176 Wall Walking. We stroll around Chester’s city walls

This week we walk Chester’s city walls, the most complete in England. We find out about the City’s chequered historic past as a sea port, its seige and role in the civil war. We see the Roman influence on the city and how modern progress has affected the walls.

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Hello and welcome to life on board Amy Joe and this week we’re trying something different we’ve been to Chester and vlogged about it so many times but never actually shown you around the city so this Vlog we’re going to show Chester and its historical past and one of the best ways we found

To view the city is to walk around its historic City walls Chester City walls are the oldest longest and most complete in Britain parts of which are almost 2,000 years old and form an almost complete circuit of the former medieval city with a total walkway length of 2.95 km or 1.8 miles

Chester is the only city in Britain that retains the full Circuit of its ancient defensive walls main access to the walls is at each of the four main gateways North Gate East Gate Water Gate and Bridge gate plus there are many other steps around the city some included in

Accessible ramps we’re starting our walk here at Watergate which is nearest the canal Basin in earlier centuries the river D was a far mightier Waterway than it is today and large ships would discharge their cargos at wolves situated immediately alongside the city walls until the start of the 14th century the

Existing structure of the ancient walls and Towers provided adequate to the port’s defense but as the silting of the dst3 started to badly affect the depth of water available to shipping it was deemed necessary to extend the defenses further out into the river and as a

Result in 1322 the water tower was built over succeeding centuries the river silted further nautical trade seriously declined and Chester lost its ancient position as the principal sea Poole of northern England and this is what the water tower looks like today and it’s nowhere near the river and here’s another view of the what was the harbor it’s now Bowling Greens this impressive building is now part of uh a set of Apartments however in its early days it used to be the

Infirmary and if I move over a little bit and zoom in you can just make out the words infirmary on the roof on the Apex there two ornate looking buildings the first one here more so than the other is one of Chester’s big private schools this was Queen school or still

Is Queen school and in the early days it used to be a girl school and there’s an equivalent school called King school which are for boys but it’s that large it owns these very nicely kept Fields just opposite on the other side of the road we’re now stood on the arch as

Known as Watergate Street and this street would have led down to the rud D and this is what Watergate would have looked like in the days when Chester was a major seaf fairing port now the race course in Chester it’s quite an affluent race race

Course as it goes and here you can see one of the bars and restaurants that are bound the race course perimeters this is virtually the main entrance into Chester’s race this the view of the RAC track itself and all the associated buildings and Chester’s race course is uh

Unique in some respects to other race courses in as much as when the races are run they run in the opposite direction to what most races are run I can’t remember which way around it is but if they go left to right then here they go right to

Left and the other thing is it’s a circular course which is unusual there are not many circular courses and the final one there are no jumps it’s just a race course there’s no hurdles there’s no um water jumps or anything but what’s really significant about the race course is originally this

Whole area was a was a harbor a Roman Harbor and it came in from the river D to this point where the Romans would unload all their ships as they came in from Rome and across other countries in Europe so it’s quite unique and there are still traces of the original Roman

Warf if we can find them this area became known as the rude after the rude or stone cross that stood on an eye or island in the marsh you can still see it today the first horse race was held here at the Rudy on February 9th 1539 to replace the violent games of

Football that that had traditionally taken place here Henry G was mayor of Chester at the time and it was because of his surname that race horses are still known as ggs today the races were held on shove Tuesday until 1609 when the date was moved to St George’s day 23rd of

April racing was interrupted in the 1640s and 1650s by the Civil War and its aftermath but quickly resumed after the restoration of the monarchy 1660 by the 18th century the races held in the first week of May had become one of the most important social events in

Cheshier so the pile of rocks in the grass there by the gentleman going down the steps that is all that remains of the original Seawolf to it from the Roman times when the Romans used this as a harbor apologize for the traffic it’s quite busy here today this original model of Thomas Harrison’s

Design for the Grove and the bridge was restored and re cited here by the Chester Civic trust in 1979 it was built to show the dignitaries how the bridge would work and prove the fact that it was capable of being built not a very good video but that’s the actual bridge that it’s

