Upper Northgate Street

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Northgate is described in detail on the pages relating to the City Walls. It is definiitely worth climbing up the stairs onto the gate for the view, especially that of the chasm crossed by the Canal Bridge. The Canal Bridge iteslf is the best place to view the Bridge of Sighs: a footbridge was used to take prisoners from the City gaol (previously on the site of the Toll Collage at No.1 Upper Northgate Street) to the former Chapel of St John in the south wing of St John's Hospital for prayers prior to execution. It has been suggested that friends of such prisoners frequently staged attempts to free them when they were taken for their last walk by the road route. In 1793, in order to foil such attempts, the authorities built this small bridge, seen today without it's rails.

North from the Bridge and Bell

The bell visible on the corner of the building is that of the SS Galeka, of which the history is told on the St John's Hospital page. Looking north from the top of the Northgate one sees a building with a glass observation coupola, which was the home of the once owner of the Chester Chronicle newspaper John Fletcher.

The view from the top of the Northgate is one of the best in Chester. To the left is Northgate Street and the Town Hall. The modern building (a council office) stands on the site of the Northgate Brewery. The large building with the courtyard to the right is St John's Hospital. On the side of the "half-timbered" pub is a small red sculpture of a squatting demon - which is not, as one 2016 guidebook explains, a "fire insurance mark" - but is actually one of the works of the sculptor Eoghan Bridge which make up the "Chester Imp Trail" and were allegedly put up "Banksy" style in the dead of night.

By the 13th century development had extended outside of the Northgate, but this was the smallest of the City's suburbs. Apart from the hospital of St. John, whose precinct occupied a narrow strip of land extending westwards from the gate outside the town ditch, most of the area belonged to the monks of St. Werburgh's. The suburb's main axis lay along Upper Northgate Street, the road north into the Wirral, which from early times forked to form Bache Way (later Liverpool Road) running north, and Mollington Lane (later Parkgate Road) running northwest. At the fork, the Lavaux Map indicates the presence of the Northgate May Pole. This maypole is mentioned in Ormerod:

  • "Two tall Maypoles are yet [1816] remaining in Handbridge [but since 1816 have been taken down]; another which was placed at the end of Further Northgate street has been removed; but the women and children still [1816] deck out garlands on the accustomed day, and suspend them at the doors near it, following passengers with vociferous demands to "remember the May Pole" [This custom has for some years been discontinued]."
The Northgate suburb develloped on land once owned by the abbey, hence the names of the Abbot's Grange, Hayes, Cottage and Lodge.

The Northgate suburb also contained a stone cross and buildings belonging to the Abbey, of which the most important were St Thomas's Chapel with its graveyard, at the fork terminating Upper Northgate Street, and the abbey's tithe barn on Mollington Lane. The land on either side of Upper Northgate Street, from Portpool Way (renamed Cottage Street, later Garden Lane) to Windmill Lane (now Victoria Road) formed gardens, mostly the property of Chester Abbey and including the "Battle Croft", whose name implies that it was the site of judicial battle in the form of "trial by combat" in the Middle Ages. Beyond lay open fields extending to the northern limits.

Opposite the end of Delamere Street stands an 18th century property fronted by a street level arcade. This was the home of Lady Elizabeth Otway who was associated with the Bluecoat Girls School in around 1718. By the mid 1840's the house was occupied by Reverend William Harrison who was the heatmaster of a private school located on the opposite side of Northgate Street. In the middle of the front of the building is a "Sun" fire-insurance plate. The "Sun Fire Office" was the first company to use these plates and is the oldest documented insurance company in the world, founded in 1710. For most of the 18th century, each insurance company maintained its own fire brigade, which extinguished fires in those buildings insured by the company and, in return for a fee to be paid later, in buildings insured by other companies. By 1825, fire marks served more as advertisements than as useful identifying marks; some insurance companies no longer issued fire marks, and those that did sometimes left them up after a policy had expired.

The Bull and Stirrup was designed by W. M. Boden and its features reflect those of No.3 Northgate Street opposite, by Lockwood.

