CHESTER

 Chester is one of those places that people think they know of, but if they haven't been, don't really know at all.

Most people have heard of The Rows - the unique double-story rows of medieval buildings that line the main high street, or Via Principalis, as the Romans knew it - but there is so much more.
You can take a walk around almost the entire walls of the old Roman city, or stroll along the attractive river Dee. There's the castle, the cathedral, the Roman villa......the list is endless.
The town centre itself is a maze of new shops, in modern arcades hidden from the high street, and small independant shops selling everything from rain forest products to American Christmas goods. Each shop individual in its own way.

The Rows are probably the most often photographed sight in Chester, a series of half-timbered buildings joined with long galleries, looking for all the world like a Tudor shopping mall. There is not one single "Rows" but several complexes of houses in the same style, with the best examples on Watergate, Eastgate and Bridge Street.

The layout of the Rows goes back to the 13th century. There were shops or warehouses at street level, with a long gallery above, reached by steps from the street level.

Living quarters are on the gallery level. In the Middle Ages, this would have been a hall, open to the roof and heated by a central hearth. The private rooms, or solar, were above the gallery.

In the Tudor and Jacobean period the upper floors were built out over the gallery, supported on long poles down to the street level. Shops at ground level used the space between the posts to display their goods to passers-by

Chester is a Roman centre, built around the Roman fort of Deva and as well as the excavations visible outside the city. Roman and Saxon parts remain of the encircling medieval walls. 

Chester was abandoned when the Romans left in the 5th century, but the Anglo-Saxons resettled the town and in the early 10th century it was refortified by Aethelflaeda, daughter of Alfred the Great. 

(below) looking along the Via Principalis from the top of Eastgate. Normally closed to traffic, this picture was taken on Remembrance Sunday, hence the military vehicle leaving the city centre.

Chester's city walls are almost complete, and give marvellous views of what lies outside the city precincts, including some notable Roman edifices.

The most striking point on the wall, is the clock over the Eastgate which straddles the walkway

The Eastgate Clock was erected to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The idea of a memorial of some sort to commemorate the Jubilee was mooted about as early as 1896 when the Duke of Westminster suggested a gesture to support the Queen's Jubilee Institute of Nurses. 
A public appeal for funds was launched, and subscribers were asked to donate funds for an Institute of Nurses, a memorial tower, or a clock on the Eastgate. Public opinion favoured the first two proposals, but a concerted effort by proponents of the clock raised the necessary funds.
A design by John Douglas was approved in March 1897. Douglas planned for a stone clock, but it was feared his design would block light to neighbouring buildings. After much public debate, the stone clock design was cast aside in favour of a metal structure.
The inner works of the clock were donated by city solicitor Edward Evans-Lloyd, who also provided the clock face. The supporting structure was paid for by the money donated by the public, and the city agreed to be responsible for maintaining the clock.

Chester has a cathedral, which I currently have not yet visited.

(below) the former Holy Trinity church, now a restaurant and bar.