This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com PANQMM /-/ //// BOO* 4 PANORAMA OF THE CITY OF CHESTER; CONTAINING ITS ©moaoosoTosgj, ^caTo®^ q^d s gP ass® AMcsoiiwnr & \pm®i,wr status A VISIT TO EATON HALL, AND A NOTICE OF THE MARKET TOWNS IN THE COUNTY; INTENDED AS A POCKET DIRECTORY TO THE INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER AND CURIOUS TOURIST : WITH PLATES. BY JOSEPH HEMINGWAY, Late Editor of the Chester Chronicle, And author of the History of Chester in two 8vo. volumes, Panorama of North (Tales, Ifc. CHESTER: PRINTED BY T. GRIFFITH ; SOLD BY B. GROOMBRIDGE, PANYER-ALLEY, PATERNOSTER-ROW ; AND BY ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. 1836. 3>' a? APR 1927 PREFACE. A person visiting a strange town, who has leisure at command, and possesses a taste for cu rious research, may usually gratify his inquisitive- ness at a very small expence, as there are few places whose booksellers do not furnish A Guide to the Traveller, Companion to the Stranger, or some other such small book, by which the cu riosities and attractions of the place are pointed out. At least such will be the practice of the traveller and tourist, whose professed object is to find out every thing worthy of personal observation. If this be true in general, it is peculiarly so of such a place as the City of Chester, which fur nishes subjects to the antiquarian and man of taste, far beyond what can be found perhaps in any other town or city in the empire. Numerous small publications have been issued from the Chester press, the sale of which has been iv. PREFACE. extensive, and the object of which has been to assist the inquiries of the stranger in his researches here. I have no inclination to speak disparagingly of these bagatelles, but would take the liberty to remark, that the object of this publication has been not only to describe the principal attractions of the place, but to subjoin such a condensed history of the city, as may be read with advan tage, when the curiosity of research is fully grati fied ; to render it not only a correct directory to . the stranger, but a useful companion to the resi dent, and especially to the juvenile classes, who may have no other access to the knowledge of events and facts of their native city. Great care and attention have been employed to render the publication as free from inaccuracy as possible ; and to make it, what it is intended to be, a standard work, for the use of those for whom it is designed. April, 1836. PANORAMA OF THE CITY OF CHESTER. ORIGIN, NAMES, AND EARLY HISTORY. THIS city, the metropolis of a county palatine, is plea santly situated on the banks of the Dee, at the extremity of the hundred of Broxton, and adjoining the east end of the peninsula of Wirral ; distant from London, by the nearest route, 182 miles. That the foundation of this city is of remote antiquity, all writers concur in acknowledging ; and it is to this fact that may be ascribed the variety of opinions promulgated as to the precise time of its origin, and its early names. There seems, however, little or no credit due to those legends, which affect to give the city a flourishing exist ence prior to the invasion of the Romans. Its being peopled at all, at that period, can only be inferred from its inviting and commodious situation, and from the natural securities its river and neighbouring hills afforded against the predatory incursions of barbarous hordes with which the country, in those early days, were, more or less, infested. PANORAMA OP THE ORIGIN, NAMES, AND EARLY HISTORY. From the very form of the place, it has been confi dently inferred, by most writers, and amongst others, by the respectable antiquarian Pennant, that Chester was indebted to the Romans for its foundation. The four principal streets. Bridge-street, Northgate-street, Water gate-street, and Eastgate-street, crossing each other at right angles, still retain the form and appearance of a Roman camp. And although of this we have no direct historical evidence, it is well known to have been one of the principal military stations that the Romans had in this island. Its British names of Caer Lleon " The Camp of the Legion," and Caer Lleon Vawr ar Ddyfrdwy, " The Camp of the Great Legion on the Dee," was de rived from the twentieth legion having been chiefly stationed here. By the Romans it was called Castrum Legionis, " The Camp of the Legion ;" Deva and Deunana, from the river ; and afterwards Cestria, from the Latin word Castrum, " A Camp." The Saxons gave it the names of Legancester and Lecacester. After the Romans departed from Britain in the fifth century, this place fell under the government of the British Princes. In their hands it remained until the year 603, when it was