After 1840 more exclusive suburbs began to develop along Liverpool Road, as it did south of the River. Most of the land on either side of the Parkgate Road and Liverpool Road as far as the Bache boundary belonged to the Dean and was known as the Bailiwick estate. In 1845, as a consequence of the Cathedrals Act of 1840, it passed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who began to sell building plots on which covenants controlled the value and nature of development. It became an attractive area for suburban villas, and development before the early 1870s was almost exclusively of substantial houses set in large gardens - beyond the fork of Liverpool Road and Parkgate Road lay a triangular area occupied by generally high-status residents and their servants. The area became a rival to the leafy suburbs south of the Dee and largely retained that character until 1914. Its bisection in 1890 by the Northgate-Shotton railway and Liverpool Road station, however, led to some undermining of its status, and building east of Liverpool Road and north of Brook Lane between 1890 and 1914 was mainly of terraces and semi-detached houses.

Speculative houses of higher quality, detached and semi-detached and still Edwardian in style, were built from 1935. Small pockets of land on and just off Parkgate Road and Liverpool Road, north of the centre, were developed with tight closes, for example Abbots Grange of 1929. Some houses were also being built in the former gardens of larger houses, as at Abbots Park. The building of houses for individual clients seems to have reached a peak throughout Chester in 1936-7, after which mass house-building predominated.

Rockmount

Rockmount, John Fletcher's house, has a viewing coupola on the roof.

Rockmount was once the home of John Fletcher and lies between Parkgate Road and Liverpool Road. There has been some discussion about the age of the building. A description of a visit to the building during Fletcher's lifetime exists:

  • "We went to the place we were recommended too, expecting to find a dwelling house and shop where the printing business were carried on; we were however agreeably surprised on ascending several steps cut out of the solid rock to find ourselves in a most beautiful garden, well stocked with flowers and with a profusion of holly-hocks of all colours, which gave it a very Chinese and yet handsome appearance. From the side of his house projected a hot-house and as you entered in, on your right and left were greenhouse plants neatly arranged one above another, and vines filled with grapes surmounted the whole. On entering the house a very handsome carpet covered the floor of the room, filled with good fiurniture, added to a most extensive library of books, induced me to apologise for my intrusion, naturally concieving our director had made a mistake; but finding he really was Mr. Fletcher, the printer of this book, I told him I hoped that our returning at 7 o'clock in the morning (which we intended) would apologise for our troubling him on a Sabbath day. He informed me that he was not a seller of the work, but only the printer, but thought he had one which he had got bound for himself with blank leaves for remarks; and after some trouble he found it amongst his books and kindly let me have it on my paying him a little addition for the binding and paper. After a further conversation he very politely invited me to sit down and take wine with him. I refused his kind invitation, but expressed a wish to walk round his garden, where I had a friend waiting for me. He immediately met my wishes and his lady accompanied us; on whose management its beauties was owing. A pump close to the garden wall 26 yards deep, cut out of the rock, was very convenient both for it and the house."

The house can be dated with reference to the mention of the Jubilee Tower by the visitor:

  • "We were then shewn into a front room, in which there was a bow window, from whence you had a delightful view of several of the mountains in Wales, especially one in Denbyshire on which they had erected a round building to perpetuate the jubilee year of the reign of his present majesty. Nearer lay the sea coast of Wales, Flint Castle, Pargate shore, Neston; and under the window the canal and richly cultivated fields, where formerly the river Dee ran. The house is built in the form of a summer house and on the top is a cupola of glass from whence there must be a still more extensive prospect."

The Jubilee Tower was built for the golden jubilee (1810) of “mad” King George III upon Moel Famau. The foundation stone was laid "with great fanfare" on Thursday, 25th October 1810, however at that point, no design had been agreed. The final design by architect Thomas Harrison was elaborate and impressive, in the soon-to-be-fashionable Egyptian style – a rectangular base with four bastions and sloping doorways, which can still be seen today, topped by an obelisk. Squabbles over lack of money and poor workmanship ensued and the building was only finished, to a less grandiose plan, in 1817. In 1862, a major storm brought down the incomplete tower. The remaining upper part of the structure was demolished for safety reasons leaving just the base. As the visitor describes it as dedicated to "his present majesty" he must have been viewing it before the death of George III. Hence the building is Georgian, and not, as sometimes said, Victorian.

Rocky Lane

Rock(y) Lane links Parkgate Road and Liverpool Road and is believed to have originated as a "portway" for ordinance during the Civil War. Rock Lane has been identified as part of Prince Rupert’s "great trench" and was used by Royalist forces during the siege of Chester to move artillery around the city’s perimeter. Prince Rupert, the King’s nephew, visited the city soon after the outbreak of the Civil War; voiced concerns about artillery mobility and ordered his "great trench" to be built to facilitate movement.

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