Tuesday 24^th March 2020

After a few chores around the boat we visited the tourist sites in Chester. Walking the walls, the sites are never far away.

The walls are said to be the most complete city walls in Britain, encompassing the Medieval city, the full circuit measuring nearly 2 miles. Although Roman in origin, most of what we see today is the result of Victorian restorations.  

     

                 

                                                                         Chester City Walls beside the Cathedral                             

                                                     Collapsed Section of the Wall near Eastgate

The walls were last used as a fortification during the English Civil Wars when Chester was a Royalist stronghold. The Parliamentarians held Chester under siege for most of the wars and they apparently, used to catapult diseased carcasses over the walls and into the city from a site near St. John’s Church. Within the city walls, an ancient law that has never been repealed, allows the killing of a Welshman, but only with a bow and arrow.   

         

                      

                                                                            Deserted Streets from Eastgate Clock                            

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                  Eastgate Clock

The Eastgate Clock sits above Eastgate, and one of the busiest shopping streets, although almost completely deserted. The clock is said to be the most photographed clock in the country, after Big Ben. We had to detour at Eastgate as the walls were temporarily closed after a section had collapsed due to developers digging too close to the wall.

The Roman Amphitheatre, the largest in Britain, is beside the walls at Newgate, normally full of school parties. Next to the Amphitheatre are the Roman Gardens where many artefacts discovered in the city are displayed including a reconstructed hypocaust system, a system of central heating were the floors are raised and cavities within the walls, circulate hot air around a building. An original system was discovered in 1720 and can still be seen in the basement of 39 Bridge Street. There is a section of wall within the gardens that has clearly been rebuilt. This was the result of a breach in the wall during the Civil War.

Roman Amphitheatre

     

                                       

                                                                                               Roman Gardens                                                                    

                                                               Reconstructed Hypocaust System

There are particularly impressive views from the walls up and down the River Dee and across the weir to the Old Dee Bridge. The weir, which nowadays incorporates a salmon ladder, was built in 1093 to provide power to mills along the banks of the river and to improve navigability.  The Old Dee Bridge is the oldest bridge in the city. Built on the site of a Roman bridge, the present structure dates from a major rebuilding in 1387, and remarkably, still carries vehicular traffic today. 

     

                             

                                                                                   River Dee Water Front                                                           

                                                             River Weir and the Old Dee Bridge

The Grosvenor Bridge, built in 1832, is very elegant. The arch of the bridge is also very high, built to allow the passage of sailing ships beneath it. Beside the bridge is the area known as Roodee and contains the racecourse. Chester held the first recorded race meeting in the country on 9^th February 1539. Henry Gee was the Mayor of Chester at this time and it is because of his surname that horses are still known as “gee-gee’s”!     

                                     

                                                                                             Grosvenor Bridge                                                                       

                                                                    Chester Racecourse

Close to the canal basin is Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower and the Water Tower. The Water Tower was built between 1322 and 1325 and originally actually stood in the river as part of the defences of the port. There is a view from here of a complex of transportation, the railway tracks below, carrying the line into North Wales, a road and the canal basin and staircase locks, all vying for position in a narrow space, criss-crossing each other. There are also lovely views across to the Welsh Hills in the distance.       

                                    

                                                                                             The Water Tower                                                                           

                                                                   Rail, Road and Canal

The walls follow above the deep canal cutting and, at Northgate Bridge is the ‘Bridge of Sighs’, a very narrow bridge, built in 1793, that originally led from Northgate Jail, across the canal, to a chapel in the Bluecoat School, where condemned prisoners received the Last Rites before their execution.

        

                                            Bridge of Sighs                                      

                       

                                                                                   Deep Cutting at Northgate

     

At Phoenix, or King Charles’s Tower, there are views of the Cathedral and across the city. It was said that from this tower in 1645 King Charles I watched as his army was defeated by the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Rowton Heath during the Civil War.

     

Phoenix, or King Charles’s, Tower

We then returned to the boat only to find that the Government had ordered that people should remain at home as a means of preventing the spread of the Corona Virus. We had commented during our walk, of the lack of people with the streets being almost completely deserted. We had met just 6 people, although these included 3 PCSO’s, not one of them either challenged us or told us of the lock-down.

We felt quite guilty for having been out, and now feel uncomfortable being in the city and so plan to leave tomorrow.