THE FORTRESS

CHAPTER 16

A MODERN CITY WITH A DISAPPEARING PAST

By the start of the 20th Century much of the benefit brought by the industry which had located itself in Saltney was slowly beginning to wane and especially following the closure of the economically important coal oil companies. This recession in trade was only slightly offset by a modest revival in the ship building trades, but as elsewhere in the city this was only in the production of small inshore and coastal crafts. At the Groves on the river, there was a small leisure craft industry, but that was thought to have only survived up until 1906 when it was finally tendered out to other outside builders Canal barges and boats were also thought to have been built at Tower Wharf until around 1913, but the decreased demand for such craft, brought about in part by the new rail and road transport saw an end to the trade altogether by the first few years of the 1900’s.

This new economic realism wasn’t just confined to the likes of the Saltney area, as many other local businesses in the city were known to be falling prey to the modern demands made on industry at the beginning of a new age. Their failure to fully adapt, or to plan properly for future growth found a large number of Chester’s fledgling companies going out of business or having to relocate away from the city altogether. By about 1910, only one brewery was reported to be operating in the city, the rest having been amalgamated into larger chains or having simply found that they couldn’t compete and had chosen to shut their doors forever. The shoe-making industry which had previously engaged a large number of self employed out-workers changed to become a machine based business that didn’t require lots of individual employees. The only shoe factory that had established itself in Chester was said to have been located along City Road, but was never that successful and finally closed its doors in around 1906. The out-workers that had worked within these industries constantly had to adapt quickly and women craft-workers in Chester were said to have been particularly adept at swapping from one trade to another. Traditional crafts were declining as machines slowly replaced the human element in the process and by 1910 a large number of women were thought to have been employed in peripheral industries like Tobacco and Snuff making.

By the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, the city of Chester was generally regarded as no more than a medium sized market town that was located in the north west of England. 300 years earlier it had held the status of a major economic and military centre that was vitally important not only to the north west region, but was of national importance as well. However, its position in both the region and the country had been completely eclipsed by the 2 new industrial northern power-houses of Liverpool and Manchester, both of which had been beneficiaries of the Industrial Revolution and Britain’s increasingly important role in the global marketplace.

In the 100 years or so after 1830 the city of Chester was known to have expanded well beyond its historical limits, so much so, that the outer townships of Newton, Upton and Hoole eventually became part of the greater Chester conurbation. The almost inevitable development and modernization of the city centre for purely retail and tourist activities led to the widespread abandonment of this central core by many of its residents, either by choice or simply because of the cost. That is not to say that the centre of Chester was completely devoid of residents by that time, because quite evidently it was not. Up until the 1940’s and through the early 1950’s certain areas of the city were still full of low cost, high density housing, notably some of the larger former private residences which lay along the eastern side of modern day Nicholas Street. Migrant’s arriving in Chester during the early 1950’s were still generally compelled to accept individual bed-sitting rooms with their communal facilities, within these older tenement buildings. In the areas adjoining Commonhall Street and Crook Street more low cost, poor quality housing was known to have existed and would continue to stand through the late 1950’s when the new council estates of Newton, Hoole and Blacon began to be constructed. These earlier privately owned terraced properties offered extremely basic accommodation to some of the city’s poorest inhabitants and were typically two up, two down buildings that had their mains water supplied by a single stand-pipe which was located outside in the street..

The levels of poverty experienced by these residents ran completely counter to the rather overt prosperity of the business community whose shop premises fronted the worst of Chester’s slum areas. By 1915, well over two dozen of the country’s leading retailers were said to have had stores within the city centre and were added to by a number of the newly emerging banks and building societies that were beginning to spread throughout the country. The annual race meetings held at the Roodee, were becoming an integral part of Chester’s local economy, with tens of thousands of people flocking to the city every year to watch the horses run and to spend their money in the local hotels, restaurants and public houses.

Around the same time, a number of new medium sized business ventures were beginning to establish themselves on the outskirts of the city. Several hundred people were thought to have been employed in the new Market Garden, Nursery and Seed Production industries that had sited themselves around the Upton and Sealand Road areas of the city. The newly established Williams Brothers Windows manufacturing factory was founded in around 1911 and was soon operating in new spacious premises on Liverpool Road in Chester. Their finished products were later supplied throughout the country and the firm remained a major employer in the city through to the 1960’s. It was only later, that changes in production methods, materials and fashions generally, brought about a decline in the company’s fortunes and which resulted in the closure of the plant in the 1990’s.

