A Chester Lightning Tour



This is a whistle-stop trip round the central streets and history of Chester. It starts at the High Cross and is best done during the day, when things are open. It is not suitable for wheelchair users and includes quite a few sets of steps and one very steep street. There is much more information about Chester on this website which can be accessed by clicking on the underlined links embedded in the text. Clicking on the icon on the right will bring up a map of Chester, but maps are inserted in the text below with "waypoints" marked. The tour can take most of a day, especially with diversions into pubs and cafes (of which there a many), shops (many of those too) and museums (of which there are several) and it is possible to wander off the route to see more. However this tour will take in most of the sights in the city center. Industrial and canal history is better covered along the Canalside tour. The weather in Chester can be changable and some parts of the route, especially on the walls can be quite exposed in the rain.



The Cross - Start of the tour
The tour starts at the High Cross a sandstone pillar which stands at what was once the center of Roman Chester. The Romans appear to have started building a substantial legionary base here about 74 AD, as dates from around that time have been found on lead ingots and water pipes. The initial builders were Legio II - the second legion, but they were later replaced by Legio XX (the twentieth) who possibly occupied the site until about the year 400. Chester appears to have been occupied after the Romans left and may have been an early ecclesiastical center. The much rebuilt Church of St Peter at the cross stands on the site of the Roman headquarters building - knowns as the Principia, and was probably initially built from the ruins of that structure. Just inside the door of the church is a surviving example of a medieval fresco, a little further in is a font with an interesting palindrome on the underside of the lid and nearby is displayed a bible from around 1579.



Back outside St Peter notice the clock on the church tower (it may or may not be correct as it is notorious for breaking down). Chester later became famous for its Clockmakers and St Peter had the first public clock in Chester, an early one was installed in about 1585. The clock that is there today probably dates from 1813. St Peter's bells are considered unsafe to ring, but Chester's enthusiastic Town Crier, whose office possibly dates back to 1553, still performs at the Cross in the summer months.

The religious and military histories of Chester are somewhat intertwined. After the Romans left during the so-called "Dark Ages", a battle was fought at Chester where the losing side was accompanied by a large number of monks. A few hundered years later, when a slowly forming England was subject to invasion by Vikings the city was re-fortified by Æthelflæd the warlike daughter of Alfred the Great. Æthelflæd followed a pattern of creating fortified communities with religious establishments which were also both mercantile and andministrative centers. She often re-used Roman sites. Chester was then strategic because of its proximity to the Irish Sea and North Wales, but the location has been on trade routes since prehistory. Chester lies between mineral rich North Wales (a source of copper in the Bronze Age) and the salt springs of eastern Cheshire. Chester would maintain its strategic importance after the Norman Conquest when it was one of the last places to fall under Norman rule. The powerful Norman Earls of Chester were granted powers that made them almost independent of the King. The Earldom was eventually taken back by the crown and was generally held by the kings eldest son, to give some experience of rule. Some kings favoured Chester greatly: Richard II drew his personal guard from the area and may have hid his Royal Treasure nearby. Its royal connections were not always of benefit, during the Civil War the city was subjected to a long siege and an intense bombardment. After the siege ended the cross was broken down and what is seen today is a reconstruction from the 1970's, which may contain some original parts.

From the cross it is possible to look down three of the four main streets of Chester: Eastgate Street, Bridge Street and Watergate Street. These follow the lines of the original Roman streets in a standard pattern which the Romans re-used time and again. It is also possible to see that the visible streets are arranged on two levels. These are The Rows which developed during the medieval period. While much of what can be seen looks like it dates from the Tudor period it is mostly late Victorian - sometimes called "mock Tudor" or, perhaps more accurately "English Venacular Revival". There is little else like the Rows in the world.

Northgate Street - Commercial News Rooms
Turning into Northgate Street one enters the fourth of the streets which meet at the cross, which again follows the line of the Roman layout. To the right is an example of the Rows and it is fairly obvious that the "half-timber" construction is not original but is largely decorative. Sometimes this is well done, as on the left a little further up the street, but in other places the quality can vary. Stop just after the sandstone building on the left and take a look around.



