Linenhall Street
History
Linenhall Street was the name given to the portion of St Martins Way which lay between Watergate Street and the end of Princess Street where its continuation was sometimes known as St Martins Place. The street vanished with the construction of the Inner Ring Road, but the car-park on St Martins way is still known as the Linenhall Street car-park. According to Fenwick, it may once have been known as Berward Street although there is some confusion over that and Bedward Row.
Linenhall Street also once bore the name of Lower Lane or Crofts Lane ("the street leading to the Crofts"). Hemingway (writing in 1831) is disparaging:
- "A little higher in the street is Lower lane a miserable receptacle of vice chiefly inhabited by the lowest order of people. At the corner of this street stands his Majesty's Custom house which though a building of small dimensions and miserable appearance is quite sufficient for the limited business of the port "
Hughes writes as follows:
- "Returning to Watergate Street we see before us Linen Hall Street called formerly Lower Lane from its being at one time the last street on this side of the city. There is nothing to interest us in this street which terminates with St Martin's in the Fields at the rear of the Gaol and General Infirmary. So late as the sixteenth century there was at the further end of this street an ancient Church quoted in old deeds as the Church of St Chad but the place thereof is now nowhere to be found."
According to the place-name specialist John McNeal Dodgson (see link below) Linenhall Street was Gray Friars Lane from 1480 to 1775, whereas it was Crofts Lane or Street 1345 to 1574. Dodgson also states that it was at time named "Manx Lane" 1665-1691, "Lower Lane" 1714 to 1830, and "New Linenhall Street". He then gets into a long and complex argument which is best studied separately.
In Roman Chester the ground on this side of the city, west of the present day Inner Ring Road, sloped sharply westwards down to the river bank and this slope was eventually cut into three terraces to produce level platforms for buildings and agriculture. The lowest of these terraces was fronted by the massive stone retaining wall which formed the Roman "quayside", parts of which may still be seen on the Roodee today. This area lay outside the Roman walls but the medieval City Wall was eventually built on top of this lower terrace. The erection of this great wall produced a barrier at the foot of the hillside against which deposits washed down from the slopes above could accumulate, a process that continued from the 12th century right through to fairly recent times. The result is that the entire sloping hillside has disappeared beneath around five metres of accumulated deposits and the ground level today is now more or less level with the top of the wall.
All of the land bounded by today's Watergate Street, Bedward Row St. Martin's Way and the City Walls once formed the precinct of the Franciscan Friars (the Grey Friars). The Franciscan/Greyfriars monastery later became the site of Chester's Linen Hall. This was built in 1778 by Irish linen merchants as a depot containing many shops in a spacious area from which their cloth was distributed by wagon and pack horse throughout the country. After the linen trade declined, the building was utilised as a cheese store and market for Cheshire Cheese. The site more recently was used for stables associated with the racecourse. In 2009 the stables were demolished, they were of no special architectural merit, and the site is now (2024) in temporary use as a surface car park.
Connects With:
Sources and Links
- Place-Names and Street-Names at Chester: (Dodgson);