Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chester Visitor Centre, the biggest in Britain, is in a Grade II building with a history of
Chester, including the Rows and a recreated 1850s Victorian street. The Grosvenor Museum
has exhibits from Roman times to the present day, including a Roman graveyard, a period
house, a Victorian schoolroom, Chester silver, Anglo-Saxon coins and natural history. The
Chester Toy & Doll Museum has 5,000 items from 1830 onwards, including the biggest col-
lection of Matchbox toys in Europe. There is a Gothic-style Victorian town hall with its
49m tower containing the Chester Tapestry. The Victorian Eastgate jubilee clock of 1897 is
claimed to be the second-most photographed clock in the world after the Houses of Parlia-
ment.
There are festivals for summer music, jazz, folk, literature, fringe, street processions and
cheese rolling, an international horse show since 2002 and an international church music fest-
ival begun in 2003.
The three Northgate Locks were hewn out of solid sandstone. The Chester to Holyhead
railway passes low over the flight so that boaters look down on to the tracks from above, with
a background of Welsh hills, the Welsh border being less than 2km away at this point. It was
the collapse of Stevenson's nearby wrought-iron-braced, cast-iron railway span over the Dee
in 1847 that hastened the use of straightforward wrought-iron then steel-plate girders. The
Dee is 200m ahead as the canal turns sharply right under a road bridge with some complex
girders supporting a tight corner. The connection, straight ahead originally with two further
locks, goes through a hairpin arrangement that adds 500m to the journey down through three
locks.
In the Middle Ages, Chester was the most important port in northern England, exporting
cheese, candles and salt, but it gradually silted up. Although part of the Roman harbour wall
remains, the Roodee is now part of the site of Chester races, Britain's oldest horse races, run-
ning since 1539. The Water Tower was a port defence structure, built in 1322.
The Old Dee Bridge, built in 1387 by Henry de Snelleston, has had various rebuilds but
was the only bridge across the Dee in Chester until the 19th century. A Gothic-style hydro-
electric power station was added at the northern end in 1913, the first for an English city,
converted to a pumping station in 1951. Thomas Harrison designed the Grosvenor Bridge in
1802 but delays meant it was not opened by Princess Victoria until 1832. At 61m it was the
longest stone-arch bridge in the world. It remains the longest in Britain and the fourth-longest
in the world. Chester weir is Britain's oldest surviving mill dam and is where an Environment
Agency report first recorded that canoes do not disturb fish. Rowers have Chester Regatta,
the world's oldest, which has been running since 1733.
Telford built two magnificent warehouses on the canal; sadly both were burnt down in
recent years by arsonists. The one in Chester has been rebuilt as the Telford's Warehouse
public house and entertainments venue. By the junction is Tower Wharf, filled in during the
1950s but re-excavated in 2000. A development of housing, offices and restaurants has taken