The growing rail and road networks, allied to the new developments in motorized transport and the founding of local and regional coach companies helped to expand Chester’s outlying housing estates and suburban communities. In the early years of the 20th Century regular bus services were being run to Ellesmere Port and Birkenhead and the towns and villages that ran along the route. These services however, were a double-edged sword simply because they allowed business to flow both ways and retail centers like Chester could now often lose trade to the likes of the competing Ellesmere Port and Wrexham markets.

For those people that worked in the city’s many shops and stores, the need to live close to their jobs was finally removed by the arrival of these new regular transport links. The new “professional” classes that worked in the centre of Chester could now buy or rent homes in the outlying areas, confident that they could easily commute to the city every day. As a result new middle-class suburbs began to grow up on the fringes of the city and well beyond the areas that were now filled with rows and rows of low cost terraced workers housing. The main routes in and out of the city, along Hoole Road, Liverpool Road, Saughall Road and Wrexham Road slowly but surely began to be filled with these new elegant and expensive properties and further extended the boundaries of the city limits.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 through to its conclusion 4 years later, were difficult times for the city, as they were for the rest of the country generally. The conflict not surprisingly, caused a dramatic reduction in Chester’s tourism industry and the absence of many of the city’s young men as they left to undertake their military service with the Army, Navy and the emerging Air Force. The negative effects on the city’s economy caused by the conflict were marginally offset however, by the influx of military and irregular forces, as Chester once again resumed its place as an administrative and logistical centre for the country’s armed forces. The Roodee was once again extensively used throughout the period as a storage, exercise and parade area for many of the units that were garrisoned in the city, a role that it would fulfill again in the later World War II. Chester’s long association with a permanent military garrison was known to have stretched back nearly 2000 years to the Roman’s first legionary fortress and was only finally ended in the late 20th Century, following the restructuring and amalgamation of a number of British infantry units by successive national governments.

It has been suggested that many of the buildings and much of the land that ultimately became military sites in and around Chester were those that had first belonged to the religious orders of the city and had reverted to the Crown, following the dissolution of those houses in the middle of the 16th Century. Western Command, the administrative and logistical army headquarters was known to have been primarily based in the Upton area of Chester, much of which had been owned by St Werburgh’s Abbey in medieval times. The later Saigton army camp which was constructed at the beginning of the 1940’s to the east of Chester was also said to be located on part of the former Abbey’s thousand acres of parkland, which the monks had first created in the 11th Century. The city’s long and extensive association with the military is still recognized today at the Castle complex, with the St Mary de Castro Chapel being dedicated to the Cheshire Regiment. The history of the regiment is also displayed in a museum located at the castle, which is housed within the Inner Bailey.

In 1938 the present Newgate was constructed to replace the ancient Wolfe Gate, which still stands adjacent to its later replacement. Built to the design of Sir Walter Tapper and finished after his death under the control of his son Michael, the Newgate is said to be built of concrete and faced with Runcorn stone. This later gate was built to span the newly widened roadway, which had once run through the medieval Wolfe Gate and which was itself known to have existed well before the reign of Edward VI in 1547. It has been speculated that the original Wolfe Gate can trace its own foundation to the time of the Saxon king Wulfhere who ruled the kingdom of Mercia in the 7th Century.

The city’s economic fortunes during the Second World War generally mirrored those of the first, with Chester used primarily as a logistical and administrative centre by the armed forces. The new military bases at Saigton, Blacon and at the Dale and the thousands of recruits that passed through them over the period were an additional boost for the local economy and the numerous shopkeepers and pub landlords that came to rely on their trade. Even after hostilities had ended in 1945, Chester still benefited from the presence of the local garrison at Saigton and that would continue through to the 1980’s when the country’s armed forces were restructured in the light of new technologies and the prevailing political climate. The Blacon camp is thought to have finally disappeared in the early 1950’s, elements of the Dale camp in Upton were sold off in the 1990’s and the Saigton camp currently stands idle and empty, but is thought to have been sold off to a property developer in order to construct even more private housing.

The late 1940’s and the 50’s saw the whole country in recovery mode following the five years of war that was thought to have reduced Britain to an international hardship case. Mercifully, the city had escaped air attacks which might easily have destroyed the historic heart of Chester and the utter destruction wrought on the likes of Coventry and Dresden must have made local people realize just how lucky the city had been. At the latter end of the 1950’s the country was slowly beginning to recover from rationing and the enforced shortages that everyone had endured. As civic confidence and finances improved, Chester began what now could be regarded as the very best and worst of the city’s modern development. The construction of new civic housing in Blacon and Newton which finally did away with much of the city’s slum housing was a great stride forward or those that had been forced to live in such squalid accommodations and for Chester’s reputation generally. These massive projects, which saw the building of thousands of good quality council houses and the creation of new suburban communities continued throughout the period, brought new work and opportunities for both local businesses and for the city’s resident workforce.