Modeled on the gr the bridge chest also has its own castle obviously built after the Roman times I videoed this board cuz it lists most of the main attractions in Chester you can pause and zoom in if anything takes your fancy but it’s accompanied by this lovely map to show you where they

Are I think you’d lost the city walls but they actually cross the road or the road crosses through them and this is the walls which flank the river D this building here used to be a hydro electric power station you can see the inlets at the bottom there it’s long

Defunct now not used at all and at this point on the walls we get to the Weir or salmon leap as it’s called and this is where the river becomes non- tidal upstream and tidal Downstream and as you can see because of the rains we’ve had there’s a lot of water flowing

Over that direction is hambridge this is the old D Bridge it’s the oldest bridge in the city and it crosses the river D carrying the road that leads from the bottom of lower Bridge Street and the bridge gate to hambridge the original Bridge was built for the Romans and probably had Stone

Peers to carry carrying timber carriageway in this Direction takes you up into Chester City itself the city center but the pub there bear and Billet is one of the oldest pubs in Chester these steps that I’m stood on are known as record steps and they were built for the convenience of a robber

Cbat and that’s not Rober Cabo bat up the top of there that’s smudge anchoress of course in the courts of England and Wales the term recorder has two distinct meanings the senior Circuit Judge of a bar or city is often awarded the title of honory recorder however recorder is

Also used to denote a person who sits as a part-time Circuit Judge this is the river D or the non-title part and we’re in what we call the Groves and there’s a band stand here where they used to uh have bands playing music in the Victorian

Age and the big boats you can see there this is Chester boats and uh these are you can hire these and take boat trips up the river D and they even get Canal boats on here cuz the wi beam down there he’s actually static because it’s the

Offices of the people that own Chester boats they actually needed an office nearby on the river so they had this wide beam built and that is now their office the bridge across there is an Iron Bridge and it links both halves of Chester and you can walk across it and

If you carry on to the left it takes you to The Meadows which we won’t see from the walls but also to this Roman looking building which is actually Chester’s Museum 31 32 come on you slow one to go those people have probably found out by now that Chester was originally a

Roman Roman Garrison town and uh a few years ago they Unearthed these remains which it turns out to have been a Roman bath the area in the center with the Mosaic would have been the bath itself although what we’re looking at is the base of it the actual water section uh

Would have been higher than that and the heating would have come underneath like this section here going that way AR we Yeah by the 1930s traffic congestion in the area had become particularly bad a wider Gateway was needed so a new wider and taller gate was built and is now known as New Gate just across the road there is Chester’s Amphitheater and you’re only seeing a small portion of it but a Time

Team dig some years ago discovered that it is one of the largest amphitheaters in Europe they’ve never seen anything on the scale of this it was three stories high which is unusual for Roman amphitheaters which makes it quite unique in the UK being so old of course

The Chester walls do suffer for some uh collapses and damage and there is an ongoing program as you can see here to keep the walls and preserve them there’s an awful lot of work to be done so this is a 28 M stretch of the

Wall not that you can see it of course but they’ve put an extra walkway in on scaffolding so that we can carry on our walk Round the walls but there’s lots and lots of repair work going on and planned as you can see by these post posters the King Charles

Tower has got a crack in it needs repairing for instance and all these posters give you indication of what type of work needs to be done and as you can see has been done and what has been done yes it’s quite extensive and now we’re able to rejoin the original walls

And carry on our walk through the town center we’re now nearing the oldest section of the city and the walls and just up ahead is a famous landmark that Chester’s well known for the clocks faces a mechanism worth paid for by Edward Evans Lloyd a local solicitor and

Freeman of the city while the cost of the tower was financed by public subscription and the city Corporation were to pay for its subsequent maintenance the clock mechanism was made in 1897 by JB boyon company of wit Church Shropshire who until 1974 supplied a technician to travel to Chester each

Week to wind it the cast iron inscriptions on the clock were made by Co Brookdale iron company and the iron work for the tower was made by The Firm of James swindley of hambridge James swindley was John Douglas’s cousin the official opening of the clock was performed on 27th of May

