Article for 2012 Dec 08

2012

Appendix

For more information about Chester and its attractions, please consult ChesterWalls.info, VisitChester.com, EnglishHeritage.org.uk, and/or ChesterTourist.com. The first of these is particularly informative.

There is an appendix to this appendix, a table of photographs relating to the eight city gates.

The photos used to illustrate these articles may not have been taken on each day. Clicking on each image should display the Flickr page, on which is the actual date taken.

Dec 08 Sat

During my walks of 2012 Sep 22 and 2012 Nov 17, I not once walked along any stretch, part, or transect of Chester’s citywalls on the western side. So today I went to walk along all the walls (they form an almost-complete circuit, easily walked).

From Bridgegate (on the south side) I walked west, and unwittingly walked off the walls. I continued for a hundred metres, then noticed an impressive parapet-like stone structure on my right. Oh. That’s a wall. Better get on it.

So I got on it, and continued west. The wall decreased in height (as I had thought it would) until it was nonexistent, where Grosvenor Road cuts across the path. Remembering that the camera-angle for a photo I’d taken of some ivy across the entrance to the Overleigh Cemetery was off-kilter, I came off course to re-take that photo. I liked the idea of ivy creeping over the entrance to the spirit-world, thought it was appropriate for the poster advertisement for that play we’ve been working on.

The ivy had been cut away. Probably by another member of the directorial staff at the drama-group, seeking parlance with loose spirits. (Not me.)

I curved around the cemetery, got an equally nice photo of the graveyard through the enclosing hedge, and discovered the lack of steps back onto the Grosvenor Bridge. Fortunately I could walk under the bridge along Sty Lane, and come up the steps on the other side. But not without a trip around the woods there!

Not as enjoyable in the day as in the night.

Back across the Dee, I was back on the walls, with my back to the motorcars of the congested Grosvenor Road. On my left was a lively race-course, possibly to be mentioned on my own lively race-course (“curriculum vitae” in Latin). Or not. On my right was the narrow Nun’s Road; and in front of me? The second gate I visited today, the Watergate, the one I failed to visit in November. The streets are narrow around here, as are the houses, and the boats on the nearby canal...

You may be wondering why the Northgate and the Eastgate are named after their compass positions, but the gates on the south and west walls are called Bridgegate and Watergate. You’re not wondering that? I’ll not tell you then. Oh alright then. In Roman times (and Romans are awesome so their names stay, unlike their bulldozable buildings), the citywalls encompassed a much smaller area than nowadays, with their north gate at the Northgate and their east gate at the Eastgate, but their west gate on the intersection of modern Watergate St and the Inner Ring Road, and their south gate on the intersection of modern Bridge St and the Inner Ring Road. The walls were extended in the medieval ages.

You may also be wondering why the modern roads leading to the four main gates from the Chester Cross (the centre of Chester, streetwise) are Watergate St, Northgate St, Eastgate St, and Bridge (no gate) St. You’re not wondering that? Must be just me then. For I don’t know that answer.

But I do know what’s further along the walls from the Watergate. There’s the Queen’s School (on the right, within the walls and within walls) and the tennis-courts and playing-fields of that school (on the left, without the walls and without walls). There’s Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower (on the walls, beside a sign reading “Water Tower”) and the Water Tower (off the walls, beside a sign reading “Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower”). And there’s the canal (which twists north here, after running alongside the northside of the walls) and the railway (which continues southwest, after running southwest under the Fountains Roundabout and St Martin’s Way).

This north-east corner of Chester is particularly busy. Not with people, not even with cars, particularly, but with things, semi-strange structures. The mix of what’s quaint and what ain’t is incredible. I’ll have to come back and explore at a later day, because this is mysteriously miscellaneous! I’m surprised we aren’t featuring phantoms from this phantasmagoric district in drama-group! The very roofs of the houses twist twistily, in heterogeneous hues of history, magnifying a manifold mystery!

I crossed St Martin’s Gate, the newest of Chester’s gates, built to accommodate the Inner Ring Road in the Sixties.

And I’m back into backstreets again.

I was walking the northern walls, alongside Water Tower Street (which isn’t that close to the Water Tower, at 265 metres distance as the crow flies, or 542 metres distance as the car drives).

On the south side of Water Tower Street is a group of houses called King Charles Court, which isn’t that close to the King Charles Tower (or the Phoenix Tower, as I call it), at 261 metres on foot and 253 metres on crow.

It might be quite nice to hitch a ride on a crow. Would certainly get round Chester faster. Nevertheless, I arrived at the Northgate before sunset, and at the Kaleyard Gate before dusk. Forsooth, I arrived at the Eastgate before nightfall, despite the diversion off the walls due to maintenance. Thus today’s and my photograph of the Eastgate Clock is not of terrible quality. The clock itself is not of terrible quality either, having been designed for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

From that charming icon of Chester, I arrived at the Newgate, which isn’t really new (the name Newgate for it dates from 1533), though it was broadened in the 1960s most recently with the construction of the Inner Ring Road. The gate is also known as the Peppergate, after the street it looks over (Pepper Street), which itself is presumably named after the spices sold on the medieval markets that once enlivened the world there, now replaced by such focal points for the community as Tesco Express and the controversial Grosvenor Shopping Centre.

Now it was twilight. And I continue to whinge.
My photos do not compare to this pretty appealing gate of Chester. Not even such magical creatures as the goose and gander could improve my digital recordings. (I found these two waterfowl on the river Dee - where else? - after coming off the walls, before coming home.)

But still. I had a rather good trip around Chester today. There’ll be another trip, I hope.