Developments within the heart of Chester itself were less socially conscious however and seem to have been driven more by architectural fashion and the economic needs of a small number of local investors and land-owners that were determined to modernize, regardless of any archaeological consideration or local objections. The Chester ring road system, built during the 1960’s and 70’s led to the total destruction of Egerton House in Northgate Street and caused the city’s ancient walls to be breached between Morgan’s Mount and Pemberton’s Parlor on the north western flank of Chester. This unwarranted gap was created to carry the new ring roads two carriageways from the end of Northgate Street southward to Chester’s castle complex and in the process brought about the destruction of many buildings which lay on the east side of both Princess Street and Nicholas Street. Although much of this area contained housing and buildings that were generally in poor condition, the great track of concrete, tarmac and traffic signals were a poor substitute for the streets and buildings that had previously stood there. At its most southerly junction with the castle, the new ring road was then detoured around a traffic roundabout, which had been the site of the city’s relocated St Bridget’s church and which was once again demolished for the sake of modernization. The new road then either led out of Chester over the Grosvenor Bridge or went back through the city via Grosvenor Street, which then carried the traffic across the city to its eastern limits.

Just past the point which is marked today by Chester’s Heritage Centre, stands the Grosvenor Shopping Precinct the grim concrete monolith which is typical of the function over form style of architecture that was a predominant feature of the construction industry during the 1960’s. Under construction around the same time as the city’s inner ring road project, the building of the Grosvenor Precinct is known to be responsible for causing an even greater amount of archaeological damage to the city’s historic fabric. The ruins of the former fortress’s ancient legionary bath houses were thought to have resisted all efforts to remove them for nearly 2000 years and represented one of the greatest archaeological treasures from the Roman occupation of Chester. That particular fact didn’t appear to impress the building contractors however, with little time allowed for historians to fully investigate the site and its numerous antiquities, these ancient artifacts were simply bulldozed into oblivion and lost forever. What appeared to make this act of civic vandalism even worse was the apparent indifference of a majority of the city’s residents, who simply allowed their irreplaceable heritage to be carried away on the back of a truck, never to be seen again.

Such apparent public and civic indifference to the vitally historic nature of the city seems to have been fairly typical of the period and is perhaps indicative of a much wider malaise that was affecting both Chester and its citizens. Personal memories and published accounts from the period, all recollect the elevated shopping rows, the walls and many other areas of the city being in a state of some disrepair, or just being generally uncared for. It appears that the preservation of our country’s historic architecture was not a major priority for most local authorities during the early part of the 20^th Century and it was only in later years that national statutes were enacted to fully protect our earlier heritage.

Had the inner ring road continued along its planned route, then a second equally important Roman treasure would have been lost forever, perhaps buried beneath tons of hardcore and tarmac, or simply torn out of the ground and disposed of as rubble. The amphitheatre at Chester had been known about for decades, so when it was proposed that the new road should just simply run across such a vitally historic site, there was uproar throughout the country. Fortunately for the people of Chester, the local authorities were finally persuaded by the clamor for the site to be protected and the new ring-road was eventually diverted around this ancient monument. Even today, the very presence of this historically valuable asset continues to vex and agitate the minds of those that are supposed to be responsible for the preservation of our city’s heritage. Currently, the local authorities are seeking suggestions as to how this archaeological treasure might be best managed, having already discounted the options of covering it over again, or fully excavating the amphitheatre at the expense of the much later Dee House, which is itself a listed building.

Once again, at another pivotal moment in its history, Chester’s archaeological past was ill served by a series of short-sighted and badly conceived ideas that seem to cause more problems than they actually solved. The ill-fitting and unsightly buildings which have been regularly constructed in the city during the second half of the 20^th Century are generally poor replacements for those that they took the place of. Not only that, but their very construction has also led to the city centre being inundated with increasing levels of both pedestrians and motor vehicles, that it was never designed for in the first place, or was ever likely to cope with in the future.

