Park Street

Category : Street Category : Article

History
Formerly named "Newgate Street". This is another surviving part of the "intervallum" in Roman Chester, which served to catch enemy missiles, as an access route to the wall (vallum) and as a storage space for cattle (capita) and plunder (praeda). In established fortresses, such as Chester, this space contained the "Via Sagularis", which also survives today as Whitefriars, Weaver Street and Trinity Street.

Park Street marks the site of a breach, battered through the wall by Parliamentary cannon, when Chester was besieged during the Civil War. By September 1645, Chester's loyal stand for King Charles I was nearing an end. The suburbs had been taken. The Royalist garrison and all the citizens took refuge inside the City Walls. Parliamentary troops mounted cannon in the tower of St Johns Church, just to the east of where the Roman Gardens are now sited, and bombarded the South Eastern defences. The tower was probably much weakened by this which contributed to its later collapse. On Monday, 22nd September 1645 this stretch of the City Walls were bombarded from 12 noon until 4pm. Thirty-two shots were fired, making a breach wide enough for ten men abreast to enter. Two Royalist soldiers were killed trying to fill the hole with beds and woolpacks. That night, the Parliamentarians tried to storm the breach, but were beaten back after fierce fighting. Lord John Byron himself described the situation thus:


 * "Thrice that night the enemy was upon the top of the wall, but at last quite beaten off. Seven of them were killed...who afterwards fell into the street, and were the next day buried by us. There were some of them taken alive, but much hurt, and so drunk that the scent of them was most offensive"

Hearing of the city's plight, King Charles I arrived in Chester with a force of cavalry on 23rd September. Following the defeat at Rowton Moor, Byron conducted a determined defence of the city, repulsing all attempts to take it by storm. When the Parliamentarians settled down to starve him out, Byron mounted frequent attacks and sorties against them. He finally surrendered Chester in February 1646. Byron left no children and the title passed to his brother Richard (1605-1679), who had been governor of Newark in 1643-5. Richard's descendant the sixth Lord Byron (1788-1824) was the romantic poet, "mad, bad and dangerous to know."

A fountain of life


The apparently mediaeval house one passes in Park Street was actually built as recently as 1881 (by W. H. Kelly - whose better work includes the 1883 Greysfield House, at Barrow) and bears the legend, "The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life". This is sometimes said to be the inscription on an "ancient" (some say Roman) coin found on the site, - it is also found in Proverbs [14:27] (so unlikely to be on a Roman coin).

However, almost the same words: "TIMOR . DOMINE . FONS . VITAE" were struck onto a (now incredibly rare) issue of silver shillings of Edward VI in 1549, as well as on the gold half-sovereign of the same year (and some groats amd other coins). Edward VI was 9 years old when he was made King in 1547. It was feared that ambitious men close to him may grab his power and use it for their own needs. Therefore the shillings of his reign were inscribed with this legend. He was dead within a few years, in 1553.

links

 * "Fountain of Life" house on English Heritage;