Updates

The following articles have been written or updated in the past year:


 * Gildas, Bede, Nennius and Gerald of Wales: four early writers;
 * The Mold Cope: a fascinating story with links to several separate legends;
 * Chester Zoo: a look at the early history of the Zoo;
 * Charles Kingsley and Victorian paternalism;
 * Time: more on electric clock pioneer Robert Lewis Jones of Hoole:
 * The River Gowy: From a stone elephant via a lot of mills to a ruined abbey;
 * Vale Royal: Poisoned daggers, fake history, drugs, sex and murder;
 * Booksellers and others in the print trade in Chester;
 * Chester Clockmakers and Chester public clocks: - these clocks often tell more than just the time;
 * The Battle of Chester: c616 - who fought in it and why?
 * Thomas Baldwin: of Hoole Hall, early balloonist and inventor;
 * Road Transport: how routes developed and evolved over the years, from prehistoric to modern;
 * Cheshire Castles were built by the Normans to defend a natural border defined by the flooding of the Dee and Pulford Brook;
 * Celia Fiennes was a Chester tourist in 1698 and viewed the city from the coupola atop the then recently completed Exchange building;
 * Explore Elizabethan Chester using a point and click map;
 * Cholmondeley's house in Grosvenor Park was the subject of an early case of "fake news";
 * Portpool: Chester's "Old Port" area;
 * Bruen: Puritans in Chester and a small step on the road to Civil War;
 * Chamber's Book of days features many Chester folk-customs - here is a commentary and analysis;
 * Queen Dido: a triumph on the Roodee, Elizabeth I and the enemy of Rome;
 * Elen of the Hosts: how a garbled reference to a Roman church in the Mystery Plays opens a window on the politics of prophecy;
 * Plegmund: shedding some light on his involvement with religious and political turmoil at the time of Alfred the Great;
 * Shakespeare and Chester: William Stanley (who did not live at Stanley Palace) and the authorship question;
 * The Chester Mystery Plays: why the guilds picked the subject matter they did and the long shadow of theatre censorship from 1575 until the 1960's;
 * Geology of Chester: a look at how geology has helped shape the built environment in Chester;
 * Legio II: two different legions with the same number were involved in Roman Britain;
 * An entirely unofficial version of the St Johns Trail - not yet available as a GPS version for phones, but that is an experiment in progress;
 * Legio XX: the 20th Legion. A look at its history and the various theories as to how it came to be named "Valeria Victrix";
 * Chester's Amphitheatre was, possibly, the site of a shrine to early christian martyrs;
 * A more detailed look at Hilbre Island in the mouth of the River Dee where the inventive proposals of a forgotten James Boaz became an early step in a technology which changed the world;
 * A new category of Drone footage of Chester and places along the River Dee - look for the drone icon;
 * Tanning was an important industrial process in Chester: here is a brief look at its history;
 * Upton Hall of which nothing remains visible on the site, and some fictional tales about Cromwell in Chester;
 * Sir Thomas Browne lived on the cusp between an age of superstition and one of reason. He had his roots in Upton, and wrote one of his most famous works at an inn in Foregate Street.
 * The 1883 Reform Act arose in part out of a Chester saga involving electoral corruption and a lot of beer;
 * The Courts: In the late Middle Ages office the office of Justice of Chester was a powerful position, but it was also a decidedly deadly one:- possibly one of the most dangerous jobs of the time - few survived the office without being exiled, killed or simply dying in office. Peaceful retirement was seldom an option.
 * Roger Whitley who carried post from Charles II to George Booth and served as Whig MP for Chester, profited greatly after the Restoration when he was made Deputy Postmaster General. He later became Mayor of Chester;
 * The Booth Rising was a failed attempt to overthrow the new Lord Protector (Richard Cromwell). It involved the "capture" of Chester and a siege of Chester Castle. Booth's army was defeated and he was the subject of much ridicule for being arrested while disguised as a woman.
 * Perhaps the final end of Charles Moston and the Chester Canal mystery... or is there more to be discovered? Also the real truth about the "Black Dog Of Waverton";