The former Police Headquarters building which until recently stood outside the Chester Castle complex replaced the much earlier Militia Building which had stood since the middle of the 19^th Century. At the Town Hall, the modern Forum shopping centre, replaced the much older and much more atmospheric Market Hall, which had once housed the city’s traders and merchants stalls. The construction of the sprawling Grosvenor Shopping Precinct and its associated underground parking systems, caused the wholesale destruction of some of the city’s greatest Roman treasures, which were lost forever in the rush to develop Chester’s retail economy.

Aside from the increased revenues that these new shopping malls brought to their owners, they also attracted an increasing number of people from the wider region. Visitors flocked to these new cathedrals of consumerism from as far away as North Wales, Mid Wales and from all over the northwest region. During the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s Chester’s main shopping streets were often packed to bursting and the roads which ran in and out of the city were typically jammed solid with car traffic.

Escalating business rates and the lack of space for new developments within Chester centre has led to the growth of new out-of-town retail parks. The city’s former football ground and greyhound racing stadium, both of which were located in the Sealand area were subsequently demolished to make way for the new Greyhound Retail Park. All of this land had originally been recovered from the sea following the canalization of the River Dee in the middle of the 18^th century and the building of new retail parks, at Sealand, Broughton and Boughton which are all outside of the city centre have helped to reduce the numbers of cars and pedestrians coming into the middle of Chester to visit the High Street.

Despite this, the city’s inner ring road continues to suffer from terminal traffic gridlock on a regular basis and Chester’s buildings, both old and new, continue to be subjected to the high levels of pollutants emitted by increasing levels of modern road traffic. There are a number of reasons for this continued situation, including the ongoing urbanization of the wider area in general and the seemingly limitless construction of both office space and residential buildings close to and within the city centre.

This “modernization” of Chester is not a recent phenomenon, but has been steadily going on since the late 1960’s. As with many other towns and cities in England, the growth of the service sector and tourism industry in and around Chester was matched by a developing retail trade catering entirely for the needs of the consumer. Public transport systems have grown up to carry customers to these new retail stores, specifically local bus services that constantly ferry passengers in and out of the city centre and wreaking untold environmental damage to the ancient fabric of its historic buildings.

Up until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the market square area of Chester acted as a bus terminus for services operating in and out of the city. Hundreds of bus journeys were made every day, carrying people to and from the newly built housing estates in Blacon, Newton, Hoole and Saltney. Lines of uniform bus shelters ran from one end of the market square to the other, each one filled with scores of shoppers, schoolchildren and shop workers making their way out of the city center. It was only when the old Victorian Market Hall was replaced by the new Forum shopping centre in the late 60’s and early 70’s that these bus shelters were finally removed from public view and only then to a site at the rear of the Town Hall, which only served to shift the problem and not actually solve it.

Chester’s inherent traffic problems have their roots in the city’s actual geographical location, its lack of a third bridge across the River Dee and the ever increasing levels of road transport. Despite the construction of two separate road systems, which were built to specifically address these particular issues, the problem of traffic congestion in and around the city remains with us to this very day. Given the city’s previous history as both a military base and a logistical centre, Chester was always regarded as and treated as the gateway to North Wales. Prior to the canalization of the River Dee and the reclamation of lands along Sealand Road, the only bridge crossing was the Old Dee Bridge, which had existed in one form or another since Roman times. This single link between England and Wales was then finally added to by the later Grosvenor Bridge, which was officially opened by the then Princess Victoria in 1833. Neither of these structures however had been designed or built to handle the volume of modern-day traffic that uses them and as a result both are both completely unsuitable and highly inefficient.

Historically, Chester lies at the centre of two significant trading routes, from the north of England through to the whole of Wales which lay southward and from the eastern counties of England through to the North Wales coastline which lies to the west. Before the widespread use of motorized transport the majority of road traffic going in and out of the city consisted of horse-drawn carriages, carts and electric trams, which carried people rather than freight. The commercial transport of goods, livestock and fuels was largely undertaken by the new canal and railway systems which ran throughout the region and helped to minimize the environmental cost to the city’s historic fabric.

As the 20^th Century progressed however, these transport links began to decline and were themselves replaced by the predecessors of our modern day motor vehicles. Cars, buses and lorries began to carry people and freight to the growing number of businesses in and around the immediate area as well as shipping goods from one part of the country to another. Acting as a regional traffic hub for vehicles crossing from one part of the country to another, Chester and its historic bridges were slowly but surely inundated by these new road transports and subjected to the kinds of loads and speeds never imagined by their builders.

