A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHESTER

Chester has the distinction of being the only city in England with a complete circuit of mediaeval defensive walls. The two-mile walk round the ramparts is an unforgettable experience. On the east side of the city, these Saxon wails follow the line of the original earthworks thrown up by the Roman 20th Legion, one of the three stationed in Britain during the occupation. Their fortress, which they called Deva, stood on a sandstone mound in a bend of the River Dee at the head of the estuary. This was the first practical crossing point, and their ships could tie up under the city walls. The four main roads of the camp, now called Northgate Street, Eastgate Street, Watergate Street and Bridge Street-remain exactly where the Roman surveyor marked them out 1,900 years ago.

Nobody knows what happened to Chester during the 400 years after the Romans withdrew, leaving the civilians to defend themselves. The next we hear of it is in the 9th century when the Saxons brought the body of St. Werburgh from Staffordshire during a Danish invasion, and restored Chester's defences. It became an important town during the Saxon era, and was one of the last to fall to the Normans, four years after the Battle of Hastings.

From that time onwards Cheshire was ruled by a line of Norman earls, who raised its status to that of an almost independent palatinate, with its own army, parliament, laws, taxes and coinage. Chester was used as a military base for operations against the Welsh and Irish. The city reached its zenith in the 13th and 14th centuries. It was the principal port in the north-west, trading with Ireland, Spain, France and the Low Countries. Then the estuary of the River Dee began to silt up and ships could no longer moor at Watergate. New wharves were built nearer the sea, but international trade gradually declined and was eventually taken over by a little fishing village called Liverpool.

When the line of Norman earls died out, King Henry III annexed the title, and since 1254 it has always been held by the eldest son of the reigning monarch, who is Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. Henry VII granted Chester its Great Charter which constituted it as a county. This was changed to county borough in 1588. In mediaeval times Chester was well known for its mystery plays-Bible stories enacted at Whitsuntide by the appropriate trade guild or mystery. These were suppressed in the 16th century, but some of them have been revived recently and presented at Chester Cathedral.

The turbulent period of Chester's history came to an end in the 17th century. The city was a Royalist stronghold during the Civil War. Charles I stood on one of the towers to see his troops defeated in the Battle of Rowton Heath. The besieged city held out for five months after the King had fled. When peace returned, Chester became a quiet but prosperous administrative centre. The industrial revolution passed it by. During the present century it has become an important tourist centre.

THE ROWS

Chester's Rows - double-tier shops with raised footpaths at first-floor level are unique and world-famous. Local historians are not certain how they came into being, but a likely explanation is that there were ruined Roman barrack blocks along each side of the streets, and that traders set up stalls in front of them, and then built shops with living quarters on top of the ruins. This peculiar construction is confined to the old streets inside the Roman fortress, and much of it dates from the rebuilding which followed the big fire of 1275. The black-and-white timbered upper Stories project over the raised footpaths, and there are steps down to the ground-floor shops as well as entrances to the first-floor shops.

CITY WALLS AND GATES

The Roman walls had four stone gates and 26 towers. Some of their stonework is still visible. The present walls were probably built during the 12th and 13th centuries. The mediaeval gates were narrow, heavily fortified and equipped with portcullis and drawbridge, and there are fascinating stories attached to each. The towers played their parts in history, too, particularly during the seige by Parliamentary forces.

OLD BUILDINGS AND MUSEUMS

Chester castle, standing inside the walls, was built in the 11th century, but between 1789 and 1813 it was partly demolished to make room for a Doric-style courthouse, barracks and gaol. The 13th century Agricola Tower remains, housing a chapel and the regimental Museum of the Cheshire Regiment.

Chester Cathedral has magnificent canopied choir stalls carved over 600 years ago. It was a Benedictine abbey church before the Reformation, and the cloistered garden, refectory and chapter house used by the monks are still in existence. The buildings are of absorbing interest to anyone who cares to study them.

The Grosvenor Museum is rich in Roman relics, King Charles's Tower houses the Civil War Exhibition, the Water Tower is devoted to mediaeval Chester, and in the Guildhall Museum there is a collection of records and treasures from 23 City Companies.

The Town Hall is Gothic, opened in 1869 as a replacement for an older hall destroyed by fire. The county hall is a modern building opened in 1957. The Grosvenor Bridge across the Dee was the largest single stone span in the world when it was opened by Princess Victoria in 1832.

CHESTER CATHEDRAL

Chester Cathedral stands in the centre of the City in the north east corner of the former Roman Legionary fortress. A church was founded on the site in the early 10th century, and in the church were placed the relics of St. Werburgh an East Midlands Saint who had played a leading part in the early days of Christianity in the Midlands. In 1092 the tenth century church was turned into a benedictine Abbey. The present church was built by Benedictine monks and building went on all through the middle ages.

The earliest part is the North Transept began soon after 1092 Then came the Lady Chapel and the Choir in the 13th century. The Choir is largely the work of Edward I's military engineer, Richard of Chester.

At the west end of the Lady Chapel is the shrine of St.Werburgh In the 14th century came the Central Tower and the large South Transept, almost as large as the Nave and in the 15th century the Nave and the Cloisters. The monks of the Abbey wrote the famous Chester Mystery Plays, based on the Bible.

After the dissolution of the monasteries, the Abbey Church became in 1541 the Cathedral of the newly Formed diocese of Chester. Continuously since then work has been going on in the Cathedral, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. Notable works of the 19th century are the apse of the South Choir Aisle with its pyramidal roof and the Organ Lott and Case all by Gilbert Scott. There are excellent Victorian stained glass windows by Wailes, Pugin, Clayton and Bell. Heaton Butler and Bayne, and Kempe. From the Edwardian and early Georgian period date the fine chapels in the east aisle of the South Transept. In 1961 a new west window by W. T. Carter Shapland was placed in the nave. and in 1966 new nave stalls by George Pace. The Cathedral's bells are in a free standing bell-tower, the work also of George Pace and finished in 1975. It is the first free-standing bell-tower to be built for any English Cathedral since the 15th century. It stands south-east of the Cathedral by the City wall.

The remains of the monastic buildings of the Benedictine Abbey on the north side of the Cathedral give the visitors wonderfully vivid impression of the lay-out of a great mediaeval abbey.