. Many of these materials were for use in the African slave trade. These copper trinkets etc. were largely exported to Africa for use as payment for slaves, who were then transported to the West Indies and sold. The proceeds were then used to purchase commodities (such as sugar) for import into Britain. Williams claimed to have invested £70,000 in this trade and petitioned parliament in 1788 when a bill was being discussed to prevent British ships from carrying slaves. Williams is said also to have introduced the use of copper bolts to fix the copper sheeting to naval vessels and it would appear that he sold them to all sides in the naval conflicts.



Williams and Co took over the Caernarfon bank, Roberts & Company (est. 1792) in 1796. The firm expanded by opening offices throughout north Wales, eventually becoming one of the largest banks in the area. Branches were opened in Caernarfon (1796), Bangor (1823), Llanfairfechan (1884), Port Dinorwic (1886), Llangefni (1889), Wrexham (1889), Connah's Quay (1889), Hawarden (1890), Penmaenmawr (1891) and Amlwch (1881). The business, which was Chester's last independent bank, was acquired by Lloyds Bank in 1897 and ceased trading as an independent entity around 1915. The take-over was "forced" as an auditors report in 1894 criticised the bank's owmers severely for imprudent and suspect banking practices.

Previous building on the site were demolished during the Civil War, but the site was later occupied by the "Maidenhead" Inn and later the "Elephant and Castle". The latter was demolished in 1792 to make way for the original Owen Wiliams bank building.


 * Archival Records;

Number 8 "Lloyds Bank"


Said to be by Lewis Wyatt and built in 1803, extended to south 1897 by Thomas Meakin Lockwood. Yellow ashlar sandstone to front, stone-dressed orange-brown brick to St John Street, left: grey slate roof with lead to hips. The almost symmetrical Greek-revival style stone front has Tuscan columns, and is set on a plinth such that the door is reached by a short flight of steps with simple iron railings. The bank stands on the site of Richard Tyrer where the red sandstone Roman altar mentioned above was found in 1653. Tyrer was the son of the John Tyrer whose father had established the waterworks at the Bridgegate in 1600, and who himself was granted land at Boughton in 1621 to improve the supply to the cistern, and built a second water tower outside the Bars. Even earlier, in 1297, it had been the site of the house of "John the Goldsmith".

Lewis William Wyatt (1777—1853) was a British architect, a nephew of both Samuel and James Wyatt of the Wyatt family of architects, who articled with each of his uncles and began practice on his own about 1805, so this is a very early example of his work. He published A Collection of Architectural Designs, rural and ornamental, executed…upon the Estates of the Right Hon. Lord Penrhyn in Caernarvonshire and Cheshire (1800–1), but he is best known as a designer of country-houses. He completed Tatton Park, Ches. (1807–18), begun by Samuel Wyatt, and built Willey Hall, Salop. (1813–15 — probably his best work), both in a Neo-Classical style. He used the Tudor style at Cranage Hall, Cheshire (1828–9), and Jacobean at Eaton Hall, Congleton, Ches. (1829–31—demolished). Wyatt's work is said to have influenced that of Penson and Thomas Harrison

Lockwood's 1897 rear wing is a single storey building with stone-dressed openings: a round window, a 3-panel oak door with overlight and 3 unequal 9-pane sashes. This had been a garden before Lockwoods construction, but before that had apparently been the site of almshouses.



Hemingway writes:


 * "..Nearly opposite on the other side of the street is a pretty stone building where the respectable banking concern of Messrs Williams, Hughes, Williams and Granville is carried on: this establishment was commenced in 1793 and the present building erected about 1803. Immediately adjoining the bank is John street a clean neat and commodious street in which there are many genteel residences and amongst others those of the Hon Edwd Massy Mrs Sloughter Mr James Dixon and Mrs Freeman."

