Chester
An attractive town of black and white timber fronted buildings and City Walls, Chester has an illustrious history dating back to 79 AD and was one of the most important cities of Roman Britain. Today it’s a thriving hub for shopping and sight seeing.
When it was founded as Castra Devana by the Romans, Chester was a legionary fort and naval base built beside the River Dee, covering some 60 acres it was the largest Roman settlement in Britain. The excavated remains of a Roman Amphitheatre, big enough for 7,000 spectators and which includes a shrine to the goddess Nemesis forms the centrepiece of the City’s Roman Heritage.
After the Norman Conquest, William I established his nephew as the Marcher Earl of Chester and since 1301 when Henry III granted the Earldom to his son, Edward I , the title has been conferred to the eldest son of the Monarch. Chester continued to prosper as a port, the City Walls were built to their current plan in the 1200s and the Cathedral was built around the late 15th Century.
Though the city walls were badly damaged during an 18-month siege in the Civil War they were rebuilt as a fashionable 2 mile promenade that almost completely encases the city. A walk along the walls takes you past the Eastgate Clock, Chester’s figure head built in 1897 for Queen Victoria ’s Diamond Jubilee, down by the Newgate over looking the remnants of the Roman fortress, by the old Dee Bridge dating from 1387 and a further section takes you by the Roodee, occupied by Chester’s famous horse race course, the oldest in Britain.
Within the Walls, lining the main streets are The Rows, unique in Britain, these fashionable galleried shopping arcades are set on two tiers and styled in Georgian and Victorian mock Tudor. The original rows were built in the 14th Century on top of earlier Roman buildings, though the present ones date to the 19th Century, and they make an attractive setting of decorative timberwork and oriel windows.
In the summer months the medieval scene is complemented by the Town Crier in traditional dress, who on the hour announces the news of the day by the Cross, in the centre of Town.
Chester is one of the top heritage cities of Europe and one of the UK’s most stylish retail centres - it is well worth a visit!