The construction of the outer ring road system on the outskirts of Chester during the 1960’s helped to alleviate many of these problems initially, by redirecting much of the Wales-bound traffic away from the city centre. The A55 helps to link businesses in both the north and east of the country with those in Wales, without their transports having to navigate and possibly damage the historic streets of Chester.

The inner ring road system, which was built around the same time and designed to circumnavigate the centre of Chester has proved to be less successful. In the 40 years or so, since it was first built, the growth in personal car ownership has risen dramatically and has been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the numbers of larger commercial vehicles, which deliver the products and goods to our modern shops and stores. In recent years these numbers have been added to by a growing level of residential traffic, caused by the increasing numbers of high volume hotels and residential accommodation that have sited themselves in and around the city centre.

The annual horserace meetings which take place in Chester several times a year simply add to these traffic problems, with hundreds of luxury coaches, horse transports and cars adding their presence to the already crowded roads. At such times, it is not uncommon for the city’s inner ring-road system to be brought to a complete standstill because of the sheer volume of vehicles that are trying to access the city’s streets at the same time.

Chester’s plight is not untypical; when you consider that we now live in a highly mobile society, where the motor car is an intrinsic part of most peoples’ daily lives. This modern lifestyle is often at complete odds with both the layout and purpose of our historic towns and cities, which were originally constructed to service a smaller and much more rural population. In rare instances, the growth of such places is carefully managed and an equal balance is struck between modernization and preservation. This allows for the appreciation and protection of our archaeological heritage, without the need to deprive residents of the modern conveniences that enhance their lives.

Sadly for Chester, this doesn’t appear to have been the approach that has been taken by successive generations of local councilors, who have been charged with its administration and the protection of its archaeological treasures. Instead, a rabid unwillingness to commit ideas, imagination and perhaps more importantly, public money, seems to have been the main characteristic of their individual tenures. Where projects were undertaken, it was only the ready availability of funds from central government that has seen them brought to fruition.

For the visitor to Chester, the city must appear to be a real amalgam of ideas, styles and periods of time. The world famous Eastgate clock and the elevated shopping rows are two of the most immediate and unique features of this historic city, which only good fortune and physical location have helped to promote and preserve. The city’s ancient Cathedral, which can find its origins in Saxon times, only survives today because of the churches land ownership and their prevention of widespread development of its religious precincts. The only exception to modernity in the cathedrals precincts is the Bell Tower which lies in the south east corner of the site, close to the Cheshire Regiment Memorial Gardens. Built in 1974 to the design of George Pace and faced with Bethesda Slate, the tower represented the first free standing Bell Tower built for a cathedral since the 15^th Century. Its bells are said to be named after a number of saints that have all been venerated in Chester.

On the western side of Chester’s market square, only the city’s gothic Town Hall provides any real evidence of its true historic past. The remaining buildings, the Forum shopping centre and the public library both of which make up a large part of this western flank are of modern construction and appear to be at odds with their earlier civic counterpart. The Art Deco cinema, The Odeon, which is located at the north end of the square also seems out of place and is itself currently under threat of being replaced by a modern nightclub.

At the rear of the Town Hall is where much of the modern ugliness of Chester can be found. The city’s main bus station and taxi ranks are sited here, along with the bulk of the new market hall, its underground parking system and the derelict St Martin’s Health Centre, all of which are an eyesore on the very fabric of an ancient township like Chester. There are plans for the large-scale redevelopment of this northwest section of the city, which it is hoped will be far more suitable for and sympathetic to the historic nature of the city, but only time alone, will tell.

In recent years the city council has sought to reduce the number of vehicles entering the city’s main streets, by introducing widespread traffic restrictions and pedestrian only areas. Both of these measures have helped to reduce the environmental damage caused to the city centre in earlier years and to make Chester a much more pleasant place to be.

The great shame for Chester is that the city is continually sold on the basis of its long and colorful history, beginning with its legionary builders, through to the present day. Sadly, in today’s modern city we would be hard-pressed to clearly identify what and where this heritage is within Chester, given the level of modern developments that have subsequently surrounded them. Nowadays we even have the situation, where the city’s historic walls are at risk once again, simply because local government cannot seem to prioritize or clearly identify which of Chester’s few remaining artifacts should be preserved for posterity, if indeed any of them should be or will be. 

Much of what Chester was in the past remains hidden beneath its much later buildings, or has been lost forever through accidental or deliberate destruction. Given the history of the past 40 years or so, it is questionable whether or not the next 4 decades are likely to be any better for the city’s so far extensive and turbulent existence.

(Back to Chapter One)

 

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