The pale sandstone building is the Commercial News Rooms, built in 1807. It was designed by the Chester Thomas Harrison a neo-classical architect who had studied in Italy. This was a club where the gentlemen of Chester would meet up, read the newpapers and no doubt do business deals. Conveniently, there was a bank on the ground floor. The bank used to print its own notes and some of them feature this building. The next row of buildings are in the elaborate black-and-white style of John Douglas another Chester architect, and were built by Douglas and his pupils around 1900. Thus, while the black and white buildings appear older than the sandstone club, they date from about 200 years later. There are some surviving early black and white buildings in Chester, but none of them are on Northgate Street. The figure of an elderly gentleman in the middle of the black and white building is St Crispin. He was the patron saint of shoemakers and these buildings are known as "Shoemakers Row" as this was once the site of many shoemakers shops. Boot and shoemaking were once major industries in Chester which had several other trades associated with leather. In the middle ages the guilds of the city included Skinners, Tanners, Glovers, Cordwainers (shoemakers), and Saddlers (as well as many others). The guilds were noted for putting on the Chester Mystery Plays, a series of religious plays which were enacted every four years and performed on carts which were dragged around the city. Each guild was performed by a specific guild starting with "The Fall of Luficer" performed ny the Tanners and ending with "The Last Judgement" performed by the Weavers. The plays are still performed every four years, although they were banned from around 1575 until revived in the 1950's. The reasons for the ban included the belief that they were superstitious relics, but the ban came at a time (just before Shakespeare) when plays were subjected to political censorship.

The city guilds continued to play an important part in the history of Chester. Unfortunately a part of this involved a certain ammount of electoral corruption, which was also quite common elsewhere. For much of its history the only people allowed to trade in Chester were the "Freemen" of the city. There were exceptions for the annual fair. Freemen were supposed to have a vote in the elction of the major and the aldermen. This was before there was general right to vote for anyone, including for women. In practice, there were times when the aldermen, variously known as the "Assembly" and the "Corporation" effectively elected themselves and the local MP. At various times the elections became very corrupt, with vast sums being spent on beer and other forms of persuasion. Matters got so bad that in the late 19th century Chester was actually forbidden from electing an MP for several years by an Act of parliament. This attempt to exclude ousiders from having any business in Chester may be one reason why Chester was largely bypassed by the Industrial Revolution.

Street theatre in Chester did not only include the Mystery Plays. Nowadays there are plenty of buskers and sometimes other performance artists, but the tradition is a long one. A local legend holds that when a Norman Earl of Chester was holed-up in a castle in Wales by the Welsh the buskers and vagrants of Chester were marched to his aid - making a lot of noise and leading the Welsh to believe that they were an army on the march. For many years the minstrels (and prostitutes) of Chester would be licenced once a year at the Minstrel Court, after a procession which started near Shoemakers Row. Some carvings of minstrels can be seen on the end of the Row, which is the next waypoint.

Northgate Street - Market/Town Hall Square
Chester's Market Square (or Town Hall square} is dominated by the Town Hall and the first views of the Cathedral on this tour. before heading into the square it is worth a short detour to take a look at the remains of the "Roman strongroon" which is cut into the red sandstone on which Chester stands. The strongroom was the place that the Romans stored both money and the legionary regalia including their eagle standards. Roman soldiers fell into two broad groups - the Legionaries, who were very well trained heavy infantry and the Auxiliary troops who included light infantry and cavalry. Early in the Roman empire only the citizens could become legionaries and it was a job for life. The Auxilliary troops were recruited from around the empire and could become Roman citizens at retirement. Many of the troops who ended up in Britain came from the Balkans, and retired in Britain when their term of service ended. Tracing the genetics of people living in some parts of North Wales actually shows that their ancestors probably came there in Roman times and it is likely that their descendents formed the basis of a part of the "Romano British" society which persisted after the Roman empire ended. Early writers such as Nennius recorded the Roman ancestry claimed by later Welsh rulers.

It was under the Romans that Christianity first arrived in Britain and after they left Chester may have been a significant ecclesiastical center. The Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain soon after and initially had their own religion, but Christianity survived in Wales. At length, the Anglo-Saxons started to convert and there was something of a competition to see whether the "Celtic" church or the Church of Rome could gain the most converts. Again, early writers mention this with Bede laying the blame on the practices of the Celtic church for the defeat of Welsh armies at the Battle of Chester in 616.

