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Aug 15, 2021 · These brilliant pictures show life in Chester and what it looked like around 90 to 100 years ago. And Chester has changed beyond recognition since the 1920s and 1930s, including we socialise, travel, live and work.
Based in the county of Cheshire, the cathedral city of Chester attracts millions of visitors each year, with many drawn by its unique past. The history and heritage of Chester dates right back to 79AD, when it was founded as Roman fort, during which time its world-famous walls were built.
Jun 11, 2021 · Take a look at these iconic photos of Chester through the 1980s. The pictures, which were taken between 1980 and 1989, show just how much the city has changed in that time, from lost shops and nightclubs, to the ever-changing high street.
- Introduction to The History of Chester
- Culture
- Politics and War
- Science and Industry
- Urban Landscape
- Reality vs Expectations
Chester has perhaps the most diverse history of any city we’ve covered so far. It isn’t a huge settlement now (indeed, nearby Liverpool overshadows it in many ways), but its modest scale belies its tremendous historical importance, to the north-west region and to the country. While there was significant Iron Age activity found in the area, the firs...
Horse racing
Chester Racecourse held its first meeting in 1540 and is now the oldest racecourse in the world still going, and one of the most important in Britain today. Built partly on the site of the old city port, the site is full of idiosyncrasies, such as the shortness of its track (the smallest at any major British racecourse) and the base of a Saxon rood cross. But my favourite is the distinctive Dee Stand, built into the original city walls, which gives the illusion of people hanging off the walls...
Scores
I’m afraid that’s pretty much it. It’s hard not to feel like we’re missing something, but when the Victoria County History tells us that Chester’s ‘wider cultural links have always been rather meagre’, I can’t help but agree. It doesn’t help that there has been very little 20th-century immigration into Chester. It’s always been a bit of a monoculture (indeed, the only historical period in which it has experienced mass migration in any sense was the Roman invasion), so has lacked the diversity...
Capital of the North-West
For a long time, Chester was the most important city in the North-West of England. While never particularly high in population, it exerted a huge regional influence for centuries, being a centre of judicial, military and commercial life for a wide area for hundreds of years up about 1700. Its historical alias of Westchester, used from the 14th to the 18thCentury, is symbolic of the city’s regional importance. Chester owed this early prominence to two things: First, its favourable location on...
Roman Chester – the planned capital of Roman Britain?
We’ll talk a lot more about Roman Chester – especially its remnants and impact on the city today – in ‘Urban Landscape’. However, we do need to mention briefly that Chester owes its very existence to Roman military need; the location was chosen for the headquarters of the XX Legionand was consequently one of the most significant military locations in Roman Britain. The site was probably chosen, again, for its strategic location – it might have offered a good spot from which to invade Ireland,...
Æthelflæd and Edgar – a seat of Saxon power
It really is a mark of how deep and rich Chester’s history is that we can leap straight from the Romans to the Saxons (indeed, we will return briefly to the intervening Dark Age period later on). Chester was an important city in the Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and was hugely strengthened in the 910s by the Mercian ruler Æthelflæd, who refounded it as a fortified burgh, made it a government centre for its shire, expanded the city, founded what became its cathedral and enhanced its walls. Æthelflæ...
Chester port
Chester had a hugely important port in the Middle Ages; built on the site of a Roman harbour, this was arguably the most important seaport in northern England for many centuries. Trade with Ireland was the main source of wealth for the city’s merchants from the late Middle Ages to Tudor times, but Chester was a truly international trading city, with archaeological evidence proving trading links stretching as far as China. As a port city, Chester would also have had a far-reaching draw on agri...
Other industries
While some heavy manufacturing industries existed in Chester in the early 19th century (mostly brought in by the Shropshire Union Canal), these had mostly disappeared after the Industrial Revolution and all but vanished by the 1840s, when the railways started to connect the country. Some remnants of this industry remain today around the canal, such as Telford’s Warehouse, built in 1790 by Thomas Telford partly over the canal so that boats could be unloaded or unloaded inside the building. The...
Retail and tourism
Despite this lack of industry, Chester found itself a niche with the tourist industry from the end of the 18th century. Similar to Bath and other resort towns at this time, Chester’s retail facilities and rich architectural diversity enabled it to become a centre of leisure rather than commerce, with the new railway networks initiating a transition in clientele from Georgian gentry to mass, working class travel. The Victoria County History for Chester notes the attraction of Chester to visito...
In previous episodes, we’ve nit-picked a tad over the lack of architectural variety that we’ve seen – even in the most wonderfully preserved period settlements like Bath, the uniformity has given us an excuse to moderate our scores. But will a city with as rich and varied a past as Chester give us any such grounds to quibble? Let’s have a look.
I’m going to bring a bit of subjectivity into this. I visited Chester fleetingly as a younger man and wasn’t all that impressed with it; while wandering briskly around the city centre, I somehow managed to miss the castle, the Rows, the Roman remains – practically everything that makes the city great. So, in my naivety, I was slightly expecting Che...
Jun 18, 2021 · From the Roman foundations of the city’s walls and the medieval Rows and Cathedral, to the Tudor racecourse and black and white facades, and Victorian Railway Station, Chester is proud of its heritage and visitors will marvel at the range of fascinating stories the city holds. So whatever your historic interest, Chester has it all.
Feb 1, 2017 · We have scoured the Press Association's online archive for the most memorable pictures from the city. From royal weddings to footballing royalty to politicians Chester has had plenty of high-profile visitors.
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Shop till you drop in the most compact shopping centre in Britain thanks to the world famous Rows, two-tier medieval galleries of shops. Chester was originally settled by the Romans in the first century AD and called Fortress Diva, after the River Dee upon which it stands.
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