Number 10-18
The west part of this building (the old entrance to the "New" Blossoms Hotel) dates from 1896 by Thomas Meakin Lockwood. The east part dates from 1911 by Lockwood's son, W. T. Lockwood for the National Provincial Bank of England. The west part of the front to Foregate Street and the face to St John's Street have 3 storeys plus attics, the east part has 2 storeys and attic. The whole of the ground storey and the entrance bay to Foregate Street are of stone in the Classical manner of a 17th Century country builder while all other parts of the upper storeys are timber-framed in late 16th to early 17th Century style with close studding, shaped panel-tops and some shaped panels and herringbone braces. The eastern part of the building has less detail, without the shaped panel tops.

The ground floor has a canted doorway at the corner with St John's Street which originally had panelled double doors, but now has an elaborate wood case. The concave ceramic overpanel to the corner door is inscribed "NATIONAL PROVINCIAL BANK OF ENGLAND" in raised capitals. The stone entrance bay on Foregate Street itself (originally that of the "Blossoms Hotel") has a putto cartouche with cherubs beneath a 4-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement with moulded sill and a curved broken pediment beneath a moulded semicircular gable, dated 1911 in a carved wreath.

Prior to the banking Act of 1826, English banks were permitted to have no more than six partners – hence the expression "private banks". The banking Act of 1826 permitted the establishment of joint stock banks but bank-note issue was only allowed outside a radius of 65 miles of London. The National Provincial Bank of England was launched in 1833. For more than thirty years the Bank operated as a country bank, with its headquarters in London, but not transacting banking business in the capital. National Provincial was specifically structured to be a branch banking enterprise prepared to concentrate on a large number of smaller accounts rather than a small number of large accounts. The merger of National Provincial and Westminster Bank in 1968 to form a new company, the National Westminster Bank, which became part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group in 2000.

The main hotels, notably the Blossoms and the Talbot, were centres of social and political life in late Georgian Chester. Initially occuplying the conrner plot and the frontage to Foregate Street the Blossoms claims to have occupied the site from 1650, when presumably it was built on the site of a building destroyed during the Civil War. Professor Raphael Dorman O'Leary stayed at the Blossoms in 1910. This was apparently standard practice and "all Americans .. began their English tour" there, after arrival at Liverpool". O'Leary complains about the Blossoms in much the same way he complains about most other hotels he stays in:




 * "Paid bill at Blossoms, one pound and six shillings, two nights lodging and one plain breakfast. The re-let our rooms while we were gone, and piled baggage out in hall. Memo: tell our friends to avoid Blossoms Hotel when in Chester" (£1/6s in 1910 money is about £85 in 2015 money)

Number 20-30


This is a three storey Edwardian style property, with stone lintels and pediments, parapet and sash widows with stone surrounds. Extended to the west in a fairly sympathetic manner. The "odd" feature of this building are the "torches" mounted on the second storey. The parapet on the M&S building is interesting as from angles down the street it can be seen to be quite high compared with the roof. An advert for the:


 * "completion of extension to store at 22-26 Foregate St, Chester, opening Thursday, July 1st, 1937. Nothing over 5/-. Ask at the desk for particulars of our weekly clubs"

appeared in the Chester Chronicle on 26th June 1937. Michael Marks' "Penny Bazaar" has come a long way since 1884!


 * Chester in the M&S archive;

Number 32-42
There is comparatively little interesting historical architecture on the south side of Foregate Street in this section.

Number 44
Originally built as a town house over two storeys, it was completely rebuilt in a somewhat similar but more elaborate style by F. Davies in 1920. It has been a public house, "Ye Olde Royal Oak Hotel" (amonst others), and also been used as a shop. It is presently shop premises. The building is timber-framed with plaster panels, and has a slate roof. It is in three storeys, and has a front of three bays, with a gable over the lateral two bays. In the ground floor is a modern shop front, although it retains the pargeted sign "Ye Olde Royal Oak Hotel". The top floor and the gable are jettied, with dates on the gables: "1601 AD: REBUILT 1920 AD". There are oriel windows in the left and middle bays, and casement windows in the right bay. The right bay was previously over an archway which gave access to the rear of the premises.


 * Ye Olde Royal Oak at ChesterWalls.Info (with photographs taken at various times);