The "Venetian Gothic" Town Hall is frequently open to visitors (and it is free). Allow half an hour to explore the building. Inside are a series of sculptures which claim to tell the history of Chester. They are full of sometimes hillarious errors, and are covered in some detail on the page relating to the Military History of Chester. There is a lot more to see in the building, including a series of portraits of the Grosvenors who had a significant part to play in the government of Chester from the Civil War onwards. The stained glass on the main starcase depicts the Norman Earls of Chester who ran their lands with a great deal of independence from the Crown and some of whom played a significant part in wider history. There is also a painting of HMS Chester who had a role in the battle of Jutland. The Town Hall clock is notorious for not having a face towards Wales - as popular legend states that Cestrians "would not give the Welsh the time of day", but this is untrue: the Town Hall only got its clock in 1980 and the building is based on the "Cloth Hall" in Ypres, which only has a clock face on three sides. The Tourist Information office is located on the ground floor of the Town Hall. Various tours of the city can be booked here and maps, books and other souvenires are available.

Chester Cathedral stands to the east of the square. It is free to enter and there are paid guided tours. One of the best paid tours is the "Cathedral at Hight" which involves an ascent of the tower accompanied by one of the well-informed guides. It takes about an hour - but expect lots of steps and some fairly narrow passages. On a clear day the view from the top is spectacular. Back on the ground floor is the somewhat battered shrine of St Werburgh a member of the Mercian royalty died about the year 700 and whose relics were brought to Chester in about 873. Her cult was promoted by Æthelflæd when she re-fortified the city in about 907. Exploring the rest of the Cathedral can easilly take another hour.

The next waypoint is the Abbey Gateway.

Abbey Square
Abbey Square is entered by the Abbey Gateway. Be sure to look upwards at the vaultwork above the entrance passage. This gateway may have been built by Richard the Engineer, who worked on the castles of North Wales for Edward I. Richard did well in Chester, gaining the franchise of the Dee Mills and becoming mayor. He is the first Architect of Chester who can actually be named. The square itself is surrounded on two sides by Georgian buildings that have fortunaely not been converted to "mock Tudor". One of them was briefly the home of Charles Kingsley the Victorian churchman and writer. Kingsley is a complex figure who championed Charles Darwins's theory of "natural selection" for what were probably all the wrong reasons. He is not the only famous writer to have lived in Chester. Thomas Hughes the author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" also lived in Chester for a while. Some lesser known writers also lived in the city. In the medieval period there was Ranulph Higden, a monk who wrote the Polychronicon, one of the first history books ever to be printed. Robert of Chester was another famous monastic writer and translated several important works from Arabic into Latin, including several works on mathematics. Writers on Chester itself have included those who produced guidebooks and histories of the city, many of which can be found on the Books page, with links to freely downloadable texts. Modern writers continue to produce guidebooks to the city, some of which are good and others not so good.

The next waypoint is the Kaleyard Gate.

City Walls (Roman)
There is a guide to the entire City Walls elsewhere on this website. This tour does not include a full circuit of the walls. In a hurry, you can circumnavigate the roughly two mile course of Chester's walls in a little over half an hour - but you will miss a lot of interesting detail. An hour-long gentle stroll will give you time to see the walls. With a few diversions and halts, two hours at the most will get you round. This part of the tour follows a portion of the original Roman course, although the walls have been rebuit and repaired many times over the years.

The next waypoint is the Phoenix Tower also known as "King Charles Tower". This would have been the site of a Roman corner tower of which no trace remains. To the left is the Abbey Green which was once the site of some of the accomodation for the legionary troops. To the right is a portion of the Chester Canal and maybe a narrowboat or two. The Chester Canal was once described as "the first unsuccessful canal" which is a little unfair as it eventually became quite a success. It is a broader than average canal and originally was intended to link Chester with the salt towns to the east. Unfortunately rival canal interests managed to ensure that it did not link-up with the larger canal system and the investors in the canal found themselves seriously out of pocket. The canal was saved when it was extended to the north and south to form the Shropshire Union Canal. The Canalside page describes its route through Chester and something of the life of the canalfolk (at times quite alcoholic) can be understood from the page on the mysterious death of Charles Moston.

