Water Supply



The site of Roman Chester had many practical advantages for the Romans. Here was the tidal limit where a ford was practicable and safe. The elevated sandstone ridge on which the City was founded was dry and proof against flooding, but water could be obtained from springs at nearby Boughton. Water was espially important for the Romans as much of the social life of the legionaries centered around their bath-houses. It has been estimated that the baths at Chester used between 500,000 and 750,000 litres of water a day. Water was piped in large lead pipes underground from a branch off the main aqueduct near the Eastgate, downhill to the baths on Bridge Street. The water was then held in large tanks with concrete foundations, and then fed through the complex. Waste water would have been fed downhill using gravity to the River Dee. The water was fed through 24 hours a day. The water supply of Roman Chester can be dated precisely to A.D. 79 by lead distribution pipes stamped with the consular date. Since the large intramural bathhouse was also dedicated in that year, it would appear that the two were planned together. The aqueduct ran from the springs at Boughton, where, in the 90s or later, the Twentieth Legion built a shrine with an altar dedicated to the nymphs and wells. Chester's ancient boundaries are defined to north of the River Dee by the stream which is in part known as "Flookersbrook" and empties into the River Dee after a long and winding journey around the city from the springs at Boughton. About the year 1300 water was taken from a further spring at Christleton known as the 'Abbot's Well' and conveyed by earthenware pipes installed by monks under a patent granted by Edward the First, to cisterns situated at Boughton and in the cloisters of the Monastery (now the Cathedral). In the Middle-Ages, the Dee provided a plentiful source of water throughout the year, but since it lay below most of the town the only way to use it before the 16th century was to draw it out in buckets and fill barrels on water carts. In the year 1600 the Mayor and Citizens, granted to one John Tyrer the right to raise water from the Dee at the Bridgegate, erect a tower upon the Gate, install a cistern, engines or other instruments for raising water and to open streets and lay pipes. Later in 1622, by grant from the Mayor and Citizens of the City, John Tyrer undertook to build waterworks at Boughton.

Waterpower was used for the Dee Mills, located by the Old Dee Bridge and supplied with a head by the weir constructed by the Norman Earl of Chester - Hugh of Avranches. His son, Richard of Avranches, is remembered for two watery things: the grant of a mill at Bache to Chester's Benedictine abbey and his death in the wreck of the "White Ship" in 1120. The White Ship was the Titanic of the Middle Ages, a much praised vessel at the forefront of technology and on its maiden voyage. It was wrecked against a foreseeable natural hazard in the reckless pursuit of speed suggested by an influential passenger, while sailing in the moonless dark. The passengers constituted the cream of high society, thrown into the chilly waters with insufficient lifeboats.

Information about Chester's water-supply and it's use, whether simple springs and wells or something more complicated, is rather scattered through the Wiki. Some references include:


 * The River Dee;
 * The Waterworks at the Bridgegate;
 * The weir at the Old Dee Bridge;
 * The Dee Mills and more on the Dee Mills;
 * The Roman springs and waterworks at Barrel Well Hill in Boughton near the drinking fountain at St Giles Cemetery;
 * The cistern at the High Cross;
 * The cistern at the Shambles in Northgate Street
 * Jacobs Well - moved to Grosvenor Park;
 * Billy Hobby's Well - of magical repute;
 * The wells at Chester Castle - famous for the skeleton found down one and now in the Grosvenor Museum;
 * The Cathedral water supply;
 * The Roman Baths - some parts of which can still be seen at 39 Bridge Street;