Category:Street

Chester retains many elements of the grid-like layout of Roman Chester within the City Walls, ouside of which it had barely expanded by the the time of an 1825 Map. After 1825, the first major departure from the rectilinear street plant was Grosvenor Road, leading to the Grosvenor Bridge, later came City Road to serve Chester Station and later still the Inner Ring Road.



The compass of directional expansion of Chester was determined by trade. In Roman Chester and later, in the Medieval, came growth along Foregate Street to be the first to grab trade entering the city from the east. With the "Canal Mania" around 1770 and the difficulties of the silting of the River Dee, Chester grew to the west, then in the 1840's the railway brought growth to the north.

The Inner Ring Road
By the early 1960's town planning was significantly influenced by a Government Publication on the "development of central areas". The issues of war damage id not apply to Chester as it often did elsewhere but there waa a need for the urban centres reconstruction in conjunction with the "traffic problems", car parking and shopping needs. Apart from the problem of war damage, redevelopment was necessary in most town centres also for a variety of other reasons since buildings had become outworn and outdated, the town centre had become unable to cope with modern traffic conditions, and it was necessary to provide a new environment for a changed way of living. To these three main reasons, may be added the fact that the value of sites in central commercial areas had risen to a high level. The proposed solution in many towns and cities was a closely drawn-in Inner Ring Road, often in the form of a dual-carriageway, with car parks (often of multi-storey concrete constuction) dotted along it.

Chester's Inner Ring Road had it's origins in the widening of Pepper Street, the creation of the Newgate (1938) through the City Walls and the widening of Little St John Street. This road scheme almost led to the destruction of the Amphitheatre and due to the Second World War it was not until the 1960's that plans were renewed.



Starting at the "Fountains Roundabout" outside of Northgate and going clockwise, the Ring Road cuts across the site of Northgate Station and separates St Annes Street into two parts.