Phoenix Tower
The Phoenix Tower takes its name from the phoenix carving on its side.

As you leave the Phoenix Tower you pass the spot where Edmond Halley, of comet fame, was possibly sitting when he worked out how a rainbow was formed.

The next waypoint is the Northgate. To get there there simply follow the walls which now run along the top of a considerable drop down to the canal. The cutting is partly the defensive ditch of the Roman and partly blasted out to accomodate the canal. At some point in late Roman times this section of wall was repaired and the builders used a large number of earlier Roman tombstones from the legionary graveyard which lay outside of the walls. It isn't certain why they did this: possibly they were Christianised Romans who did not consider it was wrong to do so. One benefit of this is that the stones were fairly well preserved and can now be seen in the Grosvenor Museum which is further on in the tour.

Northgate
The view from the top of the Northgate is a little blocked by buildings but still worth it, especially if you go a little way forward so the view opens up. The hills in the distance are the first range of the Welsh mountains.



Northgate Street
From Northgate it is possible to head on along the walls past a few more towers to the Watertower but this shortened tour does not do that. Instead drop down off the walls into Northgate Street and head back towards the city center. On the right is the old Fire Station which is now a French-style restaurant. Many of the shops in this part of Northgate Street are small independent retailers down a narrow road to the left is Handel Court with more small shops. It is named after the composer George Frederic Handel who stayed in this part of town when putting the finishing touches to his "Messiah" while on his way to Ireland for the first public performance. Handel wrote the music for the piece whereas the words were proposed by Charles Jennens (who was educated at the King's School in Chester). Chester was the port for the sea-crossing to Ireland although the crossings could be rough and were frequently delayed by poor weather. Chester's port was some distance to the north of the city as the River Dee had by this time silted up and large boats could not always reach Chester.

St Werburgh Street
Keep an eye open for a shield on the wall to the left with a "Liver bird" and a grass-hopper. This was the emblem of Martin's Bank which once occupied the building.

Eastgate
Just before the Eastgate on the left is a bank with a lot of coats of arms on the frontage. This was once the Grosvenor Club and the ground floor was the home to a Welsh bank. The coats of arms are based on those of the historic counties of Wales and it is possible to work out which is which county. The sandstone cameo is Owen Jones a Welsh foundling who did well in Chester and left some apparently almost worthless land to the city. It turned out the land was rich in lead ore and worth a good deal more than was first thought.

Newgate
From the top of Newgate there is a good view of the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre.



There are some steps on the far side of the gate which descend to the street level. One minor diversion here is to take the lift to the top of the car-park. It is located in the tower with a stone lion on top of it. The view from the top is not as good as that from the top of the cathedral, but it is free and there are far fewer steps.

The next waypoint is in the center of the Amphitheatre.

Amphitheatre
There is a more detailed guide to the Amphitheatre elsewhere on this site. For the purposes of the trail it is sufficient to say that the things to see are the reconstructed remains of the "stands" surrounding the arena, the shrine to Nemesis by the north entrance, the mural and the east extrance. The simple way to see them is to walk clockwise from the entry signage to the north entrance, go down the steps to have a look at the shrine to Nemesis then walk over to inspect the mural. From there, turn left and climb the steps in the east exit.