wrested from them by Ethelfrid, King of Northumbria. Brochwel Yscythroc, Prince of Powys, made a feeble attempt to oppose him. Relying on the interference of heaven in his behalf, he brought for ward his army, composed only of monks, and other re ligions, from the monastery of Bangor* (which was but a few miles distance) and placed them upon an eminence, i * The place of the massacre of the monks, is not unfre- quently ascribed to Bangor in Caernarvonshire ; whereas it is a small town of that name in Flintshire. CITY OF CHESTER. ORIGIN, NAMES, AND EARLY HISTORY. naked and defenceless. Ethelfrid observed them in the attitude of prayer, and considering them as much his ene mies, in imploring the power of heaven against him, as they would have been had they opposed him in arms, commanded his soldiers immediately to the attack ; in consequence, more than twelve hundred of them were slain. Chester, after this period, seems to have been alter nately possessed by the British, the Saxons, and the Danes ; by the latter, however, it was held but a very short time, being restored to the Saxons by the valiant daughter of Alfred the Great, Elfleda, the wife of Ethelred Duke of Mercia. For this heroic exploit, the worthy lady was thus eulogized by the poets of the day : Elfleda, terror of mankind, Nature, for ever unconfin'd, Stampt thee in woman's tender frame Though worthy of a hero's name. E'en Caesar's conquests were outdone, By thee, illustrious Amazon ! After the Norman conquest, William created his nephew, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and delegated to him the same jurisdiction in this county, that he him self exercised in the rest of the kingdom. By virtue of this grant, the Earls held parliaments at Chester, con sisting of the Barons and tenants ; their acts were as ab solute within their jurisdiction, as those of the English senate in regard of the rest of the kingdom : the Earls also held their court, appointed officers of state, and in every respect had supreme homage paid to them as sole monarehs of the land ; all the landowners in the county PANORAMA OF THE ORIGIN, NAMES, AND EARLY HISTORY. were mediately or immediately their vassals, and under the same allegiance to them as the rest of the nation were to the Kings of England. Hugh Lupus, immediately after receiving the earldom, in order to secure himself from any encroachments, either of Welsh or English, repaired and strengthened the city walls, and erected the castle. In several of the reigns subsequent to the Norman con quest, Chester was made a place of rendezvous for the English troops in all expeditions against the Welsh. In consequence of this, it frequently suffered very consider ably. Camden informs us, that " the skirmishes here between the Welsh and English, in the beginning of the Norman times, were so numerous, the inroads and in cursions, and the firing of the suburbs of Handbridge, beyond the bridge so frequent, that the Welshmen called it Treboeth, that is, " The Burnt Town." From the time of Hugh Lupus, for near two centuries, Chester continued entirely under the jurisdiction of its Earls ; but on the death of the last Earl, John Scott, without male issue, in 1237, Henry III. took the earl dom, with all the powers annexed to it, into his own hands ; and in return granted to the city its first royal charter. The title of Prince, instead of Earl of Chester, was conferred by Henry upon his son, afterwards Edward the first, and it has vested ever since in the reigning monarch's eldest son. It was in this city that the Welsh made their final acknowledgment to the sovereignty of England in the year 1300, to Edward of Caernarvon, Prince of Wales, when the freeholders of the county did homage and fealty for their respective lands. Henry, Duke of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV. in 1399 seized this city and its CITY OF CHESTER. HEALTHY SITUATION CITY WALLS. castle, in his way to Flint against the ill-fated Richard II. and in returning to London, secured him one night in the castle. PLEASING AND HEALTHY SITUATION. The inhabitants of Chester enjoy advantages which scarcely any other place of equal magnitude possesses ; peculiarly favoured by Providence, the situation is as pleasing as the air is salubrious. The late Dr. Haygarth, a gentleman of high professional talents, with whose residence here, the city was long favoured, in his ob servations on the population and diseases of Chester, published in 1774, has shewn, that it was, in a very extraordinary degree, more healthy than most other towns and cities, and that during a period of ten years preceding, the proportion of deaths annually had been only one in forty, and within the walls, exclusively of the suburbs, only one in fifty-eight.