1899 Queen Victoria’s 80th birthday so this is the familiar site of Chester seen from the walls this is Chester’s cathedral which Chris looked around or had a look at earlier in the week and here’s the back end of the Bell Tower in February 1969 nine of the 10 bells in the central

Tower of the cathedral were removed to be recast by John Taylor and Co as a ring of 12 Bells with a flat sixth the new Bells were cast in 1973 and work on the new bell tower began in February 1973 the two old bills dating from 16006 and

1626 were left in the tower on the 26th of February 1975 the bells were rung for the first time to celebrate the wedding of a member of the groer family the official opening on the 25th of June 75 was performed by the Duke of gler the burey is known as the

Dean adles Shaw Tower after the dean of the cathedral responsible for its construction the cathedral is a church of England Cathedral and the mother Church of the dasis of Chester and it’s located within the city of Chester the cathedral formerly the abbey church of the Benedictine Monastery

Dedicated to St wber is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary and since 1541 it’s been the seat of the bishop of Chester the cathedral is a grade two listed building and part of a heritage site that also includes the former monastic buildings to the north

Which are also grade one listed the construction dates from between the 10th century and the early 16th century having been modified a number of times throughout history a typical characteristic of English Cathedrals however the site itself may have been used for Christian worship since the Roman times of course being a Saturday the

Walls are extremely busy today with people walking them including of course Christmas smudge and we’re almost back to where we started you might just recognize this Tower it’s the one we see from the canal every time we come into Chester this is King Charles Tower and uh from the perspective of

Walking along the walls and here’s the entrance into the tower the tower was once a medieval Watchtower and it’s rumored that King Charles I witnessed the defeat of his royalist army the Battle of Ral Moore from the tower the Battle of ralon Heath as is also known occurred on the 24th of September

1645 during the English Civil War fought by parliamentarians commanded by sidam points and the royalists under the personal command of King Charles I it was a significant defeat for the royalists with heavy losses and prevented Charles from relieving the siege of Chester the Royal the royalist casualties were high with 600 kills and

900 taken prisoner this defeat prevented Charles from relieving the defenders in Chester we quite often looked up at the walls as we’ve cruised the canal below here on our way down to Chester Basin but this is the Viewpoint from the city walls and you can just see in the

Distance there the bridge of size one up that tree one down and of course young smudge can’t resist a squirrel he’s never caught one yet he’s never been near one yet that doesn’t stop him trying to get to one so we’re now standing on top of

Another road at an archway in the walls but this is known as North Gate so we’re actually standing on top of the gate a lovely view of the Welsh Hills in the backround around in the distance there Captain Morgan spent weeks defending the city from the round heads

From this Cannon Point using this Lookout Point which is now known as Morgan’s Mount Little’s known about him but he defended the city for weeks until a lucky shot from a roundhead cannon destroyed his Cannon mounted here and below is a monument to his Cannon and his defense of the

City they say the marsh of progress can’t be halted and this bridge that we’re stood on now was cut into the wall to allow This Modern dual carriageway or Ring Road to be built through around the city but it cuts the walls clean in half with this new modern concrete

Bridge but at least the Bridge links up both halves of the city walls you can see in the distance over the new Road and then rejoins back onto the existing City walls for many years the city has seen massive expansion and these apartment blocks are outside the walls

And were recently built about 10 years ago this structure originated as a circular Tower straddling the city walls during the reign of Queen Anne it was rebuilt as a semicircular Tower it was constructed in 1894 and it’s now described as a gazebo and it’s said to be named after John

Pton the mayor of Chester who stood on it to supervise the work taking place on his nearby rope walk from this vantage point on the city walls you can see the Railway Bridge that we came under after we left north gate locks which you can just make out the

Handrails through the trees there we come under the Railway Bridge and then we turn under the road bridge there into the Basin that brings us nicely back to where we started at the water tower well thank you very much for joining us on our historical walk around

Chester City wall and you found it interesting before we go we need to say a big thank you to our patreons and our YouTube members and those of you who have bought us coffees we really do appreciate your support so thank you so much everybody well that’s it for now we

Will see you next week on life on board Amy Joe bye