St Johns
There is a lot to see here and some useful signage is scattered around the interior. There are also some volunteer guides who may or may not be there. This is a very short guide to St Johns, which has a much richer history than presented in this brief tour guide. Standing near the door may well be one of the "Chester Giants". In Medieval and Tudor times, Chester’s magnificent Midsummer Watch Parade was renowned throughout the country. First held during the mayoralty of Richard Goodman in 1498, it was organised by the City Guilds and took place in the years when the famous Chester Mystery Plays were not performed. The outstanding features of the show were the Giants – enormous structures made of buckram and pasteboard and carried by two or more men. Giants were a common feature of Tudor pageantry in England and Europe, but Chester was unique in that the city paraded a whole family of Giants. The Midsummer Watch Parade survived much longer than the now world-famous Mystery Plays, which were banned in 1575 and not revived until recent times. In 1599, Mayor Henry Hardware prohibited the Parade and ordered the Giants to be broken up. The first new giant was taken for a walk through the streets of Chester at midsummer 1989. The parade at midsummer that year was the first for over 300 years. Tradition ascribes the foundation of St. John's to Æthelred, king of Mercia (674–704), in 689. In the vestibule of the church is a stained glass window showing the legend of how he selected the site guided by a white hart. Curiously, churches associates with white harts occur all along the River Dee. They are also generally associated with holy wells or springs. Inside the church proper one finds a completely different building to what appears outside. The lower parts are Norman and date from when Peter de Leia, bishop of Lichfield (consecrated in 1067) removed his episcopal see to Chester in 1075 and the church became a cathedral. The old St John's just would not do as the home of an important bishop, and so had to be rebuilt. The basic plan of the new church followed the standard Norman design, with a choir to the east, a central crossing with a tower above, transepts, a nave to the west and a pair of towers at the western end. However not all of this was to be completed. To the left of the entrance are some stone cross heads. These are probably older than any part of the present church building. A memorial window to the memory of local archirect TM Lockwood (by Shrigley and Hunt, 1901) is in the north aisle of St Johns. Appropriately, the window depicts the architect Hiram Abiff and is full of masonic symbolism - such as the pillars labelled "Boaz" and "Jachim" and the tiled floor. Nearby, on the pillar, is a surviving medieval painting. The west window is by Edward Frampton (1845-1928) and was given by the 1st Duke of Westminster in 1890. The window depicts twelve scenes from the history of the church. The top right pane shows a boat on the River Dee. This is a reference to Edgar the Pacific, (c. Aug 7, 943 – July 8, 975) who was the great-grandson of Alfred the Great and was famously crowned both at Bath and at Chester (in 973).

Hermitage
One of the most unusual buildings in Chester is the Anchorite's Cell or 'Hermitage', a small sandstone building by the River Dee at The Groves. The present building is believed to date from the mid 14th century and was one of two 'cells' built as religious retreats for reclusive monks or hermits.



One hermit may have been none other than Harold Godwinson, once king of England and supposed survivor of the Battle of Senlac Hill (sometimes called the "Battle of Hastings"). Harold's connection with Chester is actually quite a bit more than myth, although the story that he lived on here after his supposed defeat in 1066 takes quite some believing. In 1063 Edward the Confessor's military leader Harold son of Earl Godwin, attacked Gryffudd ap Llywelyn's palace at Rhuddlan in Flintshire using Chester as his base and made himself master of the Vale of Clwyd. Following either Gruffydd's death (apparently at the hands of his own troops) - or simply the fact that Gruffydd had fled - Harold married his widow. The popular story is well known - Harold fights at the Battle of Hastings, gets shot in the eye with an arrow and dies.

According to Gerald of Wales, King Harold II fled only badly wounded from the Battle of Hastings to Chester where he survived as an anchorite (blind in one eye of course) in "The chapel of St. James", close to St Johns Church. The story does seem remarkably persistent.

Suspension Bridge
The Queen's Park Suspension Bridge connects The Groves with the affluent Queen's Park area of Chester. This is the seconf bridge on this site, being built in 1922/3 to replace an earlier bridge. The 1923 bridge bears a striking resemblance to the 1922 Porthill Bridge in Shrewsbury - so much so that many people, even Chester residents, might have problems telling which was which in photographs.

Old Dee Bridge
The first bridge here was Roman.

The next waypoint is the Minerva Shrine. This is just across the River and is worth the walk both to see the shrine and for the views up- and downriver and back towards the City. If you want to skip that then jump down to Medical Museum.

Minerva Shrine
The Minerva Shrine in Edgar's Field is the only surviving rock-cut Roman shrine which is still in situ at its original location in the whole of western Europe. It dates from around AD 79, during the time of Vespasian, when the same area was being used to quarry stone for the construction of the Roman fortress (and, years later, possibly also Chester Castle) just over the River Dee. It may have been the shrine of quarry workers, or it may have been used by travelers about to cross the River Dee (by a ford) - Minerva was Goddess of both craftsmen and travelers.