Thomas Hughes - The Strangers Handbook to Chester and Its Environs

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Transcribed from the [1856] Thomas Catherall edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE
STRANGERS HANDBOOK
TO CHESTER

AND ITS ENVIRONS;

CONTAINING

A SHORT SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES,

A Descriptive Walk round the Walls,

AND

A VISIT TO THE CATHEDRAL, CASTLE, AND EATON HALL.

BY THOMAS HUGHES.

WITH THIRTY-FOUR NEW ILLUSTRATIONS, BY GEORGE MEASOM.

My guide, philosopher, and friend.

ENTERED AT STATIONERS. HALL.

CHESTER:
THOMAS CATHERALL, BOOKSELLER, EASTGATE ROW.
LONDON: WHITTAKER & CO., AND WARD & LOCK.

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

TO
EDWARD HAWKINS, ESQ., F.R.S. & F.S.A.,

KEEPER OF THE ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

AND A CHESHIRE MAN WITHAL,

THIS NEW

STRANGERS HANDBOOK TO THE CITY OF CHESTER

IS,

WITH A LIVELY SENSE OF HIS UNIFORM KINDNESS AND FRIENDSHIP,

GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Introduction.The City of Chester under the Britons.Chester a Roman Colony.The City a prey to the Danes and Saxons.Ethelfleda the Amazon.Chester under the Normans.The Palatinate Earldom.Royal Visits to Chester.The Plague.The Siege of Chester.

CHAPTER II.

The Railway Station.Chester the Terminus of Six Railways.Flookersbrook.Lead Works.Canal and Bridge.William Penn, the Quaker.Foregate Street, and the old Watling Street.Post-Office, and Old Bank.The East Gate, Roman and Medival.The East Gate of To-day

CHAPTER III.

The Walls of Chester, their Builders, and their History.The Cathedral.The Phnix Tower, and the Walls during the Siege.Beeston Castle.The North Gate.Training College.Morgans Mount, and Pembertons Parlour.The Water Tower.Infirmary, and Gaol.Linen Hall.The Water Gate

CHAPTER IV.

The Walls, continued.The Roodeye.Chester Races.The Castle of the Olden Time, and the Castle of To-day.The Grosvenor Bridge.Csars Tower.Handbridge, and Edgars Cave.Bridge Gate.Dee Mills and Bridge.Causeway.Queens Park, and Wishing Steps.The Newgate and its Traditions.The East Gate

CHAPTER V.

The Streets of Chester.East Gate Street, and Royal Hotel.The Ancient Rows of Chester.An Americans Notion of them.The Architecture of the Rows and Streets.The High Cross.The Pentice, and Conduit.The City Bull-bait.St Peters Church

CHAPTER VI.

Watergate Street.Gods Providence House.Bishop Lloyds House.The Puppet Show Explosion.Trinity Church.Dean Swift and the Yacht.St. Martins and St. Bridgets Churches.The Stanley Palace.Watergate.Port of Chester

CHAPTER VII.

Bridge Street.Ancient Crypt.The Blue Posts and the Knave of Clubs.Roman Bath.Grosvenor Street.New Savings-Bank.The Cemetery.Curzon Park, and Hough Green.The Port of Saltney.St. Michaels Church.St. Olaves Church.The Gamull House.St. Marys Church

CHAPTER VIII.

North Gate Street.Commercial Buildings.The Rows.The Exchange.Music Hall and Old Theatre.Chester Cathedral.St. Oswalds Church.The Cloisters, and Chapter House.Promptuarium.Refectory and Kings School

CHAPTER IX.

Abbey Square, Deanery, and Palace.The Abbey Gates.Chester Market, and Abbots Fair.North Gate, and Old City Gaol.St. Johns Hospital, and Blue School.Newtown, and Christ Church.Railway Tunnel.St. Thomas Chapel.Training-College

CHAPTER X.

Llwyd, the Welsh Antiquary.Chester Fair.Tennis Court and Theatre.The Justing Croft.The Bars.Steam Mills.Ragged School.Boughton, and St. Pauls Church.The Spital, and George Marsh.Roman Altar.John Street, and Mechanics Institution.Roman Catholic Convent.St. Johns Church, and its Ruins.Jacobs Well, and the Anchorites Cell.The Groves, and the Dee

CHAPTER XI.

The River Dee.Chester Rowing Club.The Earls Eye.Villas on Dee Banks.The Water Works.Eccleston.Eaton Lodge, and Iron Bridge.Eaton Hall.The Grosvenor Family.Belgrave Lodge.The Interior of the Hall.Eaton Gardens.Grosvenor Lodge

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.The City of Chester under the Britons.Chester a Roman Colony.The City a prey to the Danes and Saxons.Ethelfleda the Amazon.Chester under the Romans.The Palatinate Earldom.Royal Visits to Chester.The Plague.The Siege of Chester.

Rare old city of Chester ! writes Albert Smith in his Struggles and Adventures of Christopher Tadpole,Rare old city of Chester! Even in these days of rocket-like travelling, a man might fly all over Great Britain and Ireland, with an extra day ticket for Berwick-upon-Tweed, before he saw anything half so fine as the mouldering old walls and towers of that venerable city, or looked upon anything half so fair as the prospect of vale and mountain, wooded headland, and spire-pointed plain, that surrounds it. Well said, friend Albert;echoed, too, far and wide, by the thousands of visitors who are annually led to seek entertainment within its Walls!

Situate on the northern banks of the River Dee, the deified stream of the Ancient Britons,built upon, or, as we ought rather to say, built into the solid rock, for the principal streets within the Walls are almost wholly excavations of several feet in depththe city of Chester stands forth before the world certainly the most curious city in the British Isles, second to none of its fellows in martial strength or historic importance, and as a faithful and enduring relic of the past, peerless and alone!

First a settlement of the Ancient Britonsthen a colony of imperial Romeafterwards a favourite city and frequent resort of the Anglo-Saxon monarchsnow the camp and court of Hugh Lupus the Norman, nephew of the Conquerorthen the key to the subjugation of Wales, and to its union with the English crownever a city of loyalty and renown,no admirer of the curious and remarkable, none who seek after the ancient and honourable, should fail to visit and explore the beauties of rare old Chester. The eye of the stranger, be he Englishman or foreigner, European or American, will here find an ample and luxuriant field for admiration: the man of taste, who may linger within its Walls, will not depart ungratified; nor will the antiquary search here in vain for some rich and profitable treasures of investigation: in short, such is the antiquity, the peculiarity of Chester, that the stranger who can pass through without bestowing on it some little share of attention, must have a dull and incurious eye indeed.

Before we proceed to point out to the visitor the numerous objects of interest within the city, we must conform to the fashion prevalent in such matters, and, tedious though it may seem, preface our description with a condensed sketch of the

HISTORY OF CHESTER,

Some historians there are who, dealing largely in the marvellous, have attributed to Chester an existence almost coeval with the Flood. Sir Thomas Elyot, for instance, writing about 1520, gravely asserts that the name of the city was originally Neomagus, and so called from its founder Magus, the grandson of Japhet, the son of Noah, who first planted inhabitants in these islands! Were this statement authenticated, Chester would hold the dignified position of the oldest city in the universe; but, credulous as we undoubtedly are on some points, we confess to a modicum of infidelity upon this. It may have been, and from its commanding position doubtless was, one of the earliest settlements of the aboriginal inhabitants, Ancient Britons or otherwise; but farther than this, no historian, desiring to be accurate, can safely go.

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